ASYLUM UPDATE (Reposted from the 10th of October 2008)
Asylum updates are my favorite time of the B Movie calendar. I got a little shock to see they’re slate for next year. Either they are cutting down on the mockbuster or I’m just out of touch with mainstream cinema. I kind of think the latter one might be the case. But first lets see what this year has in stall for us. Last month saw DEATH RACERS. When it comes to genera films I never think it’s a good idea to judge the film on it cinematic metric rather by the sheer entertainment value it provides. DEATH RACERS provided to be one the funnies movies I’ve seen all year. What it lacked in Racers it made up for in Death and satire. Its one of the better Asylum films every made. Hitting the shelves this month is a movie that’s both a Faith Film and a Mockbuster. Get ready for the SUNDAY SCHOOL MUSICAL. Some people say this movie will start the cinematic Armageddon but I’m just hoping for some toe taping tunes.
B MOVIE NEWS will have an exclusive interview with director Rachel Goldenberg (exclusive for the fact we probably are going to only people to ask her). They’re going to finish out the year with a show stopper… literally! December will bring THE DAY THE EARTH STOPPED. It will star not one but two 80’s brat packers: C. Thomas Howell (who also directs) and Judd Nelson (CYBER DOG). The new year will start with a mockbuster variation with the 18 YEAR OLD VIRGIN. With the influxes of dvd sequel I’m pretty sure they’re trying to disgust this as one. I can see the tag line already “Before he was 40 he was the…” Can you see too many teen sex comedies? I think not!
The most interesting films in the post production pile are: MEGA SHARK VS GIANT SQUID The California coast is terrorized by two enormous prehistoric sea creatures as they battle each other for supremacy of the ocean.
Finally, we’re going to get some answers. You can’t say you haven’t spent sleeping nights doing the math’s on this one. I’m putting my money on Giant Squid.
TRANSMORPHERS 2 In this present day prequel, the robot invaders attack Earth, forcing a small band of humans to seek refuge below the surface of the planet.
I known about the film for quite a while as, I try to get a job writing it. Having no idea about writing, pitching, spelling or Hollywood in general I just decided to write it then email it to David Latt. As my version was an “INVASION OF THE POD PEOPLE … umm I mean BODY SNATCHERS” type sequel and this is a prequel I don’t think they went with it. But it still can be used (hint, hint David Latt). You can read it here. I wrote it to be the most mocking’est buster every to bust a mock. If you think you’ve seen it in another film you have :p
Once again I’m sure these films are mocking into bigger Hollywood film that I’m just not aware of. The last two seem like to same film.
DRAGONQUEST When an ancient warlord summons a mythological beast, a young hero must complete a series of quests to awaken the dragon that can defeat the monster.
SUPERNOVA As increased radiation and ever large solar storms wreak havoc on the Earth, scientists realize that our sun is dying and will soon end in an explosion that will destroy the galaxy.
COUNTDOWN: ARMAGEDDON After a series of catastrophic disasters, a destabilized society is pushed into a global war.
MEGAFAULT: A CRACK IN THE WORLD A massive earthquake threatens to tear the world in half.
INTERVIEW: SCOTT WHEELER AND DAVEY JONES ON JOUNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (2008) (Reposted from the 25.07.08)
Co-Directors Scott Wheller and Davey Jones stop by the chat bout there new film Journey to the Centre of the Earth.
B MOVIE NEWS: What got you interested in Visual Effects and Film Making? DAVEY JONES: I think the story is pretty much the same for just about everyone my age in the film business. It was Xanadu. When I saw it, it was like something inside me just flipped and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I’m just kidding of course. It’s the same old story: Star Wars.SCOTT WHELLER: I think like most people in my age group that moved into the movie business, Star Wars, was probably the tipping point where I knew I had to work on FX and movies in general. The advent of the personal computer brought me to computer visual FX. I wrote a bunch of line drawing programs in high school and college that we filmed with a super 8 camera and later portable video cameras.
BMN: How did you get involved with The Asylum? SW: Dave does these amazing fine art pieces where he combines real painting techniques with computer generated images. A local band wanted him to do a cover for them and the lead singer’s boyfriend was a director at the Asylum. Since up until then the Asylum had been having trouble with getting their FX done we got the intro to the Asylum and signed on to do FX for “The Apocalypse”. Since then we have done about 12 movies with them.
BMN: What’s your feeling about mockbusters in general? DJ: As a filmmaker, the “mockbuster” concept is interesting in that it gives you a general framework for the movie right off the bat. Once you get past the name, the actual stories (for the most part) are original concepts that that writers/directors/producers tweak to fit inside that framework. The original concept for Journey was something that Scott pretty much thought up on the spot. I have to admit that I’ve never read the book, but I’m familiar with the story. As far as I can tell, the Asylum’s telling of the tale is a complete rethinking of the concept.
SW: Just about every movie is a variation of another film. Nobody seems to make a stink when a big budget movie makes a variation of a low budget film. Frankly I think its marketing genius. It’s the film equivalent of drafting in NASCAR, you slide in behind the other film and let him block the wind for you. The big budget film uses their tremendous marketing machine to pitch the big budget movie and the low budget one tags along for the ride.Hell, you think its a ‘Coincidence’ that you get “Dantes Peak”/”Volcano”, or “Mission to Mars”/”Red Planet” or “Armageddon”/”Deep Impact”. The studios have been at this for years.
BMN: How did you get involved in JTTCOTE? DJ: We’ve been working with the Asylum for going on two years now. They asked us to pitch ideas for upcoming movies that they had on their slate (Journey being one of them). I guess they liked the concept we had enough to say yes and the rest is history.
SW: We were sitting in the producers office looking over the FX schedule for the year and they asked us to pitch some ideas. On the spot we pitched them the rough premise of a team stranded after a teleportation accident. The original story was much darker as the stranded team dealt with the local primitive humanoid inhabitants. But, it was off the top of our heads in 30 seconds and “The Core” of the story remained the same all the way through to the end.
BMN: I noticed that there a less lesbian undertones in Jules Verne’s original novel? What liberties did you take with the source material and why? DJ: We never thought “let’s try to stay true to the original” or anything like that. I might go so far as saying that other than the fact that they get stuck somewhere underneath the surface of the Earth and there are dinosaurs there, that anything else you can find that resembles the book is purely a coincidence.
SW: Our story really has nothing to do with the original story, there is a center of the Earth, and there are creatures there, that’s about it. Originally the team was 3 women and 3 men and we killed off 2 of the guys at the very beginning so it was 3 women and 1 man. Dave and I had different views as to how many women/men there should be. Finally he said “If you are gonna do that you might as well make them all women”… done. We changed the story to all women and left the romance sections/implications in. I figured we would just explain to the girls what had happened and we would not be playing those scenes that way. But, Sara showed up day one and asked “Where is my girlfriend?” so we left it in.
BMN: The film invert a lot of popular action film cliques was that a conscious decision on your behalf or did evolve naturally from the characters and the course of making the film? DJ: Scott had pretty much fleshed out the overall concept by the time I came on board to help with the writing. I believe that most of the overall film cliques and references were already in there. In the course of developing the characters, they begin to take on distinct personalities of their own, and you do start seeing the certain similarities in them to characters in other films. Then finally, when you get down to the nitty gritty of it and your standing out there in the hot sun listening to someone trying to cough out a line that worked so well on paper, another evolution of the story takes places as the everyone reworks it on the spot and so you have everyone pooling from their collective memories of characters and motivations. And so you can’t help but sub consciously put attributes on them that other characters you liked in the past had.
SW: I’ve always enjoyed movies that have strong female characters. Most action movies are centered around Rock Hardstone saving the hapless Polly Purepanties from some dastardly evil doer. It’s not that that’s a bad thing, it has made for a lot of good movies. I just like women to be able to fend for themselves and be every bit as competent as their male counterparts.
BMN: I think JTTCOTE is one of the best movies Asylum movies I’ve seen. What was the production like? What was it like co-directing. And what did you learn as a director. DJ: Why, thankyou. The films are generally shot in around eleven days. With such a short time frame to work with, production faces a number of extra challenges due to time constraints. For example, the park where we shot the exterior portions of the movie was supposed to be much more flexible when it came to where we could and couldn’t shoot. When we went to location scout the area in advance, we asked about specific parts of the park and then wrote scenes around being able to utilize those. One of those areas being the huge open field where the girls originally beam in. We had planned to shoot the ending of movie there as well, and in fact had written an ending where a horde of the smaller man-sized spiders were going to be chasing down the girls… Right when you think they are about to get killed by the spider horde, a whole pack of T-Rex’s swoop in and begin feeding on the spiders. Once we shoot the opening scenes in the big field the park ranger flipped out because some grass got trampled. (Seriously I’m not kidding here.) So from that point on we couldn’t shoot in that area. When we got to the end of the movie, we had to move to another park and find a new location. So the big red pen came out and we pretty much rewrote the finale’ right there on the spot based on what we had in front of us. The hordes of T-Rex and Spiders became a single big giant mama spider, which worked out well for us since we also own and operate the f/x company that does the digital effects for the Asylum’s movies. Given the time constraints we’re working with in the post side of things as well, the horde’s would have probably become a single giant spider in the end anyway. So you have to stay open to new ideas and be able to change everything on the spot.
Co-Directing with Scott worked out well. He and I have been working together for the better part of 15 years. When it comes to v/fx and post production, we have a system that we use that works pretty well and that same basic workflow carried over to production. We tried to use it to our advantage as much as possible whenever we could. For example sometimes we both worked on a scene, other times, Scott would shoot a scene while I was busy prepping for the next one. When he was done, I would shoot that scene while he figured out what he was going to do next. It also allowed us to get a little bit more sleep, which we desperately needed towards the end of the production. Sometimes, I would come in and shoot the scenes in the morning/early afternoon and he would pick up in the afternoon and run through to the end of the day while I went home and tried to get some sleep.
I think one of the most important things that I learned was that you have to just let go of some of your original ideas and just let things happen. Be prepared to wing it! I remember for the first couple of days I was going home and drawing little story boards at night. Of course when the next day rolls around, about half the time, the place where we thought we were going to be shooting changed or we found something better, or whatever. So then I would end up sort of playing catch up to my own storyboards. On the flip side Scott just had a list on paper that with little one line notes: two shot of Kristin and Gretchen discussing the crystal. Coverage of Gretchen taking the crystal, etc. In the end I think on a production of this nature that works so much better. You just have to go with the flow and find the opportunities where you can and the thing that matters the most is figuring out how to best exploit them for the good of the movie.
SW: The production was a ton of fun. I’ve been on set doing the FX Supervision for about 10 films with the Asylum, but, the directing/writing side was very enjoyable, I can’t wait to do it again. Dave and I had scenes and sequences that we wanted to do a specific way, so we split the movie out that way while maintaining a close eye on keeping things flowing together. I learned a lot about what you need to keep in mind to help actors get the most out of their characters. We were fortunate to have a group of really talented girls for Journey. They all had specific ideas of how their characters would act and inter relate. I had to learn to be flexible with the story and the dialog to help bring out the best in each performance. It’s easy to just dictate what words will be spoken, but, if you let the process be semi-organic then everyones ideas come out and the performances flow naturally. also learned a lot from working with Dedee Pfeiffer and Greg Evigan. They are both smart as hell and great actors, so, if you don’t bring your A-Game, and you are willing to listen, they will help you.
BMN: How much creative control did you have over the film? Did the Asylum have many demands e.g. there needed to be monsters ever ten minutes? As a co-director are your satisfied with it? DJ: I for one have to say that I was really pleasantly surprised at just how few demands the producers made on us when it came to the production. Of course there were notes and things they wanted to change for one reason or another, but for the most part what you see up on the screen is what we intended. Overall, I’d say that I’m very satisfied with the movie. We had a great crew, including Director of Photography Mark Atkins who has been working with the guy’s at the Asylum for quite a while. He has such a great sense for what will and will not work when it comes to this style of movie-making, and it saved our necks on more than one occasion. lso we had a fantastic score done by a composer named Chris Ride. He quite literally turned an entire orginal score around in less than a week. I think that’s the fun thing about these kinds of movies. Your always challenging yourself to come up with something without the luxuary of time on your side.
SW: We had a fair amount of creative control over the film, but, the bottom line is it’s not our film, it’s The Asylums and they have things they need to happen in the movie to sell it and make their money back. On balance I am very happy with how it came out as a first film.
BMN: I just have to ask this question for all the HARD CORE Asylum fans. I noticed that Michael Tower played a small character called Marty. Michael also plays Dr Alextzavitch in Transmorphers. As Transmorphers is set 300 years in the future is there any chance that Marty is Dr Alextzavitch’s great, great, great, great, grandfather? DJ: Man, that’s way above my head. Your going to have to ask Scott… or Latt.
SW: Yes. Journey is actually the beginning of a 9 part story arc that ends with Transmorphers. Marty and Doris will be back for story 3 where they open a portal to and alternate universe making the robot invaders aware we exist.
BMN: In your film there is an amazingly HOT, nerdy scientist called Grethen Lake. I know she’s a fictitious character but is there any chance you could pass on my number to her? DJ: After the whole ordeal, Gretchen went on to become a grade school teacher, and I believe is happily married to Marty. Although who knows. You might be able to take him in a fight.
SW: Gretchen is mostly reached by Sat Comm ID# N566LW. Caroline Attwood, the amazing actress that plays Gretchen, can be reached at 310-217-7638.
BMN: Let’s be honest a lot of people aren’t going to watch it and still criticize it on imdb.com for the very fact it’s a mockbuster. What’s your feelings about this? How do your prepare yourself for that? DJ: Yeah, I’ve noticed that trend on IMDB. Everybodies a critic these days. I can’t speak for Scott, but I’m not going to waste my time trying to defend what we’ve done. It would seem to me that these guys could find more constructive uses for their time. Like maybe they should send their pitches into the Asylum and get out there and see what they can do within the framework of one of these productions. If they can make a better movie, then more power to them.
SW: I find it all very amusing. Some guy with a Yoda T-Shirt in his mom’s basement will always engage in a keyboard Rambo flame war while eating cheese doodles and orange soda. Let him go for it. I enjoy reading the commentary. Every now and then a good idea comes out and I can use that in the future. If they take offense cause it’s a mockbuster I would say “grow up”, it’s marketing 101, find a product that is working and emulate it.
[EDITORS NOTE: While I was formatting this interview I logged on imdb and chekced the “JOURNEY” message board and found this. I though it was amusing enough to add. To get the full impact you might have to know that Leigh Scott/Slawner was a popular Asylum Director
|
by DirectorLeighHater (Wed Jul 16 2008 21:05:06)
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Is the Assylum [sic} really doing what I think it’s doing? It’s making a ripoff [sic] of a crappy children’s version of a movie that’s been done and redone approximately seventy billion times that’s based on a book that isn’t even that good to begin with? Seriously, that’s not rock bottom low, that’s Center of the Earth low.
”Leigh Slawner only happened because Chuck Norris was taking a nap.”] |
BMN: What’s next for you? SW + DJ: We start work on the next movie “Merlin and the War of the Dragons” in Wales in 2 days.
BMN: And to end with, I’ll give one more chance to sell your film! Why should we rent JTTOCOTE and what should we expect. SW: Cause its got hot babes and they are wet for most of the movie. DJ: Ditto.
BMN: Thanks for you time. Read our review of JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH.
ASYLUM UPDATES (Reposted from 30th of June 2008)
Asylum Updates are one of my favorite time of the B Movie Calendar. Like always they have outdone themselves. Have you ever wondered what The Asylum do when they’re not making Mockbusters? That’s right! They make religious films! They have two in production. The first one being EVIL! Which they say is “based on a classic legend”. What legend you say? I have a feeling its about as based on a ledged as STREET RACER was based on true events. If is acutely based on anything at all I would be mostly likely Pilgrims Progress or an medieval everyman play? I guess we’ll find out on August 19th! Soon following that is the long awaited Asylum Musical. Yes, on before the High School Musical, there was the SUNDAY SCHOOL MUSICAL! Following that we have MERLIN AND THE WAR OF THE DRAGONS. I have a strange feeling we wont be seeing much of the Dragon War and a lot reused footage of there production of DRAGON. Then they are finishing the year with literally a show stopper. If you standing please sit, if your eating food please swallow. I don’t want accidents when I tell you this next title. As we are all fans of sci-fi we’re aware of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, but NONE of us have experienced the terror of the THE DAY THE EARTH STOPPED!!! We have a lot to look forward to, then get disappointed as there movies are never as good as the posters and titles. But what are you going to do? Stop watching there films? I think NOT!
NEWS: NON-ASYLUM MOCKBUSTER (Reposted from the 28.04.08)
I’ve heard that David Latt at the Asylum doesn’t want to make superhero Mockbusters. Which I find a little strange as that’s seem to be were all the money is? They’ve made films about Transmorphing Robots, Giant Dragons and Fighting Aliens I wouldn’t imagine a story about a boy and his radioactive spider would be much of a stretch for them. Anyway the folks over at Halcyon Industry Pictures have taken full advantage of this and have brought out METAL MEN!
METAL MAN is about “a research scientist, trapped in a bio-helmet that can never be removed, seeks revenge on the man who robbed him of his work, family, and his identity.”
Hot on it’s tail is Cine Excel with VAMPIRE ASSASSIN which I assume is about a black Vampire Assassin. I like the tagline “His BLADE is shaper”. According to the Cine Excel website: “Ron Hall explodes on screen as an overly ambitious cop with a serious problem. As a child, the murder of his father left him scarred with an irrational fear of blood. When Derek conducts an unauthorized sting against notorious counterfeiter Gustoff Slovak, it ends in a bloodbath where his team is killed. Barely surviving, Derek is force to face the horror of something he could never have imagined. Slovak is actually a vampire!Suspended from duty and shunned by his colleagues, Derek meets Master Kao, the last of a long line of great vampire hunters. Impressed that Derek has managed to survive, he agrees to instruct him the ways of the assassin. Derek discovers not only was Slovak once one of the most powerful vampires hunters, but it was he who killed his father. If Derek hopes to stop Slovak, not only must he overcome his fear of blood, he must become what he hates the most� a vampire himself! It’s high concept action, spine-tingling suspense and spectacular special effects. It’s Man vs. Monster, Hero vs. Legend and Vampire vs.Vampire! Derek Washington is theVampire Assassin” VAMPIRE ASSASSIN feature Ray Rude Moore aka DOLEMITE.
LESLIE MORRIS 28.04.08
NEWS: ALAN QUATERMAIN AND THE TEMPLE OF SKULLS (Reposted 31.03.08)
If you’re a regular reader you will know that on March 23th Uwe Boll is planning to destroy Indiana Jones 4 at the box-office with Postal his twenty million dollar “trashy, video game, anti establishment” masterpiece! Could they both be eclipsed on April 29th by the micro budget, epic, Alan Quatermain and the Temple of Skulls? Popular option (and basically everyone except myself) says No! It doesn’t look like its going to topple Indy out of the box-office but it dose look like one hell of a good time! Director Mark Atkins has been working day and night trying to finish the film but he took some time off to give us some details:
“The story follows the arc of the original H.R. Haggard novel KING SOLOMON’s MINES…with the additions of a love interest for Quatermain (the 1950’s version with Stuart Granger and Deborah Kerr does this also) and we added an enemy for Quatermain…the evil Hartford who is tracking Quatermain and his party through out the film. In our film Quatermain is hired by Lady Anna and Sir Henry to find Lady Anna’s lost brother Neville who disappeared while searching for the legendary and mysterious King Solomon’s Mines…Quatermain reluctantly agrees to take the assignment and they venture across Africa in search of the lost brother. Using scraps of an ancient map they cross into uncharted territory to all the while being tracked by Quatermain’s nemesis, Anisley Hartford. I don’t want to go into more detail but like the novel the story culminates with Quatermain and his gang (which includes the mysterious Umbopa character) entering Zulu territory and meeting the despotic Zulu King Twala and his tribe.
The production was shot with a micro crew on HD, on a marathon shoot of two weeks traversing a good part of South Africa, we did our best to film in the locations of the novel or locations which emulate H.R. Haggard’s South Africa of the novel.
We tried to make an old fashioned adventure film inspired by films in the thirties. particularly I was inspired by the western, DESTRY RIDES AGAIN with Jimmy Stewart and Marlene Dietrich…for the relationship with Quatermain and Lady Anna…
We had a tiny budget but we filmed on Steam Trains and high mountains, deep caverns and in a real Zulu village so we believe are film will have an authenticity that many Allan Quatermain films has been lacking… and yes, it is a B MOVIE (the studios have kind of taken over the B’s in some ways too) but we hope it stands out in the tradition of the great B MOVIES…an entertaining story with characters you enjoy. CAST:
Sean Cameron Michael – Allan Quatermain
Christopher Adamson – plays Anisley Hartford Bbad guy)
Natalie Stone — Lady Anna (Allan’s love interest)
Daniel Bonjour – Sir Henry
Wittly Jourdan – Umbopa
Nick Everhart – Neville
King Twala – Thomas Fakude
General Infadoos – Phiwayinkosi Gumede
LESLIE MORRIS 31.03.08
NEWS: ASYLUM: THE NEXT WAVE (Reposted from 26.02.08)
A lot of people hate the Asylum and there Mockbuster but I personally cant get enough. I find them so absurd that they’re impossible not to like. And they take it with good humor. This is seen there they’re websites latest post. The post was about how they haven’t intentionally stopped posting comments. They’re host, wasn’t notifying them that comments were in waiting. They ended the post with “I promise I’ll check the site more often… so keep sending that input… how else will we know that you want us to die?” Thats funny stuff 😉 Ok so what’s new with the Asylum!
100 MILLION BC has been pushed back. It was going to be released on the 11th of March of “mock” along side Roland Emmerich’s 10,000 BC. It move may have something to do with the fact that the hard drive with the lock cut of the film died days before it had to be delivered. They’re web site claims that it due to the fact that the Sci-fi channel has agreed to give the film a world premiere this summer. The dvd has been pushed back to July 29, 2008. 100 MILLION BC directed by Giff Furst. I’ve heard its pretty good. Giff Furst is in post production with two other non-asylum films “Girl’s Gone Dead” and “Movin’In”.
The trailer for WAR OF THE WORLD 2: THE NEXT WAVE is up. . Its next installing is Starring and directed by C. Thomas Howell. “The Next Wave” will invading on April 1st 2008.
..end year and date info for individual film–>STREET RACES. I could find anything about this movie other than its log line.” After recovering from a tragic accident, a former street racer struggles to redeem himself and join the elite racing world…end year and date info for individual film–> ” With any luck with will comes with its own annoying theme song 😉 On that note check out the new Speed Racer trailer . http://imdb.com/title/tt0811080/trailers-me60811758 This will be ripping up on shelves on May 27th 2008.
Jules Vern’s JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH. Boy the public domain has serves these guys well. It will be breaking though to the surface on July 1, 08 The new 3-D verison starring Brendan Fraser will be out July 11, 2008.
Now we come to what I think think is going to be my favorite film “ALLAN QUATERMAIN AND THE TEMPLE OF SKULLS”. I’ve got a feeling this film is going to be fantastic. Who would want to make a Indian Jones mockbuster. I think its ironic that Indian Jones was really just a Allan Qauterman mockbuster now the mock as because the busted… as it were!
I’ve been bugging Asylum (and the director via his myspace page) for more information. All I know is its there most adventitious production yet. It was filmed in South American and will be hitting the urban jungles on April 29, 2008
LESLIE MORRIS 26.02.08
BLOG: TRANSMORPHERS AND THE BIRTH OF THE MOCKBUSTER
Ultimately movies have two critics they’re names are Art and Money. It’s ok if you’re not familiar with them most people aren’t. And only a few film makers know both of them well. Art and Money have an uneasy relationship. They tend to disagree more than they agree. They’re the original odd couple. Its like Money is from Mars and Art is from Venus. Money LOVED Meet the Spartans while Art hated it. Art LOVED Almost Famous and Money hated it. And both of them hated Bladerunner to start off with, but over time have come to love it. Writers and directors tend to like Art’s option but producers and investor tend to side with Money. Some extremist would like to think that you only need the praise of Art, as Moneys option is worthless… well that would be true if we lived in some magical world where people lived off fresh art and sunshine. On the other extreme people think you only need the praise of Money… well this is also true if we lived in a world without fresh art and sunshine. If movies are to advance they need both a large soul and wallet.
The Asylum is very familiar with both Art and Money. They started out disturbing award winning art house films… that no one wanted to see. In order win over both critics they concentrate on making and disturbing mainstream horror and comedy movies. Over two hundred film later they were still finding it to be rather hit and miss. In 2005 they decided to try something new they started piggybacking major Hollywood Blockbusters. This is a pretty common practice that made people like Roger Corman and Bruno Mattei rich. ‘The Asylum’ piggyback on Steven Spielberg’s War of the World with there own H.G. Well’s War of the Worlds. No one would have believed in the early years of the 21st century that this crazy ass plan would have worked. They ended up making a good film and Blockbuster ordered 100,000 copies which is seven to eight times the typical order from there normal movies. Some people say they went crazy with power. They pigged like no one had ever backed before. They would give birth to the genera known as the ‘MOCKBUSTER’. Most piggyback films don’t want to draw a lot of attention to its Hollywood counterpart while the Mockbusters want to draw as much attention as humanly possible. They’re as subtle as a shot gun wound to the head. Snakes on a Plane would become Snakes on a Train, Alien Vs Predator: Requiem became Alien Vs Hunter, The Da Vinci Code becomes The Da Vinci Treasure and so on and so on.
Now I know what you’re thinking “WHY ARE THEY DOING THIS?” The answer is simple. Money and Art! Most of there Mockbuster are original screen plays with unoriginal titles. The mock title allows them to make more money and reach a larger audience by doing the same job. They would be crazy not to do it.
Now I know what you’re thinking “Why on earth would anyone buy one copy of a movie called Alien Vs Hunter let alone 100,000 copies”. Because they sell… well maybe not AVH, it was a bad example. Every successful Blockbuster creates a demand in the market for similar kinds of films. The average person doesn’t want to wait another 2 year to see the sequel but they are willing to shell out a couple of bucks to rent a Mockbuster of lesser quality in the hope its half way decent. They day Blockbuster stop buying Mockbuster is that day they will stop making them.
Firstly I would like to talk about the massive amount of criticism this film has received. The majority of the arguments against this film are down right hilarious. Every negative review I’ve ever read about this film claims that the average person is going to get it confuse TransMORPHES with TransFORMERS, these same reviewers also take great joy in pointing that the title is in fact NOT called Transformers. I find this argument a little silly. Maybe it would be valid if they were copying smaller obscure films that no one has ever heard of but Transformers is a house hold name. The average five year old could point out that Transmorphers IS NOT Transformers. Even if they had trick a few money I doubt anyone is retiring off the money. I’ve searched online but I haven’t yet managed to find a single person who has been tricked into renting it. If you have the director has gone on the record saying that he will personally refund your money. From my research the only people who are getting confused are people who download it by mistake, and do they’re option really count? Others have called they’re publicity campaigns deceitful. They’re tactless, tasteless, but not deceitful. It’s all pretty obvious what they’re doing. The only way it could be deceitful is if Transmorphers wasn’t about giant morphing robots and really a period film about French, lesbian, vampire, school girls.
Then the critics often raise the moral question asking weather its right to make rip off films. In fact I had this very conversation yesterday in a comic book store. The guy I was talking to was genuinely disgusted that someone would try and cash in on The Transformers movie, the then (I kid you not) he walked out in anger. I found this very confusing, it’s not like anyone made the (totally kick arse) Transformers movie for sake of art. Come on, one credit reads “Based on the Hasbro Action Figures”. The movie was made so a dead franchise could be restarted. The cartoon was basically a half hour ad from the toys. If any movie deserves a Mockbuster it’s this one! I think most critics take this film WAY too seriously. It’s a beer and pizza movie and they treating it as if it was something more. I can’t see how you can direct a Mockbuster without having a good sense of humor.
So lets move on to Transmorphers. This basic plot is that a race of alien robots called the Zbot’s have conquered Earth and forced humanity underground. After 400 years, a small group of humans develop a plan to defeat them. This results in the ultimate battle between man and machine.
The best thing about this film is its giant mental ball, in particular the ball of the director Leigh Scott. If the worth of a film was calculated by its sheer ambition and determination this would be one of the greatest films of all time. In fact it’s a minor miracle that this film was even made. The budget was $250,000 (more than half of that went on effects) and it was shot in 12 days. A lesser man would have crumbled under this kind of pressure. Let’s put that in some context. Napoleon Dynamite was made on $400,000 and had a bunch of kids (hilariously) staring blankly at each other for an hour and a half. Transmorphers was an action sci-fi film that had massive pyrotechnics explosions, rain effects, set, a large cast and badly animated cgi robots. If anything the film looks like a cheaply made low budget film rather than good looking ultra low budget film. Leigh Scott should be commented for pulling it all together and NOT going crazy. But his direction was far from being flawless. There were a few key scenes that feel flat. But the over all time and vibe of the film felt right. The film looked great. It had that terminator/matrix feel with hints of Mario Bava’esq lighting. There is nothing special about the computer generated effects. In fact they maybe some of the worst effects ever committed to film. Which is a real shame as all land battle scenes that surround the bad cgi looks great.
The performances are all over the place. For me Griff Furst (Itchy) and Sarah Hall (Blair) are the two break out stars if this film. Eliza Swenson looks great (but she might have been sexier with an eye patch) she is normally a great actor but just wasn’t right for this role. You neither loved her nor loved to hate her. Also there seemed to be TOO many women with black hair, when everyone is wearing the same thing it’s a little hard to tell them apart.
One of the best things about this film is the killer soundtrack by ‘The Divine Madness’ by far the worst thing about it is the sound. Someone really messed up bad in the final mix and at least half of the sound is out of sync. This is very off putting and makes the film almost unwatchable (But it gets better each viewing. The movie not the sound problem, that is). Due to the high demand the second batch they shipped had correct sounds and extra visual and sound effects.
I don’t know weather to recommend this movie. So how about I end like this. If only a more time and money could have been given to this film it could have been an underground hit. I think money loved this film, and art really wanted to but just couldn’t. LESLIE MORRIS
P.S. You’ll be glad to know that Leigh Scott has left “The Asylum” he has now started his own production company called Black Thorn Industries. I can’t wait to see what he can do with a decent budget and creative control. I’ve got a feeling that in a few years “B Movie News” won’t be technically allowed to review his films. 😉
DVD REVIEW: 100 MILLION BC (2008)
| Director: Griff Furst Writer: Paul Bales Starring: Michael Gross, Christopher Atkins Distributor: THE ASYLUM | |||
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DVD REVIEW: TRANSMORPHERS: FALL OF MAN (2009)
Transmorphers: Fall of Man (2009) is a modern day prequel to dystopian Tranmorphers (2007).Transmorphers: Fall of Man or T2 as I will call it is pretty much an unrelated prequel. The only thing that connect the two films are the zbots and a surname. Despite its obvious flaws, I really like the original Tranmorphers due to its strong tones and unique world it created. None of that carries over to this film. In fact there is nothing Tranmorpher-que in this film at all. This is a “by the numbers” affair. They could have inserted any random monster in and it wouldn’t affect the plot that much.
This film takes WAY too long to get started. I almost turned it off around the thirty minute mark. The first forty minutes is wasted by setting up dull characters and a minimal plot. Everything takes longer than it needs to. These types of films don’t need a lot of set up BECAUSE WE GET IT! “Alien Robots invade earth. Yes, I get it. Stop talking! Let’s see them!” We want to watch cool robot aliens destroying stuff, not a plot that’s goes on where.
Also in these types of films don’t need in-depth characters as much as colorful ones. The first movie had heaps of memorable characters. I can’t remember half of there names but I can remember who they are such as the kooky doctor, the sexy female General and the English cyborg. The only nice thing you can say about these characters is that the lead looks like Dolph Lundgren. That’s not to say that the actors are bad. They seem to be doing there best with the material they have. Naturally Bruce Boxleitner and Jennifer Rubin are slightly better, but I doubt it’s going to make it onto their show reels. On that note I’m SO happy that Tron (Bruce Boxleitner) is in the film. Full marks for casting! The only thing I like about this section of the film is learning about the Transmorphers back-story. It turns out that the alien crash at Roswell supplies the blue prints of all modern technology. This means the Zbots now can tranmorph out of any electrical device such as mobile phones.
This goes into a 20 minutes action sequence in which the humans fight there first Zbot. I don’t know if the sequence is legitimately good, or you’re just so desperate to see action at this point, it seems much better than it is. Who cares? I like it. From what I can gather the humans need to stop the robot before it can get a signal back to the rest of fleet. They managed to stop the robot, but 20 minutes later more zbots attack and Jennifer Rubin gives a bad excuses as to why. What annoys me most about this film is that nothing these characters do has any affect on the plot what so ever. So it’s now around the hour mark and the surviving characters flee to the desert. There they find more zbots that look more like the ones in the pervious film. The cgi is better than that of the first film, but if you’ve seen the first film you know that’s not saying a lot. I would have like to see different zbot as I’ve never really liked their design in the first place. Also all the zbots have a pissy little ray gun that comparable to something Spock might use.
So the humans regroup and they decide to take out “that thing that’s going to stop the Zbots, but in fact does nothing”. They soon meet this old man that gives them way too much information and sets up the plot too much for him. It turns out he has already put explosives in “that thing that’s going to stop the Zbots, but in fact does nothing” but they need someone to activity it aka Jack Van Ryber aka the hero aka the guy who looks a little like Dolph Lundgren. So the old man gets killed before he works out that he doesn’t really need these useless humans. Insert one anticlimactic ending and we’re about done with this movie. It turns out they taken out that thing that’s going to stop the Zbots, but we learn that in fact it does nothing. The robots win, and humanity goes underground. Don’t worry they only have 400 years of fighting the zbots ahead of them.
Two things in the film made me smile. Firstly they actually use the world Tranmoph! Thank you for going there. Secondly the ending is so Terminator Salvation. The only thing that was missing was the line “This is Jack Van Rybe, and if you can hear me, you are the resistance”.
This films isn’t unwatchable. If you have to choice between two unrealized low budget robot films I’ll go for the first one.
LESLIE MORRIS 28/09/09
DVD REVIEW: 18 YEAR OLD VIRGIN (2009)
Director: Tamara Olson
Writer: Naomi L. Selfman
Starring: Olivia Alaina May
Distributor: The Asylum
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While watching it, I kept thinking to myself “This should be more funny that it is”. The script has a lot to offer. It funny, not too ambitious for it’s budget and offers a nice gender reversal (as sex comedies tend to be about them). What lets down the film is bad direction. The film gets off to a bad start to which it never recovers. It starts with the three main characters having sexual fantasies. As we have no idea who they are, it just comes across as confusing. It’s also a sleazy “soft core porn” feel which isn’t good. This is followed up by more confusing jokes and needless exposition. The film gets funnier as it goes along. The third act is really quite good it hits all the right notes (or is that pull or the right moves).
18-YEAR OLD VIRGIN has a strong cast. Everyone’s a winner. Olivia Alaina May is incredible endearing as Katie “The Virgin” Powers. Lauren Walsh is incorrigible Rose, her reckless best friend. Todd Leigh is very likable as Spencer. It doesn’t hurt that he looks like Luke Wilson. I’m not sure of his name (I think it could be Jonathan Michael Trautmann as Marshall) but I really like Spencer’s best friend. The actor looks like he’s 15 and spends all his screen time being vulgar and a “expert” on women. I loved him! The main theme song is really catchy and there is a great extra feature in which involves the cast talking about the first them they had sex. The 18 Year Old Virgin features boobs, bongs, a French talking penis, senior citizen sex, and a merkin! If you decide to rent it, do yourself a favor and skip the start. Start watching from the third chapter.
LESLIE MORRIS 23/04/09
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