Avengers Grimm

Title:  Avengers Grimm

Director: Jeremy M. Inman
Released: 2015
Starring: Casper Van Dien, Lauren Parkinson, Lou Ferrigno, Milynn Sarley, Marah Fairclough, Rieah Vanderbilt, Elizabeth Peterson, Kimo Leopoldo, Andrew E. Tilles, Justine Herron

Plot: Rumpelstiltskin (Van Dien) has escaped to the modern world using the magic mirror and now it’s up to Cinderella (Sarley), Sleeping Beauty (Fairclough), Snow White (Parkinson), Rapunzel (Vanderbilt) and Red Riding Hood (Peterson) to stop him, before he enslaves everyone on Earth.

 

Review:  So for some reason while sitting down to watch “Avenging Eagle” following a recommendation from Francisco “The Film Connoisseur” Gonzalez, but for some reason I zigged when I should have zagged and ended up for some reason stumbling into this offering from “The Asylum” whose production logo at the start should have been enough of a warning sign but alas here we are.

Seemingly taking a break from their usual shark related antics here instead they make their second stab at ripping off the Marvel Cinematic universe having previously given their stab at “Thor” with “Almighty Thor” and now turn their attention to “The Avengers” as they give them a fairy tale twist, replacing the comic book heroes with Fairy tale characters which honestly sounded like a pretty decent twist but alas wasn’t to be as like so many of “The Asylum” productions the construction never quite lives up to the premise.

Opening in the magical land of Once upon a time were the forces of good and evil are caught in a full scale conflict, with Van Dien’s Rumpelstiltskin hamming up his villainous side as he ruthlessly despatches the king of Once upon a time, while essentially giving us the fairy tale version of Loki with honestly not too shabby results, especially when both characters are known for being tricksters. From here we are then thrown disappointingly into the real world were things quickly fall apart.

While the main fairy tale princesses might be featured here, these aren’t your usual damsel in distress as what we get here are super powered warrior visions of these popular characters, with each having a power relating in some way to their story so hence Rapunzel uses her hair, Sleeping Beauty can put people to sleep and Snow White can use snow and ice….because you know she’s Snow white. The most interesting of the group though is Red Riding Hood here known simply as Red and who has been turned into a huntress obsessed with hunting down the humanoid version of the Wolf who here is less concerned with trying to disguise himself as Red’s granny and instead takes on the role of hired muscle for Rumpelstiltskin.

Once in the real world the plot quickly falls apart as it becomes unclear what exactly Rumpelstiltskin is trying to achieve for when the group arrive in the real world he has already taken over as the mayor of the city, while randomly turning those who oppose him into zombie like drones, which is something I don’t remember him ever doing in the original stories. By that same note I can’t remember him ever having a fondness for Nazi style uniforms which it seems under his regime are the style of choice, which bizarrely always seems to be the case when we see these kinds of adaptation much like “The Nutcracker 3D”. He also brings in a local gang boss called Iron John (Ferrigno) who soon lives up to his namesake when his body is turned into Iron, which essentially equates to Ferrigno playing a silver version of his Hulk alter-ego.

The cast are a mixed bunch with Van Dien and Ferrigno standing out as the better performances here, with Van Dien clearly having a blast playing the villain, while when it comes to the princesses they really are a mixed bunch of unknowns whose performances vary greatly as to be expected even if they are mainly watchable, its just more of a shame that they've not been given anything particular interesting or dramatic to get their teeth into, but hey this is an Asylum production so what were they expecting.

Action wise this film isn’t anything special thanks largely to none of the cast being especially fight trained it would seem with the two that are getting their own fight scene, which randomly takes place next to the LA river after a sudden smash cut which magically transports them from the building they were in front of prior to the fight in one of the most random scene jumps since “Sister Street Fighter” though its hard to say if this is more random than the silver hulk…I mean Iron John who charges into a fight only to slip on ice and fall out the side of the building, which  I guess only continues the theme of random fight scenes here while at the same time providing the same kind of head scratching logic that the guy falling through the floor had in the bell tower finale of “Batman”.

It’s hard to really say how this one could have been better as outside of a great premise and a couple of half decent performances this is pretty rotten throughout, especially when it attempts to take the story into the real world which was really the first warning sign of what would lie ahead. Out of the princesses though only Red is the one who really stands out and a character I would have liked to have seen been given her own film, especially if it was kept to a fantastic realm. What we have though here though instead is a grinding experience which fails at even the base level of casual entertainment as this is low even by the standard that we’ve come to measure any production from “The Asylum” ultimately this is one best skipped.

Sharknado

Title: Sharknado

Director: Anthony C. Ferrante

Released: 2013

Starring: Ian Ziering, Jaason Simons, Cassie Scerbo, John Heard, Tara Reid, Aubrey Peeples

 

Plot: A freak hurricane has caused hundreds of sharks to be scooped up in water spouts which are now flooding the city with shark-infested water. Surfer and bar owner Fin (Ziering) realising what is happening sets off with his friends Baz (Simons) and Nova (Scerbo) and bar drunk George (John Heard) to rescue his ex-wife April (Reid) and teenage daughter Claudia (Peeples) from the impending disaster.

Review: It’s safe to say that there are some film plots which only one studio would be bold (read insane) enough to attempt, as “The Asylum” prove once more here by bringing another fourteen year old’s fantasy to life, as they take a break from harassing the latest summer blockbusters, with their legendry Mockbusters from which the company has built its legacy on, having previously given us the likes of “Snakes On A Train”, “Transmorphers” and my personal favourite “Sunday School Musical”.

Seeing how many of these bargain basement style movies resolve around either sharks or hurricanes, I was half surprised to not see the poster for this one screaming “Sharks and Hurricanes Together At Last!!”.  Still since the Asylum got on the radar of even the average movie goer with “Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus” they have made several attempts to recapture that same level of impossible to fulfil excitement they generated with a single shot of a giant shark leaping out of the sea to eat a plane, with previous attempts such as “Sharktopus” and “2-Headed Shark Attack” coming close, but it was when they released this image as part of their promo work for the film, that they saw that same level of interest once more.

Baring all the usual marks of questionable film making the Asylum have become so renown for the film opens randomly with a bunch of shark fishermen doing shady deals with an evil Japanese businessman, before they are suddenly consumed by a swarm of hungry sharks. It’s a random way to open the film, especially seeing how it has no relevance to anything which follows, but then the same could be said about the rest of the film, seeing how it flounders from one plot point to the next, as director Anthony C. Ferrante tries to ties together one random scene to the next.

As to also expected from the Aslyum they have once again dredged the has been actor ranks to put together their latest cast, as only further highlighted by the casting of Tara Reid whom for which this seems to be her usual output these days, having long since fallen from her glory days of “American Pie”. Supposedly she signed up for the film on the title alone, which would be more believable if the state of her career wasn’t as in such a slump, something I don’t think will be changing here seeing how bored she seems throughout. However despite not having a cast high in star power, they have still found a strong lead with Ziering best known for his years on “Beverly Hills, 90210” aswell as more recently performing with the Chippendales which E! Seemed to deem to be highly important during their coverage of the film. Still here is a likable and believable hero , while sharing a good on screen chemistry with both ex Baywatch star Simons and Scerbo, to the point where I was actually disappointed when they added Fins Ex-wife and daughter into the mix, let alone the random inclusion of his son whose appearance seemingly comes out of nowhere.  This threesome make for a fearsome shark fighting force, if alas one that can’t seemingly resist any opportunity for a disposable one liner. One Tag along member of their group I did wish they had used more was Barfly / Drunk George who is way to underused, especially with his  frequently hilarious antics such as his insistence on carrying his barstool around with him constantly, even using it as a shark club on occasion. While Heard might be slumming it by appearing here, he manages to make the character a much more likable character than he would have probably been had he been played by anyone else, especially when it character essentially consists of ramblingly drunkenly about whatever is happening around him.

Surprisingly for a DTV shark movie, there is a surprisingly large amount of gore on show, as the film for the most part avoids the usual sudden cutaways which seem to be current trend and instead gives us a few prolonged attacks and even a couple of shots of mauled limbs which made for a refreshing change of pace, even if most of the shark attacks largely consist of horrible CGI sharks leaping up at equally questionable CGI renderings of the character being attacked. It would seem though that director Ferrante’s man focus here is in finding a way to rack up as high a body count as possible, as especially seen during the opening beach attack which sees any character standing in 2 inches of water suddenly being attacked by unseen sharks.  The main gore here though the man on shark violence here, which is where the film really gets creative, with exploding airtanks, shotguns and even a cabinet being used to combat the killer sharks. Elsewhere Ziering gets to tap into his inner Bruce Campbell, as he spends the last quarter of the film running around welding a shotgun / chainsaw combo, both of which he proves himself especially handy with even diving inside a shark to minutes later chainsaw his way out!

While limited in the budget it is still largely an entertaining affair, while frequently intentionally hilarious due to its low production values, which see’s CGI rain falling on bone dry streets and the weather suddenly changing from stormy to bright blue skies. However if the film has one main failing, it is that it is let down by its script more than its effects seeing how at this point, most fans of the asylum’s output will be already familiar with their level of film workmanship.  Even with this expectation though the script only brings things down, especially once Fin has rescued his ex-wife and daughter which is also the moment that you release that the film is only halfway through. From this point it constantly seems to be the group moving from one random scene to the next as the film loses all sense of direction, before ending with a half-baked finale involving using home made bombs to stop the water spouts ravaging the city.

Unsurprisingly considering the amount of attention this film got on its release, the unimaginatively titled sequel “Sharknado 2: It’s Coming” (Surely “Sharknami” would have been the way to go) was pushed through pretty quickly, with the Asylum ensuring that they continued the madness is set to continue, while this film remains the kind of movie you might enjoy if stumbled across while late night channel surfing, but not one worth the effort of hunting down.

2-Headed Shark Attack

Title: 2-Headed Shark Attack

Director: Christopher Ray

Released: 2012

Staring: Carmen Electra, Charlie O’Connell, Brooke Hogan, Gerald Webb, David Gallegos, Geoff Ward

Plot: A group of students are left stranded on a deserted atoll, after their boat is attacked by a mutated two-headed shark. However the atoll is slowly starting to flood and soon none of them will be safe from the double headed terror.

Review: There seems to be something timeless about sharks which have made them the subject of countless movies, all of which have attempt in one way or another to tap into our fear of these perfect killers with the most memorable of these of course being “Jaws” which in many ways could also be blamed for sparking this fear in the first place, scaring most of us (myself included) so that we still ask if it’s safe to go back in the water.

Needless to say since then there has been a constant stream of movies wishing to capture that same fear that “Jaws” encapsulated and it’s unsurprising that this over saturated market has lead to a certain element of artistic license being brought to the shark attack movie, as each new film fights to be noticed in this sea of imtators and hence why we have seen more movies like “Shark Attack 3: Megalodon” and most memorably “Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus” being released while certainly pushing the boundaries of plausibility and arguably in their own way leading to this latest mutation of the genre.

Scraping up another seemingly shameless group of no name actors and D-list celebrities, it would seem that “The Asylum” are actually spending more money than per usual with these latest production, especially seeing how I actually recognized who most of the lead actors were, with Carmen Electra being unconvincingly cast as the ship doctor, while we also get Jerry O’Connell’s brother Charlie and Brooke Hogan proving that she is none the more convincing as an actor than her dad was back in the early 90’s! Still this seems a far cry from the usual no names or cult figures that make up their usual casting fodder and even more shocking there is not even a former 80’s pop star in sight here!

The plot is as to be expected from "The Asylum" the usual b-movie nonsense with our scantily clad group making countless random, let alone questionable decisions throughout as it soon become clear that their only real purpose is to provide shark chowder, while our mutated shark surprisingly looks as if they have taken at least some effort with the still admittedly bargain basement CGI with some random shifts in scale throughout, but at least some effort has been made to make the shark look at times pretty decent, while also using a small amount of practical effects for some of the shark attacks, which while limited to just brief shots of it’s head, is still a refreshing change from the usual all CGI attacks which tend to plague most of the recent Shark movies and it only makes it more of a shame that they did not make more use of these effects.

Even more surprising though is that this is one of the few shark movies which actually delivers the goods when it comes to deaths, with the film clocking up an impressive body count, while actually ensuring that the audience get to see some frequently gory (if heavily CGI) death scenes, rather than playing the tease and cutting away at the last second, while what is even more of a rarity for these films is that it actually delivers on it’s promised box art in it’s opening scene, making it perhaps only the second film (the other being "The Beyond") that I could remember doing this. Still the death scenes are all kept within the framework of the plot, rather than just introducing some random nobody to help boost the body count, even though we do get some highly questionable decision making happening throughout such as the scene were the teens now stuck on the atoll find two working speedboats, but rather than trying to find a way off the island, instead use them for an impromptu speedboat race, let alone the fact that the shark is trying to sink the atoll by simply knocking against it.

This lack of disposable characters, however does not still mean that we get a huge amount of characterisation with Electra as the questionably qualified doctor spending the whole film sunbathing, while most of the teen cast are on the whole largely interchangeable with each other, with only a few select members of this group being given any kind of character other than “loud shouty teen” or "dumb jock", though perhaps the standout amongst this group being Cole (Ward), who is also the closest the film gets to actually having a bad guy, who not spends most of the film hitting on any random female in sight and flexing his muscles, but also has the ultimate asshole moment, when he literally jumps ship when he figures out that the shark is following the noise of his boats engine.

Helmed by Director Christopher Ray, the son of legendary b-movie Maestro Fred Olen Ray, whose most memorable movie “Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers” Christopher Ray had an uncredited role in as “Kid in bar” and here continues his current partnership with “The Asylum” for whom he previous directed “Mega Shark Vs. Crocosaurus” and “Thor” cash-in  “Almighty Thor”. Thankfully he atleast has the advantage here of being given one of their original features which have frequently proved to be their strongest titles, rather than helming another of their now legendary Mockbusters. Despite this I still got the feeling throughout that Ray would rather be directing “Girls Gone Wild”, especially with the camera always seeming to focus on the boobs of his female cast, especially when they spend pretty much the whole film as skimpily dressed as possible, while unsurprisingly also ensuring that the male cast members are killed off first.

I guess it is impossible to expect high art from a film entitled “2-Headed Shark Attack” and it’s clear that Ray has the sense to realise this and instead focuses here on providing a largely fun movie with a generous amount of on screen carnage, let alone a providing some cheap thrills with its scantily dressed cast whether you want to look at girls in cleavage heavy bikini’s or guys constantly flexing, there is something to suit either taste, especially when this frequently seems to be more were Ray is focusing than on the titular shark, but compared to some of the recent shark efforts this is certainly one of the better ones.