Edge of Tomorrow is great. A really solid high concept scifi action movie anchored by Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt’s undeniable chemistry. Age of Tomorrow, The Asylum’s mockbuster of the same movie is a little different in that it’s not high concept, there’s very little action, and the leads have the kind of chemistry you would associate with rotting vegetable matter. I can usually find something laudable about these films but this one is a bit of a struggle. Listen along to find out how The Asylum goes about filming a serious fire in a building they only have for the afternoon. Also Robert Picardo is there.
S2E14 - Enter the Asylum - Transmorphers (2007)
It’s possible there are worse film makers out there than Michael Bay and if there are they’ve almost certainly worked for The Asylum at some point. Transmorphers is their attempt to recreate the cinematic magic of Bay’s Transformers movie, an astonishing franchise that somehow manages to be much stupidity than the Saturday morning cartoon from the 80s. How well does it work? Listen along to find out.
S2E10 = Enter the Asylum - Battle for Pandora (2022)
If there’s one thing The Asylum loves it’s riffing on the work of James Cameron. Battle for Pandora, timed to coincide with the release of Avatar: The Way of Water in 2022 attempts to ride on the coattails of Cameron’s beautiful but boring science fiction epics. There’s no money for an actual epic so instead they follow a well-worn path in low budget science fiction. How well does it land? Listen along to find out.
S2E9 - Enter the Asylum - Android Cop (2014)
In 2014 there was arguably only one film less hotly anticipated than the remake of Robocop and that was the mockbuster of the remake of Robocop. Android Cop, The Asylum’s foray into the world of Robocop rip offs, a remarkable fecund genre of movie. It’s got a stacked cast by the standards of Asylum movies since it features both Michael Jai White and Charles S Dutton in key roles. But will the middling star power of the man who starred in Spawn be enough to save this movie? Listen along to find out.
S2E7 - Enter the Asylum - Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus (2009)
In which HJDoom spends far too many words talking about The Asylum’s 2009 creature feature that does more or less what it says on the tin. There’s a shark. There’s an octopus. There’s no money. Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus stars Debbie Gibson, Lorenzo Lamar, Vic Chao, and Sean Lawlor. It was written and directed by Jack Perez under the pseudonym Ace Hannah.
S2E6 - Enter The Asylum - The Terminators (2009)
Who knew that you could avoid infringing the copyright of The Terminator by simply sticking a letter S on the end? The Asylum that’s who. This was far from their first rodeo and it’s an effort to cash in on Terminator Salvation a film that looks better in retrospect only because everything got much worse after that point. The Terminator takes the core premise of a robot uprising but adds a little of that low budget magic by relocating most of the action to a small town in the middle of nowhere. Is it any good? No. Obviously not but is it any good by the peculiar standards of Asylum movies? Listen along to find out.
S2E5 - Enter the Asylum - Monster Mash (2024)
The Universal Monster movies are one of my absolute favourite things so the obvious thing to do was watch a deeply cynical attempt to cash in on their unique visual aesthetic whilst spending as little money as possible. What a glorious time to be alive.