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Showing posts with label inmate profile. Show all posts
Showing posts with label inmate profile. Show all posts

inmate re-profile: Director Christopher Olen Ray

So, with only three weeks before the DVD release of 2 Headed Shark Attack, I thought it time we start shining the Committed spotlight on the creative personnel involved, starting with the man in the director's chair of this impending classic, one Christopher Olen Ray.

That's Mr. Ray on the left there.
Ray has directed twice before for the Asylum - last year's Mega Shark Vs. Crocosaurus with Jaleel White and this year's Almighty Thor with Richard Grieco - as well as twice before that: in 2008 he directed Reptisaurus, a made-for-TV movie starring Gil Gerard, and a series called "Road to Rhythm." 

I've made mention here before of Mr. Ray's cinematic pedigree - his father is noted exploitation director Fred Olen Ray, who in more than thirty years of filmmaking has unleashed nearly one hundred titles, among them Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, Evil Toons and Scalps. Ray honed his skills spending years as an assistant director, PA and coordinator on more than a dozen of his father's films, so you know he received a lot of firsthand, on-set training from a master of the field. In fact, C-Ray's still works as a first assistant director on occasion, most recently on two other Asylum films - A Haunting in Salem and Zombie Apocalypse - and also on an upcoming C. Thomas Howell film I've made mention of before, Camel Spiders.

Christopher Ray, therefore, is no stranger to the creature-feature game - as MSvC clearly and deftly proved - he is weathered, learned, and more than capable of delivering to us, the ever-expectant masses, simply one of the Greatest Shark Films of all time (please please please).

Decades from now when they mention the best B-Movies of the early 21st Century, I have every faith 2 Headed Shark Attack will be on the tip of every tongue, as well as the name of its director, Christopher Olen Ray. Watch the magic unfurl before your very eyes when the greatest story ever told hits DVD January 31st, 2012, only a few short weeks from now...

Inmate Profile Catch-Up

I know not all of my readers have been with me since the beginning, and I also know I'm a lousy tagger. The combination of these things means that there are a lost of posts that perhaps you haven't seen. That being the case, every now and again I like to post a megapost, if you will, that can catch you up with all the posts under a certain heading. This week's heading: inmate profiles; below, please find a complete listing of every published profile to date. Enjoy!








inmate profile: Jaz Martin

Another spotlight on a cast member of the upcoming Asylum release 200MPH, and this time the lead, Englander Jaz Martin. 

A lifelong entertainer, Martin studied drama at Britain's University of Sunderland before making the interesting career shift into owning a wall and floor tiling business. But that acting bug, it's kind of like a chigger: once it gets at you, it gets under your skin and becomes really, really difficult to get rid of; but you know, in a good way. 

So he chucked - or rather, sold - the business and made perhaps the boldest, bravest, most brazen idea of his life: to move to L.A. and try and land an acting career. 

And daggum it if he hasn't gone and done just that.

After only a couple of years kicking around Tinseltown, 2011 is shaping up to be the year of Jaz Martin's big break. Besides the lead in 200MPH, he also scored the lead in Breathe, a short, as well as a role in the ensemble thriller The Shattering, slated for release later this year. 

So between Mr. Martin here and Ms. Demara recently-profiled, 200MPH stands to be the big break for at least two talented newcomers. Here's hoping when April 26th rolls around and 200MPH is in our collective DVD players, they bring the thunder. If the trailer's any indication, they're gonna.

One more time, 200MPH arrives on DVD Tuesday, April 26th. Cue up your copy now! Check back here Monday for my notes.

inmate profile: AnnaMaria Demara

As the release date for the next Asylum film, 200MPH, is fast approaching us (no pun intended), I thought it time for the next smattering of inmate profiles, all aimed at the creative talent behind this street-racing epic. First up, quite possibly the hottest thing Canada has ever produced, AnnaMaria Demara:



Hailing from the fine and lovely metropolis of Toronto, AnnaMaria by the grace of god and fate made her way to sunny California where the entertainment industry - having eyes and ears with which to sense greatness - has begun to warmly embrace her. After working for a few years for TV shows like "Jimmy Kimmel Live," "Deal or No Deal," "Nip/Tuck" and "Days of Our Lives," AnnaMaria has finally broken into films, and has several lead roles coming up in the course of the next year, including See How They Run with John Savage (Deer Hunter) and Havana Heat with Peta Wilson ("La Femme Nikita").

Ms. Demara in 200MPH

But the film we're here to talk about is 200MPH; in it AnnaMaria plays Claudia, the smokin'-hot love interest, I'm supposing, of the street-racing, heart-of-gold-bad-boy portrayed by Jaz Martin. I don't like to make crazy predictions (actually I do), but I'm having a "we-knew-her-when" moment here; given Ms. Demara's knock-em-dead, younger-Eva-Longoria looks, if she can act as well as she can pose, she's golden. And from what I've seen of her reel, she can act like crazy. Small surprise here, as The Asylum is typically right on when it comes to casting strong, sexy, smart female leads (Kim Little, Sarah Lieving, Erica Roby, Eliza Swenson, Kristen Quintrall etc. etc. etc.). 

Find out for sure Tuesday, April 26th, when 200MPH hits DVD, and here's hoping this is only the first of several films Ms. Demara will bestow upon we faithfully committed.


A list of where you can find Ms. Demara online:


website
vimeo (including 200MPH teaser and reels)
twitter

inmate RE-profile: Mark Atkins

In honor of the impending SyFy Premiere of the latest Asylum production, Battle of Los Angeles, Saturday, March 12th at 9pm, I thought I'd update and re-post the inmate profile I did on the versatile Mark Atkins, BoLA's writer/director/cinematographer.



You'd be hard-pressed to find a harder working dude in The Asylum's stable than Mark Atkins. Director, editor, writer and cinematographer, Atkins has had a hand in a plethora of Asylum productions. Check out these stats:

  • cinematographer of 23 films (too numerous to list here, but check out his IMDB for deets)
  • director of 8 (Halloween Night, Allan Quatermain..., Merlin and the War of Dragons, Dragonquest, Haunting of Winchester House, Princess of Mars and BoLA)
  • editor of 7
  • writer of 3 (Haunting of Winchester House, Princess of Mars, BoLA)
  • visual effects for 3
  • second unit director for 2

A graduate of the University of Central Florida, Atkins' first film, Night Orchid, won the Best First Feature Film award at the New Orleans Film Festival in 1997. Since then he has worked - as far as films are concerned - almost exclusively with The Asylum, which makes him not only an Original Inmate, but a true American hero. However, recently he has plied his many talents away from Asylum walls, though not devoid of Asylum faces: he worked as a cinematographer on Anthony Fankhauser's upcoming Shadow People and he's directed a film I'm stoked to see just based on the title, Sand Sharks, let alone the talent he's amassed for the film: Corin Nemic, Vanessa Lee Evigan (Journey to the Center of the Earth), and Brooke Hogan, among others. 

Seems you just can't keep Mark Atkins still.

If you still remember how to use MySpace, check him out here. Or if that's too antiquated for you, hit up his production website for more info on this champion behind the scenes.

And don't forget to check out his latest effort, Battle of Los Angeles, starring Kel Mitchell and Nia Peeples, Saturday, March 12th at 9pm.

Mark Atkins, consider yourself saluted. Again.

inmate profile: Anneliese Michel

This one's gonna be a little weird, for a couple of reasons: one, Anneliese Michel is not a willing member of The Asylum. In fact, she isn't a willing member of anything, because she is deceased, and has been for thirty-five years. Secondly, she wasn't an actress, or a writer, or director, or in any way associated with the film industry. She was simply a German teenager in the 1970's who somehow became demonically possessed. In celebration of The Asylum's latest release, Anneliese: The Exorcism Tapes, available on DVD one week from today(!!!), I thought we'd take a closer look into the unfortunate life of a girl at the heart of the 20th Century's most shocking and notorious case of demonic possession.

Anneliese Michel was born to German Catholics in the fall of 1952. A religiously devout child, as a teenager Anneliese began to experience convulsions that evolved into what were believed to be epileptic fits in her seventeenth year. And this is where shit starts getting creepy, because the fits weren't the only abnormal experiences befalling young miss Michel. She began hallucinating during prayers, hearing voices hissing of her damnation, eating insects, sampling her own urine, that sort of crazy shit. Whatever people thought was wrong with Anneliese, it wasn't until she was 23 that the idea she might be demonically possessed was introduced to the canon of thought. It was all downhill from there.

Over the next ten months, Anneliese would suffer through no less than sixty-seven exorcisms, each lasting hours at a time. She died in her sleep, six weeks shy of her 35th birthday, from what officials declared was extensive malnutrition and dehydration. At the time of her death, Anneliese Michel weighed 68 pounds, and still claimed to be plagued by demons. 

Following Anneliese's death, both her parents and the two priests involved were charged with negligent homicide. Tapes of the exorcisms were shown during the case. In the end, the priests were fined; Anneliese's parents were not sentenced. 

It's the abovementioned tapes that The Asylum purports to have - though they've freely admitted they can't be certain the girl in their tapes is actually Anneliese Michel - and it is based on these that they, in association with Actor/Producer/Looney-Award-Winner Jude Prest, have built into a film documenting her ordeal. This will mark the fourth time Anneliese's story has been told in some fashion over the last decade: she is the basis for The Exorcism of Emily Rose starring Jennifer Carpenter and Laura Linney, the German film Requiem from 2008, The Asylum's own Emily Rose tie-in Possession: The Exorcism of Gail Bowers, and now Anneliese: The Exorcism Tapes.

Whether this latest incarnation is actual footage or devilishly intelligent marketing by The Asylum for another found-footage fauxcumentary, I don't really think it matters. This is a fascinating story, a fascinating character, and real or dramatized, my bet is it's gonna scare the shit out me either way. 

inmate profile: Erica Roby

Though her acting career only lasted two brief years, 2006 and 2007, Erica Roby left an indelible impression on Asylum fans. All eight films Ms. Roby made were with the Asylum, making her, percentage-wise, the company's most faithful, non-founding employee. From her titular debut in Exorcism: the Possession of Gail Bowers up until her final on-screen appearance in Invasion of the Pod People, Ms. Roby was poised to become a 21st Century scream queen of the highest order - the sort that not only has no problem with nudity, but nor with contrived lesbian scenes* - before bowing out of the limelight and stepping behind the cameras. 

Since leaving The Asylum in 2007, Ms. Roby has worked as a story editor on episodes of "Denise Richards: It's Complicated," and "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew," and most notably as an associate producer on the last season of "The Amazing Race." 

So, unfortunately for her fans, it seems as though things in Ms. Roby's non-acting, professional life are going just fine, making it a likely foregone conclusion that she shan't be returning to the direct-to-DVD market anytime soon. To assuage yourselves, take a look a Ms. Roby's most-impressive and completely-Asylum filmography:

Exorcism: The Possession of Gail Bowers...Gail Bowers
Hillside Cannibals...Rhian
Dracula's Curse...Christina Lockheart
The 9/11 Commission Report...Melinda
Halloween Night...Angela
The Hitchhiker...Lindsey
The Apocalypse...Laura
Invasion of the Pod People...Melissa


And who knows? Perhaps if we her fans get riled up enough, start one of them Facebook petitions the kids are so fond of these days, we might be able to finagle a cameo at least in 2012: Ice Age. Stranger things have been forced to happen because of the internet.

* two films - not one but two - contain said scenes. for real. have fun discovering which ones!

inmate profile: Eric Forsberg

Writer/Director Eric Forsberg has been a major productive force over at The Asylum for the last few years, with a seemingly-inexhaustible creativity that indicates he'll be churning out the hits for a while to come.

A native of Chicago, Forsberg started his writing and directing in the theater world, specifically in comedy, where one of his early successes was a noir-homage called Knatt Scatt Private Eye, starring a certain actor named Steve Carrell. This was in 1985. He also worked as an improv instructor for the famed Second City, teaching future notables such as - I shit you not - Stephen Colbert, Tim Meadows, Amy Sedaris and Rachel Dratch. So the guy knows talent, raw and honed. He's been in Hollywood going on 15 years and has carved a very comfortable - and well-deserved - spot at the big-kids table, Asylum-wise. Check his resume:

Writer or co-writer on:
Alien Abduction, Monster, Snakes on a Train, 30,000 Leagues Under the Sea, War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave, Sex Pot and Mega Piranha.

Director of:
Alien Abduction, Sex Pot and Mega Piranha

Quickly becoming our next auteur, this inmate has a feeling Forsberg's on the verge of dropping a bomb on us, and not the bad kind, like, "wow, that movie bombed," but like, big explosions and cool fire and shit like that, you know, the "bomb." Lingo isn't a strong suit of mine. My point being, give this guy a treatment with vs. in the title, and I got a feeling the bar's going to be blown through the roof. Bar, as in a thing that's raised, not a place one drinks. Jeez.

Eric Forsberg, consider yourself saluted.

inmate profile: Sarah Lieving

It doesn't get any more veteran than Sarah Lieving: in five years she's made twelve (if you count the upcoming Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus, which I totally do) films with The Asylum, including the first seven of her career. Known for her hottie-next-door looks and her strong, playfully brash persona, Ms. Lieving is a palpable threat to steal every single scene she's in, and her ability to blend into a smaller role or triumphantly take the lead is unparalleled among her peers, making her a natural fit in any script sent her way.

Bottom line, Sarah Lieving is the quintessential Asylum actress, our poster girl, our scream-queen with smarts, the Jamie Lee Curtis, the Barbara Steele of her era. Peruse if you will a complete list of her work with the Asylum (because it's so damn impressive):


War of the Worlds
(2005)...Nancy
Frankenstein Reborn (2005)...Jessica Halverson
The Beast of Bray Road (2005)...Kelly
King of the Lost World (2005)...Rita Summerlee
Dracula's Curse (2006)...Alex Deveraux
666: The Child (2006)...Erika Lawson
The 9/11 Commission Report (2006)...Valerie
The Hitchhiker (2007)...Melinda
The Apocalypse (2007)...Janis
Invasion of the Pod People (2007)...Louise
Airline Disaster (2010)...Annette Franklin(uncredited)
Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus (2010)...Agent Hutchinson

Sarah's other notable upcoming projects include playing the Wicked Witch of the East in The Witches of Oz 3D, directed by Asylum alum Leigh Scott, and Super Shark, directed by Fred Olen Ray, father of MSvC director Christopher Ray.

Sarah Lieving, consider yourself saluted.

inmate profile: Mark Atkins


You'd be hard-pressed to find a harder working dude in The Asylum's stable (that isn't David Michael Latt) than Mark Atkins. Director, editor, writer and cinematographer, Atkins has had a hand in a plethora of Asylum releases. Check out these stats:

  • cinematographer of 20 films
  • editor of 6
  • director of 7
  • writer of 2
  • visual effects for 3
  • second unit director for 2
A graduate of the University of Central Florida, Atkins first film, Night Orchid, won the Best First Feature Film award at the New Orleans Film Festival in 1997. Since then he has worked - as far as films are concerned - almost exclusively with The Asylum, which makes him not only an Original Inmate, but a true American hero. If you still remember how to use MySpace, check him out here. Or if that's too antiquated for you, hit up his production website for more info on this champion behind the scenes.

Mark Atkins, consider yourself saluted.

inmate profile: C. Thomas Howell

One of the most recognizable stars in The Asylum's galaxy is C. Thomas Howell, who rose to fame in the early 1980's thanks to pivotal roles in films such as The Outsiders, E.T. and Red Dawn. And who could possibly forget his star-making turn in the delightfully racist Soul Man? Truthfully, that's where the rise leveled off, but C. Thomas kept plowing ahead, putting close to 100 movies under his belt over the last two decades, all over the spectrum: big-budget Hollywood pics, TV movies, and direct-to-video horror, drama, action, sci-fi and adventure flicks.

Then he entered The Asylum.

In five years C. Thomas has made five films with The Asylum - War of the Worlds, The Da Vinci Treasure, War of the Worlds 2, The Day the Earth Stopped and The Land That Time Forgot - the last three of which he directed. That's right! C. Thomas is not only acting for The Asylum, he's directing! Very capably, I might add.

Though there's nothing lined up in the immediate future between C. Thomas and The Asylum, the big man's keeping himself plenty busy, as usual, with six films in various stages of production at the moment, the most interesting of which seems to be Camel Spiders, about these things.

One can only hope that if MGM ever gets their shit together or sold, the Red Dawn remake will be released and The Asylum can mockbust that (Crimson Dusk? Maroon Twilight? Fuchsia Noon?), with C. Thomas as the small-town sheriff who rallies his citizens to fight back against the invading North Koreans. Stranger things have happened. Like the aforementioned Soul Man.

C. Thomas Howell, consider yourself saluted.