Ah, those folks at Asylum. Since the release of their
War of the Worlds, a large percentage of their output has been what have been coined "mock-busters" or by others "tie-ins", "rip-offs" etc.
Pirates of Treasure Island, The 9/11 Commission Report, King of the Lost World, Hillside Cannibals, Snakes on a Train, Invasion of the Pod People...all sounds very familiar to recent
movies that have hit our theaters. Though I should make a note that Asylum has self-produced some 40 flicks since the late 1990s (some of which are pretty good, I do recommend
Dead Men Walking for zombie fans) and been distributing about 200 indie flicks since the early 1990s.
In recent months their
film output has been improving (
Transmorphers my personal favorite) and in terms of direct-to-DVD features, their stuff is better than most direct-to-DVD movies out there. And the fact that most of their recent movies tie into a larger studio film helps The Asylum survive, none of their films have been over $1million bucks so they do live
movie to movie.
While looking around their website, I noticed they had done an update with the page for their December release,
Alien vs Hunter.
Now, I am actually part curious about this new title from them. Many of their more recent tie-ins have been different in storyline (
The Hitchhiker, Transmorphers) compared to the big studio film they are meant to relate to. Question is will it be different enough from
Aliens vs Predator: Requiem?
I'm hoping that better than how it looks as its written by Asylum head David Michael Latt (he wrote/directed
War of the Worlds, which was a pretty good watch), sadly its directed by Scott Harper who did
Supercroc, which was as many folks say is
Supercrap. So that kinda kills it. But, check out
AVH's personal page on Asylum's website to check out the rather spiffy artwork. The trailer though hasn't been released.
Special Features (yes, unlike most direct to
dvd stuff, Asylum does do special features on all its movies):
- Filmmaker's Commentary
- Deleted Scenes
- Bloopers
And I know there is a fair number of folks here who hated Paul W.S Anderson's
Alien vs Predator, so at least you should check it out and maybe you'll be laughing on how Anderson was beaten by low budget horror flick.
Alien vs Hunter hits the shelves on December 18.
D
