observation notes: 8213 Gacy House

This is how much I love you, "you" being The Asylum, and my faithful readers: I'm not the biggest fan of ghost stories, mostly because I'm a big believer in ghosts, and seeing that shit onscreen, especially when it's portrayed realistically, that just freaks my ass out. I'm also not a big fan of clowns, especially those who are actually evil. So then you can imagine something like 8213 Gacy House - the latest offering from the fine folks at The Asylum, available on DVD this Tuesday, September 28th - a film built around "crime scene footage" of a group of paranormal investigators that never escaped said house alive, you can imagine how much I did not want to watch this movie, if only for the sake of my own sleep. But watch it I did, for all our sakes, and it scared the shit out of me, for real; I had to drink copious, copious amounts of brown liquor to dull my imagination into unconsciousness. 

How much is that clowny in the window?

The concept, like those of most all quality, super -scary films, is simple enough: notorious American serial killer John Wayne Gacy - the fat one who dressed up like a clown - was convicted of killing 33 young boys, 26 of whom were found buried in the crawl space of his Chicago home, and another three planted out back in the yard. The original house was destroyed during the investigation, and Gacy himself followed a few years later by lethal injection, but you gotta figure - if you're the sort who believes in ghosts, and believes that on occasion they can cling to a place in this world if it is a place they have a great emotional connection to, like, say, it's where they did all their sweet, sweet killing - this place is as haunted as it gets. That's what the team of investigators in this "documentary" figure, at least, and so they go to the new house on the old site with the intention of spending one night inside and gathering all the evidence they can that the spirit of John Wayne Gacy still clings to this ground. Why? I don't know, seems like either way, find him or not, you lose. But as the poster tells you, they find the motherfucker. And how.

This one's pretty much all spoilers from the moment they get inside the house, so I'll be general: this is a truly frightening, spine-curling and nail-gnawing film. I was afraid to leave to go to the bathroom, and as a result almost had the piss scared out of me every three or four minutes. The found-footage effect was an absolute advantage, as I usually think it is, especially in this genre, and The Asylum's commitment to the footage's authenticity - that is, clinging to the ruse that this is real and not scripted, as they did in Monster and Paranormal Entity - is steadfast and does indeed lend a layer of discomfort. Inevitably there will be comparisons to Paranormal Activity, though as noted above, The Asylum has already tied-in to that film, and really, if you're going to slag them off for ripping on the found-footage craze, be prepared to do it a lot more in the coming year, and to names like J.J. Abrams. 

This film conjures scares all its own, thanks to crafty, well-paced direction by Anthony Fankhauser (2012 Supernova) and shall we say, compelling performances from all of the investigators, notably Asylum newcomers Jim Lewis, Matthew Temple, Sylvia Panacione and Brett A. Newton.

Blood, gore, zombies, vampires, wolves and witches, serial killers, stalkers, satanists, cults; these things (onscreen) don't scare me. Ghosts, however, scare the bejesus out of me, so long as it's done right. Therefore, if my level of fear when watching a ghost movie is any indication as to the quality of the movie in question, then 8213 Gacy House is the scariest ghost story I've seen since The Blair Witch Project, and that includes Paranormal Activity (which I thought was mostly just shocking, not scary).

As I said, this Tuesday, September 28th, run to your local, independent video store to rent your copy.

inmate profile: DeeDee Pfeiffer

I am fully aware there are other women who have worked for The Asylum more often than DeeDee Pfeiffer, which I am also aware makes her somewhat of an odd choice for the first female inmate profile. But look at her: sassy, sexy, innocent and sultry; how can I resist?

So much more than Michelle's little sister, DeeDee has been working consistently in film for nearly 30 years, from comedies like Moving Violations and The Allnighter to more serious fare, venturing lately into the sci-fi/adventure/horror realm via films like Blue Demon and her work for The Asylum.

As mentioned, DeeDee has starred in two films for The Asylum thus far, as Greg Evigan's ex and a tectonic driller in Journey to the Center of the Earth and opposite great American hero William Katt in Alien v. Hunter. She brings frazzled beauty and sarcasm-next-door to each role, proving herself a unique and viable leading lady - sexy whether glamorous or not, strong, independent, fiesty and endearingly vulnerable. For my money, I'd watch DeeDee before Michelle seven days a week, and I always would have. Here's hoping she visits The Asylum again soon.

Asylum Alum's Witches of Oz 3D Trailer Now Online

A UK site has delivered the goods on the long-awaited Witches of OZ 3D trailer from writer/director Leigh Scott (Transmorphers, The Beast of Bray Road). Still looking for a release date for this one, so if you're interested, keep your eyes on the official site, here.

outside the walls: Non-Asylum Inkings

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Asylum Posts First Trailer for MILF

Attention sex-comedy fanatics: today the fine folks at The Asylum released the official trailer for their Cougar-appreciation flick, MILF, debuting on DVD October 26th, in which young men bag a copious amount of sexually liberated older women. As if you couldn't figure that out. First impression, looks better than Sex Pot and The 18 Year Old Virgin, could be on par or even better than #1 Cheerleader Camp.

By the way, anyone else notice a certain aesthetic similarity in the above-linked posters, or is it just me?

October 26th, that's the release date. October 26th.

observation notes: Supercroc

"For all of our advanced technology, we have not created anything that comes close to the aggression, resiliency, and overall fighting power of the ancient crocodile."

Truer words were never spoken: this beast clocks in at 50 feet long, 25 feet tall, hungry, ornery, and complete with a rock solid exterior no bullet can pierce. It's Supercroc, The Asylum's capitalization on the croc-craze of '07 instigated by films like Rogue, Primeval and Black Water, and, like those films, it's about a really, really big crocodile. Really big. Revisit the specs above if needed.

The films opens with a platoon of soldiers scouting a wooded area. This didn't make a lot of sense to me until the arrival in the ninth minute of the biggest GD CG croc I've ever seen. It promptly eats the most obvious target - the soldier in glasses - and then most of the others, leaving only one, female survivor, a chick I thought was Erica Pod People Roby until just this moment, when I linked to the IMDB page (Asylum doesn't mention this one on their website. I'm sure it's a legal thing and not, you know, a shame thing.).

The slaughter of soldiers definitely raises the ire of the military. In their investigation they determine a quake a few days earlier in the Pacific must have released this thing of prehistoric parameters from some sort of stasis. So it's really old, really evolved, and really fucking hungry. These are the things that make it Super. By the way, it's the croc that's super, not the CGI of said croc, that's actually kinda not so good, pretty fake, in a Walking with Dinosaurs kind of way. That aside, though, it's a really big fucking crocodile, I can't emphasize that enough: it's city-bus big, twin-engine-plane big. And because of this bigness, plus the attack on U.S. troops (you know we don't play that), the military goes all out in its attempts to slay the Supercroc, a mission that takes on a new urgency upon the discovery of dozens of supercroc supereggs. Dozens. It's a full-on supercroc invasion we're facing here, people!

"Son, I've got a 10,000-pound reptile barring down on a populated area; the last thing I need is comic relief. Understood?"

Yessir. Sorry.

So the croc stalks, and the military tries everything they can think of to stop it, to no avail, and as a result, pretty much everything the supercroc comes across, it eats. We get the genesis of the Mega Shark/airplane scene here when the supercroc lurches from the depths to take down a helicopter. It's a prolonged scene, too, not like the blink-and-you-miss-it Mega Shark takedown.

As for the rest of the film, it's all about figuring out how to kill the oldest, most evolved creature in existence; the word "impenetrable" is used a good half-dozen times, most in the same monologue.

So, as the film really revolves around the girl I thought was Erica Roby, and since I thought she was Erica Roby, most of the notes I took focus on what a startling improvement she made from Pod People. Those are out now. I'll just say the girl that is actually in the film carries it very well, and balances her emotions deftly between bereaved and enraged. Kim Little is the other standout, an Asylum vet (she's got good connections) who brings intensity and credence to her performance as the lady in the know about ancient crocodiles. She's kind of a mix between Sweet Dee from Always Sunny, Angela from The Office and the porcelain-skinned beauty Laura Harris (who by the way needs to be in an Asylum flick, stat.) The other actor who caught my eye was David Novak, but only because he looks like a skinny Robert Forster.

All in all not bad; if you like giant-crocodile movies you'll probably like this one. I could have used more and varied destruction - the film takes place in two locations: the woods and the control room - I mean, you've got a supercroc, you might as well use him. Have the motherfucker taking down skyscrapers, Croc Kong and shit like that. Kudos on the chopper scene, though. That, plus the talented collection of actors, pull this one off.

Dig This Appreciation from The Bay Guardian!

The San Francisco Bay Guardian (a newspaper, for anyone born after 1998) recently published this appreciation for the films of The Asylum. It's a pretty thorough and polite article, full of some fun and interesting facts. Though it's true that no press is bad press, it's always nice to see the fine folks at The Asylum pulling some much-deserved kudos from mass media. Enjoy!

whipsers from another cell: News From Within The Asylum

8213 Gacy House Comes to DVD Tuesday, September 28

Of the 33 people famed serial killer John Wayne Gacy is credited with having killed, 26 were found in the crawl space of his Chicago home, and another three were buried in the backyard. If you're the sort who believes in injured spirits attaching themselves to the physical plane where they suffered the most, then the Gacy House is bound to be haunted as a motherfucker. The house itself was destroyed during the exhumations, but assuming someone rebuilt in the same location, it would be a Mecca of sorts to a paranormal investigator. Well, The Asylum has assumed it for you. Shot mockumentary style like Monster or The Blair Witch Project, Gacy House supposes a team of ghost hunters have come to spend the night in this infamous locale, with truly horrifying and gruesome results.

Gacy House is directed by longtime Asylum producer Anthony Fankhauser, who previously wrote and directed 2012 Supernova. Asylum virgins Jim Lewis and Matthew Temple anchor the cast, with Michael Gaglio (MSvC, Titanic II, 2010 Moby-Dick), and a few other fresh faces bringing the support.

Gacy House, as mentioned, drops on DVD Tuesday, September 28th. Look for my review a few days before.


Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus Enters Post-Production

In prior posts over the last week I've already published behind-the-scenes photos and production stills of the highly-anticipated Mega Shark sequel, bowing December 21st. But the underlying thread between these posts that I may not have emphasized strongly enough is that the film is now in post-production, meaning principal photography has wrapped and now it's all about editing and effects. No doubt at this very moment the magical elves at Tiny Juggernaut are hard at work crafting some bitchin' shark-pluck kill scene to trump the bungee-cord Sharktopus kill. In the weeks to come, we can expect poster art, maybe a teaser, maybe even a full-blown trailer. Until then, we can only do the most difficult thing known to man: we wait.

observation notes: Invasion of the Pod People

How do you scold your favorite child? Probably not publicly, as I'm about to do. But some things...

They should have known better. It isn't The Asylum's fault, necessarily, that the concept of this film, at this point in the history of cinema, is trite and rehashed to fucking death. They were just doing their jobs, the fine folks at The Asylum, they were just giving us what we want, a low budget, boob-and-blow-up-heavy version of a Hollywood blockbuster, in this case Invasion, starring the spirit that inhabits Nicole Kidman's body and the last guy to ever play James Bond. Not the first time this film's been straight-up remade, Invasion was the fourth incarnation, behind Kevin McCarthy in the 1956 version, Donald Sutherland in the Philip Kaufman-directed 1978 version, and the lovely Gabrielle Anwar starring for Abel Ferrara in 1993's abbreviated Body Snatchers. Not to mention the dozens of times it's basic premise - alien seeds come to Earth by one means or another, then slowly begin to infiltrate the citizenry, passing as the people they've killed or, the bodies they've snatched - has been pilfered.

A sidenote here to say I'm somewhat surprised The Asylum passed up an opportunity to use the word "snatch" or any of its derivations in the title. Especially as the film's pretty much lesbian sci-fi erotica.

Set among the world of D-list talent representation, our first introduction to lead actress Erica Roby (Exorcism: The Possession of Gail Bowers, Halloween Night, The Hitchhiker) is her being getting taken (invaded) from behind by some middle-aged dude against a big picture window. This is how they start the movie, figuring perhaps since the rest of it's not going to be that entertaining, they'd better throw in the promise of nudity right at the get-go with some, well, nudity. There are a few scenes between Miss Roby and this geezer, as well as Miss Roby and another miss, but all share the same sense of posed awkwardness and sheer lack of sensuality. She says it herself, in referencing her affair with the old guy, "It's weird." It really is Erica, and I wish there wasn't so much of it. Did you hear that? Did you hear what you just made me do? You made me openly wish for a lack of nudity and sexual situations in a film. Me. That's just fucking ridiculous.

The main nexus for the pod persons' invasion seems to be Miss Roby and associates' office, which in an attempt to look industrial-modern looks like the inside of a steam ship, an actual, working steam ship. It is here that the hot-lesbian boss brings each of her underlings ginger root plants that will inevitably impregnate, devour and replace them all. The lovely and sassy Danae Nason - the film's brightest spot - describes it best, and by "best" I mean the best she can: "It's one of those trendy, new things, it's Chinese or Japanese or some feng shui bullshit." Nicely said. The fact that the original giver of of this gift, this alien seed, was a porn star the agency was trying to sign, leaves a bad taste in my mouth, much like alien seed (note the lack of "must" after "seed." Eyes up people.).

At some point in the film the cops come to Miss Roby, or she goes to them, somehow she becomes the got-to for info on the invasion. I went to the bathroom for a few minutes, made another drink, missed some stuff, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter.

Jesus. Okay. This review is becoming as big a clusterfuck as the movie was. There's just so much insane shit going on at once here, it's hard to explain it coherently, because this shit just isn't coherent. I love you, Asylum, god know I do, but this shit was too much. The acting wasn't great, saved only, as I mentioned, by sultry snarkstress Nason; Miss Roby's character was too doe-eyed, too fresh-off-the-bus-and-fucking-anything-that's-nice-to-her, and Miss Roby's portrayal of her was one-note and phoned-in, as if she couldn't be bothered. I know she's alumnae, but still. And the production values lacked a little as well, especially the sound. But despite all this, it was still a better film than Invasion. There was the ample nudity - which though it may have been a bit too much and non sequitur for me, I realize it's a plus for others - and the, uh, the, well, umm...nope, pretty much the nudity is all this one's got going for it. And there really is a lot of it. At one point a lesbian orgy factors into the invasion, don't really get that one, but who cares, right? I should have put that in the post heading: "Lesbian Orgy Factors Into Invasion." More of a CHUD headline, really though.

There were however a couple of quotes that elicited a genuine laugh from me:

"She's a porn star."
"Well she's a porn star who's sucking the right cock!"

and

"Are you familiar with guns at all?"
"No."
"Maybe you should think about a shotgun."

But the quote I most identified with came the morning after Miss Roby's first lesbian encounter, with her boss no less: "What did I do last night?"

I asked the same question this morning, unable to look my DVD player in the eyes.

Is this the Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus poster? UPDATED 10/20/10

This image has been popping up in a couple places online over the last few days, accompanying articles about the new production stills from Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus, which recently entered post-production. Now, The Asylum has nothing up on their site, poster-wise, and while this bears a remarkable resemblance to the Mega Shark vs. Gigantosaurus poster that went online after flirting around in Cannes this year, I'm not sure if I believe it's the real deal, and not just some photoshop tampering.

Either way, though, it's a cool design and perfectly in theme with the rest of The Asylum's artwork. So real or not, it fulfills the duty of any good poster: it gets your heart racing for the feature.

****so I was wrong, and this is the actual poster, released today, 10/20/10

977's Unsolicited Yet Copyrighted Pitch #1: MAN-O-WAR

Suppose the recent oil spill in the Gulf wasn't a disastrous accident, but rather a cover up? A cover-up for what? you may be asking, What would be worth covering that they'd put our environment at such risk? Why good old fashioned nuclear power, of course, or something like it, some controversial fuel source hidden in a reservoir beneath the seabed that when ruptured spills forth a small quantity of the super juice, the existence of which can't be known by the general public (or competitive nations), so in order to conceal it, a few hundred million gallons of oil are spilled to cover it up. But not before the super juice can infect a swarm of Portuguese Man-O-War, fusing them into a single, mighty, mega(if you will)-man-o-war that then drifts into the gulf stream toward the Atlantic seaboard.

Thus begins Man-O-War.

Our real story begins on Ocracoke Island in North Carolina's Outer Banks, a quaint island town south of the lighthouse at Cape Hatteras. Mac Finn, a strapping young bearded lad in his mid-30's, is returning home after a 15 year absence. He's been living out west, Oregon, a failed writer, a failed husband, now a boatbuilder, returned home in the wake of his estranged father's death to settle the old man's estate and restart his life where he thought he'd left forever. Ocracoke is a small, tight-knit community, everybody remembers everybody, and Mac is met with mixed reactions; those who are happy to see him back in the fold, and those who still view him as an uppity creative type who thought himself better than them and so deserted the island and his father, a widower.

Mac is at the heart of the horrors to come. Over the next few days bodies will start to appear, burned and lacerated, from the ocean. I think I've set it up well enough that you can figure what's killing these folks. From there, without revealing too many gory details or my twist ending (just to say there are only so many ways to kill a man-o-war, I had to get inventive), the man-o-war fucks some shit up, and it's up to Mac and a cast of locals - not scientists, not soldiers, just average people, fishermen and waitresses and drunks - to vanquish the marine monster before it destroys their idyllic community.

Think Jaws meets Eight-Legged Freaks meets Hard Rain.

As for the locals: Ellie Caffrey, waitress at the Red Drum, a small bar on the Ocracoke pier, an ocean-side found-artist, not a native but treated like one, and Mac's potential love interest; Kurt Lund, the curator of a local tourist-trap aquarium, early 40's, more of a carnival barker than a scientist; Red Oldham, brash owner of the Red Drum; Henry Olive, another non-native, a wide-eyed young journalism intern for the weekly local rag covering the deaths; Abram Tompkins, the aging sheriff who for thirty years has had the island under his stern thumb and who just happens to have been Mac's father's life-long best friend, thus making him also Mac's harshest detractor; plus others like a mayor, a deputy, a stoner line cook, a fish mime (a mime that, well, mimes fish), a couple of amiable alcoholics, a bait boy and the requisite chum-in-waiting tourists.

I'm seeing David Charvet as Mac, Lindsey McKeon as Ellie and Seth Cassell as the stoner line cook. I'm willing to give him a shot at redeeming himself.

I'm just sayin'.

Choose Your Side: Awesome New Asylum Merch

The Asylum's always had some pretty awesome swag, but they're really upping the ante in anticipation of the cultural maelstrom to come next year when former pop sensations Tiffany and Debbie Gibson go toe-to-toe in Mega Python vs. Gatoroid. I've linked to a few articles about this already; people do indeed seem to be gearing up for a cultural event akin to Celebrity Boxing or the Speidi sex tape. Leave to The Asylum, therefore, to find the most marketable way possible to capitalize on this fervor: Team Debbie/Tiffany gear.

Three words come to mind seeing these designs: Hell Fucking Yes.

It's official, I now know what everyone on my Christmas list is getting this year (that chill that just ran up your spine is either excitement, or transference from me of my wife's cold stare in my direction. she's so team debbie.).

If I were a betting man, and I am, I'd bet this phenomenon is going to get a lot bigger in the months to come. I'm predicting a back-page Bullseye in Entertainment Weekly for this gear between now and Thanksgiving. Get these awesome designs, as well as every Asylum movie ever's logo on a variety of merch, right here.

Oh, and if you didn't know already...Team Tiffany 4EVA, bitches!

COMMITTED Gets 1,000th Hit!

As of 8 a.m. this morning, COMMITTED logged its 1,000th hit since launching on August 27th. Now, I don't know if 1,000 hits in a little shy of three weeks is good by normal blog standards or not, but it's pretty fucking awesome in my book. Thanks to all y'all who've stopped by, and keep it up! Things are only getting better from here, so tell your friends, families, video store clerks, Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts, still-functioning MySpace pages, message board threads, personal blogs and anyone else who will listen; there are a lot of great Asylum films coming out over the next few months, and it's up to us, the COMMITTED, to help spread the good word.

Thanks again, and really, it only gets better from here!

observation notes: Sex Pot

Sex and drugs - the PB&J of adulthood. And, like youth, too often the best of these are wasted on the young.

Take Sex Pot, for example, The Asylum's answer to Harold & Kumar etc. etc. etc.: magical weed and lascivious playmates are wasted on two dorks with no discernible social skills and a vocal affinity for masturbation.

Problem one: a magic bag of weed, the magic being that it makes women lose their inhibitions and fuck losers. That's not magic weed. That's just weed.

Problem two: women losing inhibitions. Inhibitions have to be had before they can be lost, and judging by the look of these women - yes, I'm judging them by their appearance, they're in their underwear on a movie box, I can do that - any inhibitions they came equipped with were stripped off a long time ago with, well, you can make your own joke here.

As for the rest of it, Seth Cassell - who you may remember I talked up in #1 Cheerleader Camp, but only in comparison to this - and the DJ Qualls impersonator that plays his buddy are perfectly believable as losers, but not at all as stoners (see Cassell's facial expression on the cover. there's a lot of that.). And somehow this makes the film weirdly watchable. The copious boobs help.

And speaking of boobs, they're only a small - well, not small, per se - facet of a script laced with nearly every raunchy cliche you can think of: hot-chick bowel movements, donkey show references, fruit-based mutual masturbation (twice I've used that word now. probably speaks more to the movie than the rest of this review), and lesbian dominatrixes. At times all this together felt a little over the top, too much, almost, but my wife reads these things, and she was sitting next to me when I put this one in - I know, I know - so I have to say that.

Bottom line, this is no comedy to write home about. But it is one to watch in a dark room by yourself with the door locked. If you like that kind of thing. Which apparently people do, because films like this get made all the time.

A couple of choice lines to set the mood:

"You sound like Harvey Milk doing a fucking porno."
(I don't know what this means.)

"Would you take pity on me, man? I have to crawl into a bathroom where the girl I just jerked off to took a big shit."
(keeping in mind this is said to the guy standing next to him when said masturbation occurred. [that's three times])

Even More Mega Shark 2 Photos!!!

So, according to The Asylum's site, principal photography has wrapped on Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus, and to follow up the photos I posted yesterday from their twitter site of behind-the-scenes action, here's a smattering of production stills fresh out of the camera. I gotta tell you, the images of Jaleel White with an automatic weapon are really doing it for me (non-sexually, of course. ew.) Now all we need is an official poster...then a teaser...then a trailer...then...Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus!!!!!!!!! (December 21, 2010)

observation notes: Allan Quatermain and the Temple of Skulls

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg could have learned a lot from this one; when trying to breathe new life into an old character, sometimes it's better to go back to the basics instead of stretching into foreign, bizarre, insulting and childhood-ruining territory. Released to coincide with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Allan Quatermain and the Temple of Skulls (that's a lot of italics) returned to the source, the H. R. Haggard character Indiana Jones was based upon, Allan Quatermain, for this latest version of the classic King Solomon's Mines.

Twice before this novel has been adapted: in 1950 starring Stewart Granger as the adventurer and the ravishing Deborah Kerr as the client, and again in 1985 as a reaction to the popularity of Raiders of the Lost Ark, this time starring Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone. The Asylum's version falls solidly between the two: not quite as good as the 1950 version (which, incidentally, is one of my favorite films of all time) but markedly better than the 1985 version.

The story's pretty simple: guy finds a map for a treasure hidden in the little explored interior of Africa (this is the late 19th century, give or take); he goes looking for said treasure; he never returns; his faithful sister comes looking for him, engages a famous hunter-tracker-adventurer to aid in her search. And that's where the story really begins, a picaresque expedition on the trail of either great treasure, or great peril.

I'm having trouble thinking what to say next. I have notes about the competent performances, the pacing, the action scenes, this tribal-decapitation-claw thing a native uses on a dude , but truthfully I'm not feeling a lot of enthusiasm toward those things now, the next day. The movie was fine. But that's it. And it's not because it was poorly written or directed or performed; none of these elements were lacking. It was certainly more enjoyable than that soulless ass-rape of a film the franchise guys put out. Thing is, I just didn't care. And remember, this is coming from a guy already biased toward the story. The 1950 version, as I said, is truly one of my favorites, I re-visit it at least twice a year. But thinking about it now, I think it's because that version of the film, like the story, is dated. This version, the 2008 version, though still set in the original era, looked modern - the actors, the action, the effects - and as such felt tepid, tame, because by modern standards the source story doesn't quite hold up to the adrenaline-fueled, high-octane, apocalyptic action films of this era. I mean, Roland Emmerich totally fucked up the entire planet on screen last year; I can't really get it up for a steam engine/truck chase anymore, unless that's the best the era could offer.

Perhaps if The Asylum had gone with an update of the source material, like they did with War of the Worlds, 30,000 Leagues Under the Sea or the upcoming Moby-Dick, I would have been left with a better taste in my mouth. Or perhaps I'm just a cranky jerk today, and taking it out on A.Q.a.t.T.o.S., which really is an entertaining film, if you're into rollicking yarns of yesteryear.

The film stars Sean Cameron Michael (Supernova) as the titular adventurer and Natalie Stone (30,000 Leagues Under the Sea) as the saucy, pouty-lipped sister. Also worth noting that director Mark Atkins edited the film as well, as well as doing his own cinematography. See his inmate profile below for more info.

On-Set Photos from Mega Shark 2!!!

Yahoo!!!!! Fresh from The Asylum's twitter site comes these first on-set shots of Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus, now in production for a December 21, 2010 release. Check out stars Jaleel White, Robert Picardo, Dylan Vox, director Christopher Ray and others in this quintet of snapshots.



Enjoy these now in anticipation of a hopefully soon-coming trailer and then the whole she-bang, an early Christmas (or whatever you celebrate at that time of year) gift to us all from the fine, fine folks at the Asylum.



Viva Mega Shark!

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.

observation notes: The Day The Earth Stopped

The only Asylum movie to ever illicit a lawsuit, The Day the Earth Stopped was none-too-liked by the execs over at Fox, who thought the film's similarity to a certain, like-named and worse Keanu Reeves movie generated a "likelihood of confusion" among consumers. I work in a video store (big surprise, I know) and no one, even the mentally challenged or drug-addled, has ever confused Jennifer Connelly for C. Thomas Howell.

Plot in a nutshell: spaceships that look like sperm invade our galaxy and deposit on Earth robots or leftover transmorphers or some shit intent on doing us in. A rogue citizen of this alien race comes to warn us, assuming the form of a hot chick. And from there (as well as to there) it's basically the same movie as the Keanu shitstorm - with the added bonus of a thinly-veiled Christian end-message - slow to begin but once the concept hooks, it's a low-grade FX spectacular, a little simplistic, yes, but the best science-fiction movies often are; survival in the face of impossible, inconceivable odds is often compelling enough on its own, and in that regard, The Asylum's version of this sci-fi classic surpasses the Hollywood version, which is ultimately too political and concerned with rooting itself in a believable environment as opposed to just copping to the fact that it's a movie about a giant fucking robot. Own it, Fox. Their shit looks like a long episode of "The X-Files" with even worse lighting.

C. Thomas Howell is awesome as always, smoldering and compassionately disaffected, a sort-of shlub who's the only one to believe the hot alien. But C. Tom doesn't just rock this one in front of the lens, he rocks it from behind as well (all of that sounded so pornographic, I know, but I'm keeping it) as the film's director, his second such assignment for The Asylum. For a complicated, FX-laden busyfest, C. keeps his shots taut and concise, balancing panoramas of destruction with the tighter moments of chaos that fuel the tension.

Oh, and Judd Nelson finally drags his ass to work with 27 minutes to go to play the boisterously frazzled father of humanity's salvation.


A choice conversational snippet from this one:

"Prove that human life has value? How the hell am I supposed to do that?!"

"Did you ever see The goddamn Lion King!?"

R.I.P. Kevin McCarthy

A guy who would have made a great addition to any Asylum movie, Kevin McCarthy, best known as the star the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers and for his memorable turns for Joe Dante in Innerspace, The Howling and Piranha, as well as the 1978 Body Snatchers remake and Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go To College, passed today of natural causes. He was 96 years old.

Godspeed, Mr. McCarthy.

observation notes: 18-Year-Old Virgin

Ah yes. The requisite female-centric sex comedy. From Coming Soon to Jennifer's Body, every so often a woman tries her hand at grossing out America with the amount of boudoir secrecy she's willing to reveal. And skin.

This film is the ultimate of these: a female lead with the fantasy life of Jonah Hill, the rack of a playmate, and the inhibitions of a crack whore.

18-Year-Old Virgin is based on the preposterous suggestion that an 18 year old girl with no physical deformities or obviously psychotic tendencies has to actively seek sex. Yet try as she might, our C-cup heroine can't quite find the right lover.

In reality, this girl puts her thumb out on the side of the road and two weeks later she's a porn star. (oh right, lead actress Olivia May is best known for her work on "Co-Ed Confidential," which is as close to porn as softcore gets)

Speaking of Olivia May, outside of parentheses, from the box art to the final credits it isn't she who stars so much as it is her tits, which are seen within the first three minutes and then often throughout. Which isn't a bad thing, as her tits are better actresses than she is.

I have to be honest here. I didn't watch all of this movie. For that reason alone feel free to scroll to the next entry. But I watch a lot of movies, more than any grown man in a healthy relationship should (my lady's the bomb), and I think there's something to it when even I won't finish a film. And I did not finish this film. Truthfully, I got 37 minutes in then turned it off. And I like boobs, a lot, but boobs alone do not a movie make, try as Olivia May's boobs might. I stated in an earlier review I have issues with the comedies of The Asylum, but I am not here to denigrate. For a very large percentage of the population this film will satisfy (more than it should). I'm just not the target audience.

That said, if you like far-fetched scenarios whose only real design is to include as many beautiful women, dick jokes and tits as possible, this is where the buck stops.

Unapologetic, raucous and scintillating.

More Tiffany/Debbie Advance Hype

Man, the internet is going fucking nuts over the pairing of former teen pop idols Tiffany and Debbie Gibson in the upcoming Asylum flick Mega Python vs. Gatoroid. This is the biggest match-up America didn't know it was longing for since Screech boxed Horshack. Here's yet another article interviewing Tiffany on the work she's done for the Asylum, the work she'd like to do, and the long-standing "rivalry" between she and Ms. Gibson. No release date yet on MP vs. G, but as soon as I know, you'll know.

Sharks are the New Vampires

So I know I've touched on this before, but yet another shark trailer was released this weekend, a SyFy original dubbed Swamp Shark, and it made me curious exactly how many shark films we can expect in the next year. The answer? Quite a few:

Sharktopus (9/25/10)
Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus (12/21/2010!!!)
Dinoshark (2010) (already aired on SyFy, no DVD)
The Reef (2010)
Supershark (2011)
Swamp Shark (2011)
Dark Tide (2011)
Shark Night 3D (2011)
Bait (2011)

Scratch that headline: sharks aren't the new vampires, vampires are still struggling to become the new sharks.

outside the walls: Non-Asylum Inklings

So I'll admit it, there are films not produced by The Asylum. There always have been, always will be. These glasses I wear are not rose-colored. They are clear, and occasionally smudged with fingerprints. A sampling of non-Asylum films due soon and news that might spark the interest of Asylum fans. Just remember, Sweet 'n Low ain't Sugar.


Roger Corman's Sharktopus Coming to SyFy September 25th

It's interesting: the last few years, most of this decade, actually, cinematic stalwart Roger Corman has been uncharacteristically docile, producing far less films than he has in decades past. They gave the guy an honorary Oscar last year, so maybe that spurred him on, because suddenly he's putting out a lot more movies, all of them suspiciously marine-oriented. It's a safe bet he's been keeping up with what The Asylum's been doing, as evidenced by this trailer. When Eric Roberts genetically combines a shark with an octopus at the government's behest, he winds up with the most efficient hunter the planet has ever known. And the weirdest-looking. Will The Asylum be one-upped by the king of the genre they dominate? Find out on September 25th, then wait a couple of months for Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus to raise the ante all over again.

Other upcoming SyFy original programming includes yet another ruining of a beloved childhood classic, Peter Pan, by Nick Willing, the same dude who trashed The Wizard of Oz (Tin Man), which ruined Zooey Deschanel for me forever, and Alice, the source should be obvious, which I didn't even bother to watch because Tin Man was so shitty. The planned abomination is a prequel to the original story (ugh) and most offensively, stars Academy Award nominee Bob Hoskins reprising his role from Spielberg's Hook as first mate Smee (ugh squared). Also in the pipeline are Garden of Evil, starring Adrain Pasdar ("Heroes," After Dark), Mandrake, about some freaky tree, Frost Giant, about, well, a frost giant, and Roadkill, currently filming in Ireland and starring Lake Placid 3 uber-hottie Kacey Barnfield. Keep your eyes on local listings, or just keep tuning in here for updates and reviews.


Burning Bright now on DVD

Though she's never appeared in an Asylum film, Briana Evigan has a connection to The Asylum. Her father, Greg Evigan, has appeared in 6 Guns, 100 Million BC and Journey to the Center of the Earth, this latter film along with her sister, Vanessa Lee Evigan. So we give a shout out to the other Evigan's newest flick, released on DVD August 17th, about a zookeeper's daughter trapped in a house with a bloodthirsty Bengal tiger. Even though she's not nuclear family, she's still worth a watch. Burning Bright costars the awesome Garrett Dillahunt. Think The Ghost and The Darkness meets When a Stranger Calls.


Aussie Director Follows One Water Movie With Another

Andrew Traucki, writer/director of the not-so-awesome crocodile flick Black Water, has finished his follow up and is set to release it later this year. The Reef concerns the crew of a sailboat that capsizes off Australia's Great Barrier Reef, a.k.a. Great White Central. Oddly enough, there's never been a big-budget GBR shark movie, so the potential for this to be an Open Water-style standout exists. Hopefully it won't suck like Black Water did. Check out the official website, and the poster. The latter has an awesome tagline.


AMC Releases Walking Dead Motion Comic in Advance of Pilot Premiere

By now everyone knows the greatest comic currently in publication, Image's "The Walking Dead," is being transformed into an AMC original series by Stephen King aficionado Frank Darabont. While the show won't start until Halloween Night at10p.m. with a 90-minute pilot, AMC has released a motion comic of the series' first issue. What's a motion comic, you ask? What do you think? It's a comic that moves. Check it out AMC's site for the comic and much more.

In related "Walking Dead" news, it was announced September 1, a full 90 days before the premiere, that AMC has already re-upped, ordering 13 additional episodes for Season 2.


First Trailer for Leigh Scott's Witches of Oz

Leigh Scott - director of ten Asylum features including King of the Lost World, Hillside Cannibals and Transmorphers - has just released the first making-of trailer for his next film, the 3d Witches of Oz. Based on an original story, Scott's movie has Dorothy all grown up and a successful childrens author, drawing on what she thinks are vivid imaginings from her childhood. But when she realizes they're not imaginings but repressed memories, it opens a flood gate of fantastical reality, culminating with the Wicked Witch of the West touching down in Times Square. Check out the trailer here. He even mentions The Asylum. Christopher Lloyd, Mia Sara, Ethan Embry, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, Lance Henriksen and Jeffrey Combs comprise the cast, with the lovely Paulie Rojas (of The Last Resort fame) as Dorothy. No release date as of yet, but news can't be far off.


Altitude Gets A Trailer

Altitude, the direct to DVD thriller from first-time feature director Kaare Andrews, finally released an official trailer. Altitude is the story of four teenage friends in their own small-engine plane (not exactly how me and my friends hung out in high school) that experience both a technical glitch - the plane keeps climbing in altitude uncontrollably - and a paranormal encounter in the form of some Lovecraftian tentacled cloud squid thing. The movie hits your local, independent video stores in October then Netflix (which is stealing your personal information and selling it to terrorists*) and those Redbox things (which cause cancer**) a month or so later. Check out the trailer here, courtesy of FirstShowing.net, courtesy of ShockTilYouDrop.com

*this statement is not supported by any discernible evidence. pure, wild speculation on my part.
**ditto


A Couple of Cool Posters

From Friday the 13th and The Expendables. Thanks to The National Post and CHUD.com, respectively.

observation notes: Monster

Little heard of and rarely referenced in the Mockbuster conversations, The Asylum's take on Cloverfield is in many ways, if not every way, superior to the film it riffs on.

Set in Tokyo and seen through the eyes and lens of two American documentarians, sisters, Monster concerns a massive earthquake that is not at all an earthquake, but rather a massive tentacled thing rising from the tectonic depths beneath us. From there the story is pretty much the same as Cloverfield: the sisters try to survive while everything around them goes to shit. A bit of added fear and confusion in that they're foreigners, which works, and a bit of exposition meant to establish the sisters as idealistic, impassioned filmmakers devoted to their subject, global warming, which does not work.

This was my one problem with Monster, which is why I'm mentioning it up front, to get it out of the way, because the rest of what I have to say will be positively glowing. So here goes: there is zero believability in these women as filmmakers about such a serious subject. Little sis comprises the entire crew, for fuck's sake. Why travel all the way to Japan to shoot a movie and then take just one, non-professional, totally inexperienced woman-child? And who interviews a CEO in a tank top?

(The CEO isn't in the tank top, she is, the interviewer. Just in case there was confusion.)

But this petty grievance aside, where Monster succeeds most is in it's commitment and loyalty to the documentary style: crediting characters Sarah Lynch and Erin Sullivan as directors within the context of the film, and for camerawork in the actual credits (For sisters, they tend to shoot each others boobs a lot. I'm just saying.); maiming the film with splotchy sound, pixellated images and cut-outs, the requisite shaky camerawork. But that's where Monster and Cloverfield diverge. Wheras the latter put most all its style in the physical - that is, how the person holding the camera affected what it saw and how - Monster divides its style between the physical and the technical, making the camera more of a character, faulty in its own right, and the ultimate narrator. I'm not saying Cloverfield didn't play with the technical, they just didn't do it as well as Monster does.

As for the other performers, Ms. Lynch (Sarah Lieving) and Ms. Sullivan (Erin Evans, though she acts under the name Sullivan), aside from that bit of unpleasantness I mentioned above, they are superbly convincing as disaster-struck foreigners and concerned siblings, and it is here, in their relationship with one another, and the camera, that the true emotional power of the film arrives. As the danger mounts each sister responds differently to the camera's presence, the little sis caring fuck-all about it anymore and the big sis growing proportionally more devoted to her film, now a different film entirely.

I'm going to back-peddle a little here. It strikes me that perhaps the sisters' unbelievability in their professions was intentional, and the writer may have been looking to establish them as people with ambitions bigger than their talents, more passionate than capable, and thus at a total loss in this calamity; the least suitable in the most incredible. If that's the case, then I eat my above words and this pair of actresses is flawless. However it could just be that I'm reading too much into it. Either way, that's the point of a good film, right? To intrigue you, on whatever minute or random level.

Bottom line, Monster, to me at least, is the most realistic film in The Asylum's catalog, and one of the best, if not my favorite. The action is FX light, the emotional conflict takes precedent over the history, science or mythology of the creature and for the concept - that of a live-filmed, monster-related disaster - it is scarier, more engaging and more heart-wrenching than Cloverfield.

In this case, as far as I'm concerned, Mockbuster beats Blockbuster, hands down.

Inside the Actor's Blog

Pretty...interesting blog here from actor D.C. Douglas, most notable for his voiceover work for Geico and the terms under which he was relieved of said work, but relevant here because he plays the Captain in Titanic II. These two experiences somehow weave themselves together in the above linked post straight out of the horse's mouth, complete with video clips of his work for The Asylum, four films to date.

Enjoy.

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.

Asylum Producer Video Interview!

Recently in Tilburg, The Netherlands, the annual Incubate Festival was held, an exhibition of "diverse views on indie culture as a whole, including music, contemporary dance, film and visual arts." Well, to cover their asses for film, they invited the fine folks at The Asylum to come by and, among other things, premiere Titanic II to European audiences.

One of the products of this festival is this great 21-minute interview with Asylum producer David Rimawi. Rimawi gives a lot of insight into how Asylum films are made, from conception to distribution, and talks about the company's awareness of the marketplace as a vital component to their success.

But don't let me explain it to you, get it from the man himself. Go.

Go!

newly committed: Asylum Release Dates

8213 Gacy House - 9/28/2010

MILF - 10/26/2010

Ballistica - 11/16/2010

Moby-Dick - 11/23/2010

Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus (!!!) - 12/21/2010

observation notes: Journey to the Center of the Earth

One of three adaptations of the Jules Verne classic to come out in the same 18-month period - the other two being the Brendan Fraser 3D event and the Ricky Schroeder non-event - The Asylum gives it their own special twist.

Okay, so, here we go: Greg Evigan is some kind of stargate scientist or something, and in the process of beaming an elite military unit composed entirely of hot chicks, somehow the calibrations go wrong and they end up in the center of the Earth, a lush, prehistoric landscape. So Evigan has to track down his ex-wife, the delightful DeeDee Pfeiffer, who just happens to be developing a miracle laser-digger. As if this string of coincidences wasn't enough, one of the members of the hot-chick military unit is DeeDee's sister (who in real life is Evigan's daughter!!)! Da-da-dummmmmm!

Fast-paced, exciting and endearing thanks laregly to the two leads. Greg Evigan hasn't aged a day or lost an ounce of charm since "My Two Dads," and DeeDee Pfeiffer, as usual, showcases the same comedic/dramatic skills that made Cameron Diaz a star, with a dash of frenetic obsessiveness that made Crispin Glover so creepy. How's that for a mash-up? Notable among the hot chicks are the aforementioned Evigan daughter, Vanessa Lee (other daughter Brianna is of Step Up 2, S. Darko and Sorority Row fame) and Caroline Attwood, the female reporter from Death Racers, who thankfully gets a lot more screen time here (she's kinda hot is why the "thankfully").

Two quotes best sum up this experience, which truthfully I enjoyed more than the big screen epic, and certainly more than the Ricky Schroeder shit-bomb:

"Wait a minute; why would a tyrannosaurus be here in the first place?"

AND

"All right you bitch hag, let's do this...AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!"

a quick post to say...

...that if posts over the next week or so don't come as regular as they have been, it's because I have managed to manipulate an otherwise sound woman into marrying me. In addition to this event, I've planned a week of further brainwashing South of the Border to seal the deal. On the plus side, if the oil spill in the Gulf has produced any mutated marine life, I'll be right there to bring you the first pix. Pray for the mutated marine life, otherwise the only photos I'll have to share will be of me drunk and speedo-ed. That's right, I rock a speedo. I was on the swim team in high school; they take me back to a special time. What an odd way to end a post about getting married.

Birthday Wishes...

...are extended today to the lovely and talented Debbie Gibson, star of The Asylum's Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus and the forthcoming Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, who turns a no-way! 40 today.