The Asylum, that purveyor of ultra-low-budget DTV schlock like ‘Transmorphers‘ and ‘Almighty Thor‘, is back this week with the Blu-ray release of yet another rip-off of a recognizable mainstream property. This time it’s ‘American Warships‘, a film previously known as ‘The American Battleship’ until a lawsuit from Universal triggered a last-minute re-title. As the fine artists and craftsmen at the studio gear up for their next quickie production (after next week’s ‘Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies‘), we thought that we might use today’s Roundtable to offer up suggestions for their next great “mockbuster.”
Tom Landy
They walk the catwalk and get into catfights. Welcome to the annual Miss Winnipeg Beach Pageant, where a dozen sizzling bikini-clad babes vie for sexy supremacy! Join fan favorite Edie Stark, blonde bombshell Dani Calgaryen, and of course newcomer Ayla Nester, who always jiggles their breasts in… ‘Game of Thongs‘! Better hurry, though, girls. Winter is coming.
Chris Boylan (Big Picture Big Sound)
Larry Potter, Harry’s lesser-known, white trash, gadget-crazy, amateur photographer, hypochondriac, junk food-addicted Squib brother stars in his own series of completely non-magical adventures, including:
‘Larry Potter and the Jailbroke iPhone‘
‘Larry Potter and the Canister of Sucrets‘
‘Larry Potter and the Janitor from Kazakhstan‘
‘Larry Potter and the Meth Lab on Fire‘
‘Larry Potter and the Order of the Kleenex‘
‘Larry Potter and the Four by Six Prints‘
‘Larry Potter and the Marshy Mallows‘
Adam Tyner (DVDTalk)
What if Asylum was to play the mash-up game and make a biopic-slash-musical-slash-sci-fi epic? Think about it: ‘June Carter of Mars‘. She acts. She sings. She jumps. That’s a triple threat for sure! She could teach the Martian armies about life and about LOVE. With a soundtrack teeming with songs like “Baby, It’s Cold Outside (In the Martian Ice Fields),” “Valles Marineris Hayride,” and “Barsoomian Pride,” it’s a lock to go platinum.
Aaron Peck
The remake of ‘Total Recall’ is coming out this year, and this would be a perfect time for the lazy plagiarists at Asylum to churn out a schlocky sci-fi action movie called ‘Complete Remembrance‘. The plot would more or less mirror that of ‘Total Recall’, only they’d change stuff like Mars to Pluto just to show us that they tried their hardest to think up something new. This time around, the protagonist would be played by Steven Segal. Because who could say no to Steven Segal fighting bad guys on Pluto?
Brian Hoss
It seems that the key to Asylum Studios’ film concepts is twofold: having a name imitative enough of a big-budget feature to cause confusion, and a production that can be carried out on the level of drunken Civil War reenactments. With that in mind, I can see ‘The Haggard Games‘ or ‘Mrs. Snow White Hunts Men‘ tearing up the I Heart Video rental chain’s top five rental list. But really, I think that they could get ahead of the game by producing ‘The Dead Walking‘, a film about zombie attacks in Georgia during the American Civil War. The boon of capitalizing on the success of ‘The Walking Dead’ without competing with an actual ‘Walking Dead’ movie would be all the more Asylumesque by recycling most, if not all, of the costumes, makeup and even footage from ‘Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies’.
M. Enois Duarte
Seeing as how so many movies are comic book-related lately, I’m actually surprised that Asylum Studios hasn’t already done some cheap superhero film. [Ed.: I guess E. missed ‘Almighty Thor’. -JZ] Now, I’m not suggesting that they spend the money on the rights to an already established series (unless they can afford something like ‘The Tick’ and have it star Patrick Warburton). Rather, they should develop a unique original character. And since superheroes are often based on critters from the animal kingdom, they can make a movie called ‘The Mantis‘, in which a science experiment on a praying mantis gone horribly wrong mutates a young, ambitious entomologist who is forced to fight Spotted Owl Man, the Angry Frogger and the Sticky Chameleon.
Josh Zyber
It seems to me that, after having ripped-off all conceivable manner of mainstream movies, the next logical step for The Asylum is to start ripping off itself. Hence, I propose that the studio’s next movie should be ‘Battle of Alien Warship Transmorphers vs. Almighty Super Bikini Cyclone Zombies vs. Giant Mega Octopus‘. It’ll be totally meta!
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Don’t even pretend that you wouldn’t stop to watch some of these while flipping past the Syfy channel. I know you would.
Give us some better ideas in the Comments.
M. Enois Duarte
Yeah, I totally missed out on ‘Almighty Thor.’ But maybe that’s a good thing. LOL
EM
Alien Firebringer might be OK, but I look forward to Frankendoggie.
EM
Oh, and where’s Shadowy Darkness?
JM
Shame Vs. Showgirls.
The Holy Bible II.
Mega John Malkovich.
Clockwork Teal.
Robopimp.
The Hobbot.
World War Shaky Cam.
The Black Knight Poses.
Cogan’s Hobby.
Les Indifferentables.
The Revengers.
Django Chained, But Not Kept An Eye On.
Josh Zyber
AuthorI had intended to comment that Tom wins this Roundtable for ‘Game of Thongs’, but I really feel that I need to see ‘Mega John Malkovich’ now. 🙂
EM
I look forward to the sequel: Mega John Malkovich vs. Mecha John Malkovich.
Tom Landy
Don’t forget the sequels:
‘Being Mega John Malkovich’ and ‘Being Mecha John Malkovich.’
Tom Landy
Actually I guess those would be the prequels.
JM
Mega John Malkovich vs. Mecha Nicolas Cage: The Battle For Synecdoche, New York.
Shayne Blakeley
Absolute gold right here
RCorman
Men in Ebony Suits
Corporal America
Iron Human
The Starving Games
TROFF
EM
TROFF gave me a good chuckle. 🙂
Chaz Dumbaugh
Yeah the idiots that did all the parody movies are already making the Starving Games, lord why do people keep supporting this garbage?
Julian
Maybe The Asylum can rip off “Hook” and call it “Line” of “Sinker”? Otherwise, they should bother with “Away from the Future”, “Showing Truman”, “Bluesy Brothers”, “Father of God”, “Running Blades” and “Found in Translation”.
Shayne Blakeley
Temperate Slidings
JM
One of the earliest films ever recorded was a boxing match between cats, shot in 1894 by Thomas Edison.
‘Professor Welton’s Trained Cat Circus’ boasted cats that rode bicycles, turned somersaults, and walked through fire, but the boxing cats, equipped with miniature boxing gloves and set to brawling, were the most popular.
Reboot, please.
Chaz Dumbaugh
Yay, now we have an article about one of the worst movie production companies on the planet, why does anyone support these guys and WHO in their right mind is actually renting these movies to keep giving these guys money?
I get watching stuff on occasion on a Saturday night on the TV (I used to watch USA Up All Night all the time), but I just cant believe they get away with making total garbage like this, horrible acting (not even cheesy or funny), awful CGI, some of the worst editing I’ve ever seen and of course dont forget the pretty much blatant plagiarism and usually total rip off of every major movie, I’m glad Universal finally did something about their practices, I’ve never been able to sit through a whole movie of theirs and I wish they simply didnt exist, because then at least Scifi would be playing movies from better indy companies for their Saturday premiers.
JM
Vivid’s porn parody ‘The Dark Knight XXX’ already looks better than ‘Batman & Robin.’
I wonder who makes more money, Vivid or Asylum?