I Am Omega (2007)

The world has been decimated by a virus, again, but Mark Dacascos has survived. He practises martial arts, kills the infected, and ignores the call for help on his computer in-between planting bombs around the city. His lonely existence is disrupted when he is forced to help the woman making the distress calls, a woman that may be the cure to the virus.

The Asylum mix together elements of the Last Man On Earth and The Omega Man to make their version of I Am Legend. There are some variations in there, and I guess that is enough for them to not have to credit Richard Matheson’s book. Legal copyright infringement is what The Asylum does best after all. Dacascos is one of my favourite action heroes, but he struggles being serious in this film, and I can’t blame him. It’s hard to take the movie seriously. Dacascos in everything, including Iron Chef America, The Crow tv series, and playing Sensei Ping on The Middleman. You might remember him fighting Jet Li in Cradle 2 The Grave. Dacascos’ presence makes I Am Omega better than I Am Legend, because both have krud storylines but Dacascos is cooler than Will Smith.

Transmorphers (2007)

The Asylum does their take on Transformers, and they make it more like the Terminator franchise than robots in disguise. A robotic alien race comes to Earth and decimates the surface of planet forcing humans underground. Transmorphers captures the humans’ attempts to launch a daring new attack on the machines, hundreds of years after the invasion.

The story is incredibly close to what Terminator Salvation would do almost two years later, including the interpersonal relationships and human looking robots, but Transmorphers has a few interesting additions, including lesbianism and cryogenics. Is it possible that The Asylum copy has been copied?

The acting ranges from competent to limited. The effects range from limited to appalling. But it doesn’t matter. This film is pretty good in a bad way. It’s possibly better than Transformers.

Transmorphers: Fall Of Man (2009)

The Asylum make a prequel to their film Transmorphers and, besides the robots in disguise element, keep the plot different from the similarly named Transformers Revenge Of The Fallen that they are clearly and deliberately ripping off.

A series of deaths leads to the revelation that most technology on Earth is based on reverse engineering what was found on an alien spaceship that crashed in Roswell. Innocent machines (eg telephones) start killing people and that heralds an invasion of robots from space. It is up to Bruce Boxleitner (Babylon 5, Chuck, Heroes), his niece’s boyfriend, Shane Van Dyke (who is also the writer), and a female scientist, Jennifer Rubin (Road Kill, Screamers), to save the planet.

Fall Of Man has a cheesy start, thanks mainly to Bruce Boxleitner’s presence, and there is the expected ridiculous dialogue, questionable acting, and appalling effects, but the story never gains momentum. Transmorphers managed to create a sense of urgency and tension (even if it wasn’t much) while the prequel does neither. Certainly not the worse film out there, and it’s much better than Transformers Revenge of The Fallen, but it could have been much more.

Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus (2009)

The law of averages finally comes in to play for The Asylum as their formula for cheap copies of other films finally works. In an effort to make a film dodgier than Shark Attack 3 Megalodon or Eye Of The Beast, The Asylum unfreeze a prehistoric giant shark and a giant octopus. These beasts then head to San Francisco and Tokyo respectively to cause chaos. Godzilla never arrives to save the day, but thankfully Deborah Gibson (eighties pop darling) has time between bonking a Japanese scientist in the broom closet to save us. She has help from Lorenzo Lamos (and his ponytail) who is seemingly in charge of the US Navy

Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus is completely unbelievable and lacks any sort of logic or coherency. Could you want for anything more? Lorenzo puts in a stellar performance with every scene of his a masterpiece of comedy (deliberately this time).

The Land That Time Forgot (aka Dinosaur Island) (2009)

C Thomas Howell (The Outsiders, Red Dawn, The Day The Earth Stopped, Mutant Vampire Zombies from the 'Hood!) heads out on a three hour cruise and finds himself shipwrecked in the Bermuda Triangle on an island with dinosaurs (left over from 100 Million BC) and the survivors of a WW2 U-Boat.

The Asylum did an okay job adapting Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Princess Of Mars and I wish they had done a little better here. The film doesn’t so much insult your intelligence as ignore it.

This was previously made in 1975 and starred the effervescent Doug McClure. Strangely, the effects were better then.

Princess Of Mars (2009)

It’s taken a long time for Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic SF adventure tale to make it to the screen, and The Asylum make it there first (albeit unofficially) with their updated interpretation.

Antonio Sabato Jr (Destination Infestation, The Bold And The Beautiful) plays John Carter, a soldier who finds himself on Mars dealing with humanoids, including Traci Lords (Blade, New Wave Hookers) as the Princess of Mars herself, Dejah Thoris, and non-humanoids, including Matt Lasky (Doomsday, InAlienable) as Tars Tarkas. Carter, is captured, interrogated, escapes, fights, and generally kicks Martian butt. Burroughs story has been the inspiration for many other stories over the nearly 100 years since it first appeared, including Conan and Star Wars. You can see elements of both of those in this production, and maybe even a little of Avatar.

I can’t legitimately say Princess Of Mars is great, or even good, but how can you not like the idea and the audacity for making it? It’s lowbrow fun, and it has Traci Lords. It just needed more action.

100 Million BC (aka Jurassic Commando) (2008)

Michael Gross (Tremors) builds himself a time machine from parts left over from Stargate and goes searching back in time for Christopher Atkins who hasn’t been seen since Blue Lagoon.

100 Million BC is The Asylum’s take on The Philadelphia Experiment (which they mention in the opening scenes) and 10,000 BC, only they can't afford a naval ship, just poorly animated dinosaurs. Gross lost a naval ship in WW2 and newly discovered cave paintings locate it way back in 70,000,000 BCE. Gross leads a team back in time on a rescue mission, and are followed back to the modern day by a Giganotosaurus. It’s not as much fun as it sounds, but at least Atkins’s has lost the perm he had in Blue Lagoon.

Snakes On A Train (2006)

A couple of illegal, Mexican immigrants sneak on to a train where the woman starts coughing up snakes. People die and then a really big snake appears and attacks the train. The ending is ridiculous, which is partly what The Asylum are known for doing in their movies. It’s nowhere near as good as it should be, even with green goo, and that’s because there are way too many stories going on between passengers on the train, and we don’t need to see that krud. All we want to see is snakes and killing and hysteria.

Terminators (2009)

This project from The Asylum starts promisingly enough, with some reasonable (although very cheap) spaceship effects and a scenario setting scene in a secret research facility, but everything goes downhill when the “action” moves to an industrial site and a forest (and everything becomes even cheaper). Terminators (flesh covered robots who all like identical) arrive on Earth and start killing people. A small band of humans do what they can to stop them, including using a large, but incredibly light gun, and finding the big “off” switch on the terminators’ base ship. There are no memorable scenes (besides the ridiculous “off” switch).