The Asylum "Mockbusters": Journey To The Center Of The Earth, and 100 Million BC
The Asylum "Mockbusters":
Journey To The Center Of The Earth & 100 Million BC
Tonight's science-fiction double feature is more about a concept of filmmaking rather than just a review of two bad films. The idea of parody and straight up ripoffs of blockbuster films is nothing new, we all can think of a million Star Wars and Alien ripoffs from the 1970s and 1980s (many of which were produced by Roger Corman), and then of course the Porno parodies that we all love to laugh at. But there is a special kind of big budget ripoff called "mockbusters", which are released directly to video/DVD right around the time that a major blockbuster film will be released, these films are designed to capitalize on the popularity of the big budget blockbuster, and they are made very quickly at extremely low budgets, and put into the video stores and video rental stores while the big budget version is still in the theaters. The profit model of these basically work like this: Everyone is thinking about this big budget blockbuster, and then they see a film of the same name in the video store and check it out. The production company The Asylum has had a lot of success with this model. You might know The Asylum for original films such as Sharknado which have gone on to become a cult classic film series. The thing is all of their films are as ridiculously bad as Sharknado, it is just kind of what they do, and it makes them a lot of money. They are the kings of "mockbusters" with films like Snakes On A Train, Sunday School Musical, The Day The Earth Stopped, HG Wells' War Of The Worlds (which I have done a review of), and of course Journey To The Center Of The Earth, and 100 Million BC. Often times their versions of films have nothing to do with the big budget film that they are capitalizing off of, or are parodies of the films that they are capitalizing off of. These are not good movies, but in a way they do have their own charm, and they do have a following. You do not watch one of these films to see a good film, or even a film of even b-film quality, you watch these for two reasons: 1. because they are so laughably bad, or 2. you bought the wrong film expecting it to be the big budget blockbuster that it is a mockbuster of.
Now you might be wondering: How is this legal? The answer is, because films who they share an exact name with are based on a Public Domain property (Journey To The Center Of The Earth or War Of The Worlds for example are both novels that have gone into public domain), or they name of the film is similar enough but are also different enough as to not infringe on copyright laws (like The Day The Earth Stopped or Snakes On A Train). Many big companies have tried to sue makers of "mockbusters", but most have lost, because though they are similar enough to capitalize on the name of the big budget film, they are different enough that they don't actually break any copyright laws. There are a few exceptions though, for example Warner Brothers sued The Asylum for their film "Age Of Hobbits" in 2012 and won because Warner Brothers held a trademark on the word "Hobbit", and the courts forced The Asylum to change the name of the film, which they changed to The Clash Of Empires.
Some of the big names in the "mockbuster" genre are Jetlag Productions, Video Bringuedo, Dingo Pictures, GoodTimes Entertainment, Bruno Mattei, and of course The Asylum. Not all of these films are completely terrible, and some have grown their own cult followings. The Asylum has also done a lot of work for The SyFy Channel, including making the television series Z-Nation, and have also made films like Zoombies, and other super low budget films that you have probably seen on Netflix or other streaming services, and there is a bit of a charm to these films, they know they are bad, and they don't pretend that they aren't, and don't pretend to be anything other than they are. If there are b-films, I would say that films by The Asylum might more qualify as z-films, quality they aren't but so ridiculously bad that they can inspire laughter they are.
Journey To The Center Of The Earth is a 2008 release by The Asylum. The film was directed by David Jones and Scott Wheeler, and written by Steve Bevilacqua and extremely loosly based on the 1864 novel of the same name by Jules Verne, though also pulling inspiration from 1914 novel At The Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Though inspired by these two works of classic science fiction literature, this film is only extremely loosely inspired, and is anything but a literary film.
The film stars Greg Evigan as Joseph Harnet, Dedee Pfeiffer (the sister of Michelle Pfeiffer) as Amily Radford, Vanessa Lee Evigan (the daughter of Greg Evigan), as Victoria Jansen, Caroline Attwood as Gretchen Lake, Amelia Jackson-Gray as Kate Burroughs, Sara Tomko as Betsey Case, Vanessa Mitchell as Eve Abraham, and Michael Tower as Marty. To call this cast "actors" is a bit of a liberal use of the word "actor", as there really isn't anything close to actual acting happening in this film. Most high school theater troupes could do a better performance than the cast of this film.
The film is about an all female military team who are being teleported to (fuck I forgot where they were trying to go), but the experimental teleportation device malfunctioned and they got teleported to the center of the Earth, which is populated by some of the worst CGI Dinosaurs and Spiders that have ever been put on to film. The only of the women that has any redeeming qualities is Gretchen who is the intellectual member of the group, the others are just irritating. There is this hint of a lesbian love with one girl who is always bullying another girl, and after the death of the one girl, there is this sense that she didn't just lose a member of her squad, but that she actually felt a bit of heartbreak, like she lost her lover, which was the closest thing to real emotion that I have seen in the film. Honestly if you allow yourself to create that lesbian love between the characters, it creates something slightly interesting in the film. Like it starts to make sense that she is always teasing and picking on that girl, if what our moms told us in elementary school was true, "he's only picking on you because he likes you". This film isn't good, not even in a so bad it's good sense, it is just so bad that it is bad.
Don't watch this film, even if you love low budget films, even if you love "mockbusters" don't watch this one. With The Asylum's production of War Of The Worlds, at least it was true to the book, even if it was extremely bad, it at least had that redeeming quality, but Journey To The Center Of The Earth has no redeeming qualities at all, and is completely not worth watching at all. Just avoid this film, don't get tempted, if you are looking for a "so bad it's good" type film there are so many better options. This film is like a steaming pile of dog shit in the yard that you dripped over a rake and fell headfirst with your mouth open into so hard that you got knocked out and laid with your mouth full of dog shit for an hour...and that is a kind way of describing this film...avoid at all costs.
100 Million BC stars Michael Gross as Fr. Frank Reno, Christopher Atkins as Erik Reno, Greg Evigan as LCDR Ellis Dorn, Stephen Blackehart as Lt. Robert Peet, Geoff Mead as CPO Lopes, Wendy Carter as Betty, Marie Westbrook as Ruth, Dean Kreyling as Chief Stark, Phil Burke as Stubbs, Nick McCallum as Burke, Aaron Stigger as Manriquez, Daniel Ponsky as Jones, James Viera as Przyzicki, Dustin Harnish as Young Frank Reno, and Prince Pheenix Wade as Myrick. The only really notable actors in the film are Michael Gross who you might recognize from the Tremors film series as well as the Family Ties television series, Stephen Blackehart you might recognize from Tromeo and Juliet and the many films he did with James Gunn, and Greg Evigan is a regular in films by The Asylum. Other than that, the acting here is pretty abysmal and pretty much exactly what one comes to expect from the The Asylum films.
This is bad, the special features look absolutely terrible, the story is a basic story about an elite military team (that seems pretty bad at being an elite military teams since they all die), are sent back in time to rescue a group that was sent back in time and stranded back in the 1950s (as part of the research that was associated with the urban legend of the Philadelphia Experiment). So this team goes back to find them, and then when they come back a Dinosaur follows them through and is now running rampant in Los Angeles. This isn't quite as bad as The Asylum's Journey To The Center Of The Earth, but that is like saying eating dog shit isn't quite as bad as drinking cat piss, either way it is horrific. This is not fun to watch even in a "so bad it's good" sort of way, and that is saying a lot because I love bad films, and two of my favourite directors are Ed Wood and Roger Corman, and I think that this is so bad it is painful to watch, so that is saying a lot. But when you see Asylum's name on a film, you know that is what you are there for is to see just how bad a film really can be. This is a study in how to not make a movie, bad script, abysmal acting, painfully bad special effects, and terrible cinematography, this film is everything that could be bad about a film, and it just doesn't work. I don't recommend watching this, I mean maybe if you think you could get some laughs at it, but this one is so bad it's hard to even laugh at it. I really can't think of anything at all redeeming about this film. So avoid at all costs. Also most of the cast from the first half of the film isn't even in the second half of the film other than Greg Evigan, making it almost feel like that the characters don't even matter in this film, why should we care about them, they aren't even in all of the film at all. Most of them amount to little more than dinosaur snacks for a terrible looking CGI dinosaur.
Comments
Post a Comment