Snakes On A Train (2006) [REVIEW] | Poco-loco-motion

Since we took the opportunity to review Snakes On A Plane some time ago for the movie 20^th anniversary and the 4K UHD Bluray rerelease by Arrow Video meant to celebrate that, i guess it’s inevitable we cover the mockbuster version the Asylum cooked up the same year, as in, Snakes On A Train.

I mean, why not, i got the UK DVD release for peanuts years ago, might as well.

As with most of their mockbusters, the plot is legally distinct from the movie whose cottails they’re riding on, and just shares the same idea/copies the same gimmick, this time a public transport vehicle being filled with killer snakes, a train in this occasion as it’s cheaper to shoot.

In a way, this should have been a really fuckin easy one.

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Shark Warning (2024) [REVIEW] | #sharkapalooza

Due to rescheduling issues i noticed Sharkapalooza was one movie short, so i figured i’d review one of my recent “sight unseen and cheap” DVD pickups, Shark Warning, from last year….

…..and it’s an Asylum joint.

I literally paused my Donkey Kong Bananza game to see this, no that i expected this movie to be good.

The odds were never on my favour, i guess this one of their generic shark films since there was no big budget shark film released that year… was it? I mean, we got Under Paris via Netflix, but this is not a mockbuster of that, and some other shark movies (like No Way Up) but nothing big budget or cinema bound for the Asylum to try make some cents out of its reflected glory.

Doesn’t matter anyway, so what kind of shark movie are we getting?

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Monster Armageddon/2025 Armageddon (2022) [REVIEW] | #giantmonstermarch

I’ve lamented the downright lethargic, nearly comatose state and distinct disinterest, so nested and in a rot The Asylum is with their output in this last period, i’ve done that before.

It’s clear whatever “magic” they summoned with Sharknado didn’t last long, and now just rest on their laurels, so to speak, as even the usual aficionados of trash got disinterested in the same way the company itself seems to be with whatever they cram out, they keep doing their thing but just because it’s what they have always done, and will keep doing until there’s not any money left off mockbustering.

I remember from a class in genre cinema i once took that – broadly speaking – a genre has reached a stage of severe stagnation when it starts becoming metatextual, to speak of itself more than anything else, as it can obstensibly find nothing else to iterate on, so it “turns on itself”.

And while it no longer hold completely true, as we’re now in a post-meta phase, if you will, there’s still a valid argument in there, because films like Monster Armageddon (released as 2025 Armageddon in trying to fool more people) validate the implied drying up of the “creative well”, and are a testament to this decade of post-irony, meta overdosing incestinal multiverse crossovers, of finding out there’s no bottom of the barrel, no real lowest of the low that can’t be “improved” upon.

I remember buying the DVD for this one for 5 bucks, sight unseen, on Amazon back in 2023, i knew it was an Asylum joint, and the cover art was nice, featuring a lots of monsters and creatures.

As with Monster Island (their mockbuster response to 2019’s Godzilla II: King Of The Monsters), the cover art is way better than the movie itself, but this time around it isn’t a complete lie like it was with that movie… as in it’s not technically a lie.

It’s worse… or is it?

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Titanic II (2010) [REVIEW] | A Mockbuster To Remember

Given it’s the “most romantic time of the year” (according to advertising agencies and florists), you know what that means, talking about one of the most beloved romance movies of all time.

Or instead, talk about it’s “sequel”, because i can’t think of a more fit/unfit timing to scratch one more from my “sub-bucket list” of reviews.

Because even before the current state of the company, The Asylum was never one to back away from any semblance of shame, to tackle things that to others were mere jokes, snark meant to mock but never actually manifest itself as an actual thing.

There was (nor there is) no joke or niche the company wouldn’t dig into the ground, so unbound by moral burdens like shame and shit, they actually made Titanic 2.

As most of you already could guess, yep, this is a mockbuster, meaning the title is a lie.. or is it?

How much of a lie to legally avoid charges and how much actually fitting?

Hold on to your Minecraft raft, things are about to get even more disasterrific, cheaper and bullshittier, with The Asylum’s daring to make “boat 9/11” all over again, which is still less offensive and egregious than the Italian Titanic animated movies (and Tentacolino), i’d argue.

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Megalodon: The Frenzy (2023) [REVIEW] #thesharksix

Somehow, The Asylum stumbled their way into making a trilogy of films about Megalodon sharks, with the third and last entry so far being last year’s Megalodon: The Frenzy.

I say “stumbled” because i seriously doubt they planned any of this at all, but Megalodon Rising was indeed a sequel to their own 2018 Megalodon film, and this one starts with a recap to get you up to speed and confirm that the events of the previous movie happened.

…not sure entirely to what end, as the plot itself doesn’t have returning characters from either Rising or the 2018 movie, and is about how a submarine mission meant to establish a supply of clean geoenergy from an underwater volcano ends up causing a fissure in the seabed, accidentally unleashing 5 megalodons that wreak havoc.

They do eventually reference the events of Rising and the 2018 film, and the USS King, damaged after the finale of Rising comes into play, but then is now helmed by a character played by Eric Roberts… problem is he wasn’t in Rising, but since the lead characters died in the finale, i guess he was on ship and took over, whatever, who cares, now Eric Robert is manning the ship, in this “it was supposed to be filmed for the finale of the previous movie, but wasn’t” intro.

Whatever keeps him to star into A Talking Cat?! 2: Paws Of Fury, i guess.

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Ape VS Mecha Ape (2023) [REVIEW] #giantmonstermarch

As we all knew it, the adventures of “untrademarked simian monster” would continue after his debut against “copyright free atomic dinosaur”, after all Ape Vs Monster was one of the few new modern Asylum movies that people gave a shit aknowledging at all, as they basically resorted to rip-off themselves for the most part, but that’s another review, and with Jagged Edge Productions now outilining clearly their shared cinematic universe called Twisted Childhood (planned to end with Poohniverse: Monster Assemble in 2025) after unleashing the first Winnie The Pooh slasher, Winnie The Pooh Blood & Honey… the Asylum spirit lives on stronger and worse than ever.

For todays’ feature though we have to kinda go back to Toho’s handling of the Kong property during the 1960s, as after the first King Kong VS Godzilla there was a follow-up… as in, Toho made another King Kong monster film back in 1967, King Kong Escapes, again a Japanese-American collaboration, but not a sequel to King Kong VS Godzilla (which is even funnier considering that film too ignored everything but the first Godzilla film), that would make some sense.

No, instead it was based more around the animated children TV series The King Kong Show, a collaboration between Toho and Rankin Bass, co-produced by Videocraft International and Toho Animation, and featured – in the japanese kaiju tradition – a mecha antagonist version of the protagonist monster, called Mekani-Kong, created by an evil genius called Dr. Who, not fans of the BBC show, but more of the then common asian evil genius scientist-mastermind, as popularized in Bond films and spy flicks of the era in general, with the obviously attached racism.

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12 Days Of Dino Dicember # 26 : Jurassic Domination (2022)

In a way, there’s little i can complain about a movie like Jurassic Domination, because i pretty much known what i’m going to get from a modern Asylum mockbuster of a dinosaur film, even down to them not really marketing them anymore so even trash buffs and cinema shit seekers like me end up finding out about them years after they came out, undermining the point of a timely release dor the mockbuster to leech off a big budget tent-pole release, in this case Jurassic World: Dominion.

And yet everytime i come out slightly disappointed because i’d like for The Asylum to at least try more with the plots, since their mockbusters are even more and more detatched from the movies they allegedly exist to profit off indirectly with their bootleg low budget offering, they could try to go utterly insane with the plots if they will never improve budgets and effects to any significant degree, but why would they put any more effort if people still watch their garbage regardless?

They know people like me will start combing the internet for these kind of movies, sooner or later, so why bother? They’re so cheap to be worth it from a financial standpoint regardless, so until the well dries up completely, they won’t stop, and it’s hard to fault them for that when the Jurassic World series exists and the difference between the contenders and the “champions” is how much money they can throw at the fx budget to cover up botched or flawed scripts.

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Metal Tornado (2011) [REVIEW] | Gold Joe approved

Let’s talk about the only movie like this that can actually claim it ISNT ripping off Sharkenado. Sure, it was released on DVD in various territories after Sharkenado proved to be an incredibly popular surprise hit, but it released two years prior and wasn’t even made by The Asylum, but from the fairly unknown Capital Productions, which otherwise did a dozen of TV movies about office & school thriller dramas, with Metal Tornado being their only disaster movie.

With a title like that, it does seem pointless to go over the plot, but we’ll do it anyway as pro-forma, i mean, it’s not quite trying to cash into the Asylum wheelhouse.

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Megalodon Rising (2020) [REVIEW] #sharksncrocs

As we extensively estabilished before, when it comes to shark movies The Asylum doesn’t even bother anymore to wait for a mainstream blockbuster release to mooch off… which i can’t really blame on them as those almost completely went extinct, with almost exclusively low to no budgets shark movies flooding the market every year.

And as usual, this is one of those they just kinda put out with no fanfare, to the point i knew this existed only because i happened to stumble upon its UK DVD release while browsing randomly on Amazon one late night.

I mean, more important stuff happened in 2020, but still, put 5 bucks into marketing!

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Megaboa (2021) [REVIEW] | Orchid Roberts #snakesofjune

More snakes. Want ‘em? You’ll get them anyway, because they’re one of the basic b-movie elements, and even without going back to stuff like Ssss they’re a costant in terms of b-movies, with Snakes On A Plane becoming the very first big cult movie sensation fueled via the internet, years before we saw The Asylum crystallize the formula but doing it crap on purpose with good ol’ Sharkenado.

It doesn’t matter if they’re big, mutated or come in swarm, snakes are an evergreen choice for this kind of movie… mostly because they’re easier (and cheaper) to animate being a limbless animal.

But let’s not involve reality, we’re talking another frigging giant snake, and i guess none told the makers of these creature features that’s there are more magniloquent terms for “big” outside of “Mega” and “Giga”, otherwise we would already be at “Peta Python VS Zettapuss”.

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