329 WE'RE COMMITTED!

329 WE'RE COMMITTED!

The gang gets together to talk Asylum Films.

Also discussed: Fantastic Four: First Steps, Megan 2.0, The Institute.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

The worst is the pun thing, because I hate, I fucking hate puns. Oh, I'm sorry. Did I break your concentration somewhere between science and superstition, such sights to show you. Strange eons. Welcome to strange eons. Radio that is Eric over there. Hello, that is Vanessa over there. Hello, and I am Kelly. Let me entertain the masses by double checking our camera. Oh, oh, perhaps we're recording. Okay, if you heard a couple episodes ago, we were testing new microphones and and it didn't really work out very well, yeah, but that is because we did not do a full test of the microphones beforehand. We are recording again with those microphones and our full microphones, and we'll see which ones sound better. That's what we are up to. Because otherwise I would, I would really love to get all this stuff off of the table and make my house look a little more like a house than recording studio. I mean, how cool is it though? Like people come in and go, Wow, what is this? Oh, you have a podcast. More than do I have to listen to. What really happens is, oh, what is this? Where are we eating? It's like, oh, we can't eat there. That's my podcast table. I mean, the idea that you eat at a table, come on. What year is it? It's true. This is true. How are you supposed to watch TV if you're not eating watching TV? Vanessa, I just want to publicly thank you for the amazing Jaws popcorn bucket I got on my birthday. Wow. That is insane. I don't know how you're supposed to put your hand in it. Oh, to eat the popcorn out of scraping it, but that's okay. No, tonight. Oh, yes, please, please. Tongs, chopsticks, you guys. I saw some pretty dang good stuff. Yeah, yeah. And I want to be cool. One of them, I think is going to be a shock, because I know Vanessa has seen it, and I don't think she probably liked it, but I saw Megan 2.00 yes. And I fucking loved it. Oh, I was just like, i i the end credits roll that I was like, the fuck, did I just watch? This was the most bonkers movie I have ever seen. It is by no means a horror movie. That was big surprise to me too. I was like, Oh, this is not a horror film. It's more like cool Terminator two and the Chucky series or something like that, yeah, I but I fucking loved it. I loved the humor in it. I loved the massive left turn coming off of the first movie. And I really enjoyed absolutely everything about it. I thought it was 10 times better than the original, but it needed the original to exist. It's so true. I like Terminator to Terminator two. Well, I still like terminal. Oh, well, Terminator is great, absolutely. But Terminator two, but Vanessa, I am curious. I know you saw it. You can't have liked this. I did like it. Super fun. Yeah, it was really fun. I laughed very hard a number of times. It was, yeah, it was, it was really neat. I don't know like I was. I just kept waiting for it to be a horror film, and then it just was not. It just refused. It was like science fiction thriller at best. Well, I'm still gonna watch it and use it for my 100 Days of horror. Oh yeah, that's totally fine. There's a sequence where there's kind of a bonding sequence between her and her Creator, and then she starts singing to her. And I was like, What am I watching? Unfortunately, it was such a bomb that Jason Blum came out publicly and said, We made a huge mistake with this. We thought we were trying something different and that the audience would go along with us, and they are revamping their whole idea of approaching sequels to hit movies. They're just like, we're going back to the very small budgeted films again. We took a huge risk and got slapped for it. They Halloween three, did? I mean, I Well, yeah, because I loved Halloween three. Yeah, exactly. I feel like maybe they just made a mistake in making a Megan too. Like, I just feel like no one, even if it was the exact same movie again, like, I don't know how many people are going to come back out for. Yeah, they, I mean, they really liked the first one, but, like, I don't know, like, it hit, they did a good job. Yeah, how many times? How many people went to the next purge film? I'm sure they were all making their budgets, but that's the difference. This was, like, a $20 million movie or something, where the first one was 10 million. And so they, they just kind of thought. I mean, well, we made it 100 million off the first one, we'll make a billion dollars. Watch out Superman. Oh my gosh. Anyhow, Megan 2.0 is streaming now. Well, speaking of funny movies, I saw Naked Gun, whatever the newest Naked Gun movie is with Liam Neeson, yeah, I am stunned that the limited time you have to go to see movies in the theater, and you go a lot more than most people. I go about once a week. Yeah, well, I mean, that is like our date night is that we get one evening a week to do something, and so a 10 by the time we put our daughter down, it is fucking late, so there's really only one thing to do at that point, so we see movies, but I don't know that week was very quiet. It was between that and together, and I just wasn't really feeling seeing together. It just wasn't appealing to me. So I was like, I'd seen a couple of ads for Naked Gun. And I thought it looked funny from the ads. I thought some of the ads were funny. Ish, no, it was. It was like a couple of gags in there that I thought were good, but for the most part, there was like a good two thirds of the film where I was like, oh, okay, did you enjoy the original movies then they could get in film. I mean, I enjoy it. I wouldn't say I laughed a lot, but I like, I mean, like, you know, Leslie Nelson is very funny, and it's a different era. It has a different style of humor. It's not like, my favorite type of thing, but like, they do it really well. And I think because it's an older movie. There's a lot more forgiveness I give it, but some of the gags in this were they just were not landing, or they were just, I don't know. They were making some weird swings in this, in this film, and the most weird ones were the most funny, but the middling weird ones were just like, okay, Have either of you guys seen this movie? No, but I saw the trailer, and I was like, if this is the high points of this film, it can't be any good. The scene where he says, you know, take a chair and she takes the chair. I was like, That joke is conservatively 90 years old, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of that. I was like, Is this what is going passing as funny? Now, also, that's not even the joke, take a chair. Who says, Take a chair? You say, take a seat. Yeah? Right. So I was like, none of this is feeling good to me, so I'm very glad it has a 89% people were loving it? Yeah, it has a lot of positive reviews from different different reviewers. Are just digging it. I know it's hit or miss. How many people are in a theater? But did you have much of a crowd? No, it was pretty empty. It's hard to say we were, yeah, we were kind of hoping it would be a busier but just couldn't make it work. But my husband loved it, great. So that was, I was like, Okay, well, he, he had a great time, but he grew up on, like, a lot of the word, like, National Lampoon stuff, and Monty Python, the not money Python, but more like that. You know, Americans, 90s stuff, yeah? Adam Sandler, I mean, I think that first Naked Gun movie is comedy brilliance. Yeah, it's pretty good. So, and I also know that they had interviewed, I think I'm not sure which Zucker brother is still alive, but he said, You know, I was as surprised as anybody to see a new movie come out. They didn't say a word to me. Wow. Well, it's the Lonely Island guys, which, again, like, I really like their humor, but no, the name probably not. When you listen to this, it won't be that long. Anyways, speaking of how movies keep going and going and going. I've started the 100 Days and as always, I started off Days of Halloween. Hello, 100 days of horror. Halloween. Can't just say the 100 Days. Nobody knows what the fuck that is. Listeners do anybody on our Facebook page does damn assholes posting every goddamn day leave us alone. I always start off with the franchise, which I won't talk about at this point, but then I figured I'll fill in the friend some of the franchises I haven't seen. So I hadn't seen that the point that you can't have seen any of these movies, right, right? That's the idea. Yeah, I've, I had seen one. Three, a final destination. So I watched the last three. Wow. Four's a fucking mess. Five was fun. You know what? Bloodlines it deserved the praise it got. Yeah, after the bunch, pretty much. It's really smart take on the idea of the follow up of death, just being a dick on it great level with, you know, the wonderful emotional thing with Tony Todd giving his speech. I thought it'd be a little more from what I heard, but it still was really good. And the the execution was nice, because the one thing that gets really boring when you watch a few final destination movies in a row is, I think I know what's going on. This is what's happening. Here's how. Maybe we should figure out how to get rid of it. Maybe we should fight it. And this one had that, but really fast, she went, talked to the person involved and all that stuff, and got the lowdown of everything that was going on, instead of it being like more than half the movie, which it is on just about every other final destination film. Yeah. And one of the annoying things of you know, I'm not the biggest hater of spoilers anymore. Used to really bug me, but not so much anymore, because it's just the world we live in. But all the gifts people posted of the deaths on this were a little annoying. Oh, I didn't see those. I'd seen like, three or four of them. Oh, no. All right. Okay, that's like, the whole point. I was mad at, like, the trailers, because I was like, that was, like, a full scene. Yeah, it was a full scene. I was like, Are you fucking kidding me? They're like, I'm then gonna have to sit through it again. But luckily, there's so many that, like, it was fine. It was totally fine seeing them, especially the opening. Like, Jesus, way brutal. Yeah. I mean, like, four really hurt because they lean so hard, and the CG deaths and the blood, it just looked terrible. Yeah. And now they've gotten good enough to kind of combine the two. You know, this one had some because it had to, yeah. But overall, yeah, really fun. I liked it. And the I'm they're working on a new one already. Of course, I did see that seven is in the works. Oh, sure, you know, like I love and it will continue and it will never stop. Because it hasn't stopped for decades. Of people going, why don't you just make real original movies? Because all of his dumb horror films, go see all of the sequels I've got to see all the Halloween movies. Yeah. I mean, if you stop going, they'll stop being made, and, you know, you'll get sinners and weapons and stuff like that coming out that, yeah, is new and original. But hey, what you gonna do? I still love them. Yeah, just make sure you go to the other ones too. There you go. That's, that's the solve. Go see those. The irony is not lost on me, on a franchise called Final anything in the seven episodes so far, it's like, you know, are there a couple of lone wolves. Well, you know, they don't have to worry about, like, scream trying to figure out who they can keep alive and the next trailers and stuff. I just feel like death fucks a plot doesn't do a good job. That's a very basic thing. It's got to do percentage wise. Billions of people on the planet missing out on what in the last how many years has death just slip? I mean, it's getting lazy. Getting Real lazy. These teenagers specifically, you gotta be on top of it, right? That's a good point. Um, I have been watching on MGM the institute. Don't know this. This is based on a Stephen King book that came out maybe five or six years ago, and so far, it's pretty true to the book. It's really good. It's about a kid who goes to bed one night and wakes up in his room, and something seems just a little off, so he goes and opens the window, and there's a wall there, and he opens his bedroom door, and he is now in the institute. They have drugged him and recreated his room, and he is there with a number of other children who have various powers, telekinesis, stuff like that, and they are being used to do something we're not sure exactly what yet. By the time this airs, show will probably be over, but there's also a couple of characters in a nearby town who are kind of starting to think that something is going on at the Institute, and they want to find out what it is, and hopefully they will do it before this kid and his friends are all killed because they go from one area of the institute where they are tested on and they are bombarded with these various tests to. Kind of see how good their telepathy is, or whatever, and then they're put into the back half. And we're just now realizing that the back half, all these kids are used to create, like a plane crash that might be holding a person of importance, or something like that, and so but all of this stuff takes toll on the kids, and they are killed and cremated after bleed from their nose. They bleed from their nose, their ears, their eyes, all that stuff, and eventually they their brains just turn to mush and they are killed. They're being told, of course, that once they finish this, they will be brought back to their parents, but nobody has been so it's it's really good. The thing I thought was really interesting was the the kid in it, in the book, I mean, Stephen King, no, no, fear of hurting children, right? He's just like, hope you guys don't like kids in the book. These kids are much younger than they are in the series, but the main kid in the series is is supposed to be, I think, 14, and he looks like it, but he's really 18 or 19 in real life. And then I just found out he is Martin Freeman son, the actor from The Hobbit and The Sherlock Holmes movies and stuff like that. I was like, wow. Okay, and this kid is really, really good. Wow. That's awesome, is it? I mean, you know, in the modern world of watching films, I said, fall into the Stranger Things stuff much on, on the darker stuff that Stranger Things touches on. I feel like Stranger Things is really a nostalgia. Oh, yeah, definitely. And that's what's most important to them. This is not that. This is children who are in a in a very severe situation, though it's called the Institute and it is on MGM. Plus, that's awesome. I do remember seeing a trailer for it and thinking that looked pretty cool, so I'm going to have to hunt that down. Oh, good. My MGM subscription will have a purpose again. Thanks, Kelly. So I went and saw something probably both of you seen, which is fantastic. Four, first steps, fantastic. Four, well, I don't know if you remember the beginning. I have had no days to myself for about three or four weeks. So I've seen no films. I have seen nothing other than, like, the 100 day stuff that I've been setting aside. So we've had relatives in town one weekend, relatives in town, then the next weekend, and oh no, so no, I have not seen it well. When you get a chance, yeah, I will. I really liked it a lot. I think it's one of the stronger Marvel movies, because it is really committed to the world, but it wants to be set in. And I think they do a good job of creating these characters that can be pretty tough, like sea storm specifically, can be really irritating or really blank, yeah, and they made a very wise casting decision. Probably the least strong for me was Pedro. And shocking, but I think I think it's a hard character, because you need somebody who is lost in his own thoughts. But Pedro has such a soft, warm presence, naturally that he's fighting against that the whole time to come across as cold. And so it just, it makes it almost like neutral, like it just sort of cancels out his his warmness, plus overly cold, plus it just doesn't quite jive. I haven't seen it, and that's interesting say, because I thought my thinking watching the trailer was, Oh, they're going to re they're going to adjust Reed Richards a little bit to make him a softer family man by casting who they cast, right? But sounds like they should have not what they did. Yeah. I mean, I think they would have been smart to who is the guy who played him in Wanda, like whatever, the Doctor Strange, like multiverse of madness they had temporarily cast like a different guy as him, as Reed Richards Yeah, I don't remember. Oh, was it John Krasinski, yeah, John Krasin. I think he even would have been a slightly stronger choice. But even you know somebody like Benedict cumberbatchers, you know something along the lines of somebody who just naturally looks like a nerdy scientist, who has a colder presence, who then would have to work towards being a little bit warmer would be better. But I think that Pedro was acting, and I think he did the best he could with it. I don't think, like, I don't think it's his fault. I think it's just kind of weird casting. But on the other side, the guys they've cast for Johnny, Storm, Sue Storm and wasn't Ben, are great. Like, they are all, I mean, they are incredible. Especially, I loved Johnny, like, I thought he was just super great, and he's from Stranger Things. Yeah, I first of all, I was like, I get the Pedro has a mustache, but Reid does not have a mustache. And when everybody else in the Marvel Universe has this look, you know, Iron Man. Stephen Strange, dr, strange, all these guys with these little thin mustaches, I'm like, Reed doesn't have a mustache. Pedro, shave your mustache. That would have been just fine. I thought it was fucking gorgeous. It is so beautiful. Retro futurism is so cool looking. And I loved the little nods that you see around the city, like a robot walking a dog and stuff like that, to realize, oh, because the Fantastic Four do all of these great things, the world has all these great things. Yeah. So I liked that. And I thought Galactus was really cool. He was cool. Jennifer Garner looked awesome as a Silver Surfer, and actually showing her kind of surf was really cool looking. I still don't understand why the silver we got a female Silver Surfer instead of I feel like Marvel is kind of dialing in on if we just kind of follow the comic books. Everybody seems to be okay with it. So I don't know why they did. I thought they recently had a female Silver Surfer in the comics, yeah, but she's not the Herald. I mean, you know, she's for whatever reason they went with this. Also, Jennifer Garner's got one of the most expressive faces in the world, and so throwing a CGI silver thing over her face and making her kind of a blank person, like why did even if we were gonna do a woman, why would we do it to this woman whose big deal is that she looks great when she's angry and when she's scared all this stuff, this bizarre plot to teleport the earth that I had just read a comic that had seconds, yeah, I just read a comic that had a similar um setup in it for Fantastic Four so I was like, Ah, I'm sure that's what they do all the time. It's just what they do. It's just what they do. It's fine. I mean, it's kind of similar to what I just read. So I just forgave it instantly. But yeah? Well, I thought it was head and shoulders over every Marvel movie except maybe Deadpool Wolverine lately. But I was shocked to realize that I liked Superman better than fantastic. Four seems to be the way it's going. Yeah, all over. Yeah. The my main thing for, because when I was a kid, look at one of my first comic books was fantastic for was and I really liked and so they and I grew out, you know, Chris Claremont came around and said, Well, this is what everybody's reading now, but so i It felt kind of more child ish, fun ish, in a good way to me. And I think this captured, at least in the trailer, captured, finally, what Fantastic Four was kind of supposed to be as just kind of along the lines with the Superman. These are not the dark, brooding, no character. So Marvel you've got plenty of them. The Fantastic Four is not that so at least visually, it looks like they captured that they all very well. Really captured the feeling that this is a family. Oh, good. And, yeah, you know, they all love each other very much. And I thought Johnny was, you know, he's in every movie. He's the hot head, right? And he's impulsive, and he is in this too, but he's also really smart in this I loved that. I love that everyone is smart. Everyone went to space because they were very smart, right? That's so good an idea, as opposed to Ben grim always being sort of a alumni, yeah, no. He's like, Yeah, they let him be really clever as well. He's great. And his whole thing is always, you know, poor me, I look like a monster. And they did one scene of this that was literally, literally just a glance of him looking at a person, but then seeing a reflection of him in a window and going, I'm not going to talk to this person. And I was like, that's all we need. We get it. He's really bummed about how he looks. Yeah, we don't have to spend the whole movie on it right? And otherwise he's fucking great. He's so lovable, and the kids love him and this and everything, and he loves the kids, and there's all sorts of really good stuff. And Vanessa Kirby, who I do not like, hated her. And everything I've seen was fantastic. Oh my god. She was so good, and they gave her so much to do. Yes, they gave. I mean, she's arguably the star of the film, I would say so too. She's got the biggest decisions to make, and then she fucking shows off some power that you're like, Okay, good. We're finally realizing that she's powered up. Like. Yeah, the Phoenix almost, yeah, so powerful. So that was cool to see. Yeah, really excited to see where they go next with this. Don't quite get now the ending of thunderbolts, where we see their spaceship coming into the different earth. They must jump into the multiverse. Somehow. I thought we were going to see that at the end of this, they suddenly got sucked in or something. It's got to be like, the Doom thread related, like, it's got to be somehow related to, you know, is it Dr doom? Yeah, yeah. It's got to be part of that. I'm guessing. Come in, he's gonna come in and be like, All right, we gotta do this. Or I have information, or I'm gonna chase you, or I don't know, but I think he's gonna be the instigator. But no, I agree. And I will say, I mean, it's not really a spoiler. There's pregnancy in this. They have a very good childbirth scene. I was like, Yes, a little bit what it feels like, a little bit it feels, it feels about, yeah, yeah. That's fair so. And she also, at one point, I was like, how is she gonna give birth to wearing pants? And then, like, you see the pants, like, kicked off. You're like, Oh, cool. Okay. Excellent, very, excellent. Thank you. Unstable molecules, you can give birth in unstable molecule pants, sure, yes, I'm sure she'll just see, see through it. That's why he doesn't stretch out of his clothes. Incredible. All right, so continuing on my filling in stuff I haven't seen, the Warren series of films I have not seen very many past the main ones. So I was like, well, I'ma watch the nun. Watch Annabelle. Oh, really the Annabelle series has the first one is fine. The second one, I think is a much better one where they the Warrens get the doll and they start dealing with it. Fine. Yeah, it's fine. None of the Annabelle movies are very strong at all. I'm curious what the next conjuring film is, because the last one The devil made me do. It was not really like the other conjuring films. It was very strange they I think part of what helped me a little bit with the Annabelle films is they are less here's haunt, haunt, haunt. Now we're a giant horror action movie, which is how so many of these films end, yeah, which like watching the none I knew is coming. So okay, I'm all right with this one. I'd already seen the nun too, which I'd forgotten, so I didn't re watch that. So I just say overall, the conjuring films are fine. It's really frustrating to watch the Warrens be good looking, charismatic, fun people who really give a shit about other people. Oh, that is really hard. And every time they're, like, based on true challenge, or like, the Yeah, they really Harrow, heroize, they really build up the Warrens. So unjustified. It's, it's frustrating. Yeah, I do love the idea that this is based on a true story. The devil made me do it one where there's, we go to this underground lair where this witch has created this table that cannot be turned over and has all these things and she's influenced. It's like, okay, all right, guys, maybe the first scene was based on a real story. That stupid text on anymore. It's not been helpful since probably the late 90s. We can hear all the people out there that love this stuff, yelling, going, but that one guy that was taking the doll around on tour died mysteriously, yeah? So did a lot of other people that weren't doing anything. A lot of people died mysteriously in this world, yeah. But, you know, yeah, like, if you're gonna, if you're gonna believe weird stuff, probably the Omen behind the scenes is the most upsetting. There's some poltergeist has some weird shit. Yeah, there's definitely things out there, but like, it's Jesus Christ, like, we all know their frauds. It's fine. Yeah, we can be okay with it just being bullshit. It's fine. Not everything in the world has to be 100% true all the time based on the Warren books, let's say that. Yeah, exactly true. Sorry, Warren's account, I think they call it based on the Warren files. Do they Yeah? So this next, the next conjuring film, which is the last? Is the last? Do you think? Oh, Vera, I'm sure he'll get his underage assistant that he then has the affair, right? Oh yeah, they'll bring that in. They'll fit right in with the Hero Guy, couple they've created. Oh, so, um, so that was Annabelle, kind of The Conjuring season, kind of The Conjuring, The Conjuring. Universe. I kind of wish you could, like, go to Halloween Horror Nights, because they have, like, a exhibit. That's just, what is that company? It's, I'm forgetting it now, is that Blum house? Yeah, it's like, it'll be like several, it'll be like four of the Blum house films, or whatever you walk through it. So, yeah, see, the thing is that I think they've got some great scares. Yeah, The Conjuring, the first one that clap on the side of is just one of the great film scares. And they the first halves of almost all of them I really enjoy, yeah, but then they turn into these circus, cartoony things. I was like, okay, but I think there's, I think a horror, horror stuff. Of them sounds quite entertaining. I think you would dig it. I think you'd dig it. You know, you talk about that, that they turn into action movies, just jumping back to Fantastic Four and Superman. And people are saying that, you know, they've reinvented the superhero movie. And that's why these, these movies are doing so much better than the other ones. And I'm like, Are they really it's, it's still, it seems to always end up in a world, and, yeah, event that they have to prevent. And I'm like, I'd love to see some of these Subaru movies get a little smaller. I think you'll get, I hope you'll get that with the next Spider Man movie, yeah, except the last Spider Man movie was a world. Yes. Was a world 100% no, that was crazy. But I'm hoping, since we ended and the way we did that it, yeah, we'll go back to being small stories, or like the Spider Man cartoon was pretty good for that too, yeah, for this neighborhood. Are they doing a noir spider? Oh, Nick Cage, yeah. Man, I forgot about that. Yeah, get that out. But I mean, if nothing else, at least there, I agree with you. I don't think it's quite like as big of a shift as people are letting on, but I do think they're actually paying attention to the original source material and the comics and going, Oh, hey, these are, these are good there's some good ideas in here, man. Superman is a good guy. Well, shoot, let's just try something crazy and see if people are into that. Yeah. What if he just cares about people and does good things? Oh, shit. It's definitely a throwback to the Christopher Reeve for sure, the Snyder versus dildos that are losing their shit over Yeah, people liking this movie. This one did so much more money. I don't give a shit how much more money one of them might have made. I'd like whether it's a good movie or not. Yeah, it's like a good movie. Megan two, 2.0 didn't make a lot of money, but fuck it. It's a good movie. Sounds like, Well, I think I bumped up against a lot of people who were telling me how horrible it was. Oh, really. Oh, really. I guess I just like, weird shit. Sometimes it's just nice to have a good time. Yeah, it's okay if it's not the exact same thing as the one before, yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay. Why don't we take a little break? I'm gonna try and adjust my my other mic again, and we will be back, and we're talking about asylum films, right? Yeah, okay. The quest for the newest proof robots continues. Finally, Stevie, it is hard. Don't you know what that means, the creation of my very own name from my stinky sweat socks. He's gone mad. No, ran Yes. Yes, it's new Nickelodeon. Feel out friends still be Doug and more Nickelodeon characters now on fruit roll ups. What fun through roll ups? Will we roll out with next? And we are back. Let's see if this microphone sounds any different with your new shirt. All right. Told Vanessa, I wonder if anybody will notice. I'm going to hand out a prize if somebody notices. We should have led with that. Vanessa, this was your pick. You want to talk a little bit about this? Yeah. So I would love to chat asylum, asylum movies, this is something that I've had, like, a weird fascination with for a long time, and because we've hit on some of these other great things, like, I don't know, full moon and what was the one we just did not too long ago. But yeah, it was just like, fi movies is a good excuse to check out some asylum picks, I did a little research on asylum. So this was founded by David lat, David rimawai And Sherry stain from Hawaii. And stain had been fired from village road show pictures, and lat was working for an education software company, and they Latin. Ramawi had previously worked together in the 1992 film sorority house party. So they got together with stain and launched asylum as a film distribution company. Asylums first release was belly fruit in 1999 a comedy drama about a teen pregnancy. The company's initial goal was to distribute low budget drama films like belly fruit to video rental chains like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. But their approach changed in early 2000s as video rental chains were more interested in direct to direct to video horror films, so they kind of struggled to break into the market, especially against companies like lions, lions gate and would routinely offer who would routinely offer filmmakers way more money. So they changed their business model in 2002 with a focus on in house productions. Their goal was to produce one film per month, starting in 2002 and they began with a crime thriller, King of the ants asylums. First hit film was vampires versus Zombies in 2004 where a poster had a striking resemblance to Freddie versus Jason's poster, which came out the year before Film International writer Wheeler Winston Dixon describes vampires versus Zombies as asylums first mock buster. Around that same time, lap began working on the adaptation of the 1898 novel, The world of worlds, but discovered that Steven Spielberg was working on the film adaptation of the novel, so he prepared to end production until blockbuster ordered 100,000 copies of the film. So he released HD Wells is war the worlds on June 28 2005 a day before Spielberg's film came out. Emboldened by the success of War of the Worlds, asylum started producing low budget films to capitalize on popular similar major film studio titles in 2008 asylum increased their meager production budget and partnered with sci fi. Currently, they focus on digital distribution. Their biggest success came in 2014 with Shark Sharknado, which went viral. It spawned five sequels and eventually led to getting Z Nation, which was a rip off of Walking Dead. And they finally scrapped that after five seasons because, because it became too costly. We all know about zoo nation, because it's shot locally in Washington, but the company is going strong today. So that is asylum. That is crazy. Yeah, realize that they had been around that long, yeah, and I didn't realize that they had so many twists and turns where, like belly fruit as their first film is a to pivot from that to then horror to then, well, mock busters. I mean, if King of the ants had been huge, they would have been a really different Yes, that's a, yeah. It's a goody, goody film, yeah. And it's definitely not like when you think asylum is not there. Never heard of it before. So I was just like, Gordon, yeah, oh yeah. I saw the poster, and I was like, Is this about giant ants? I was like, Oh no, this is not at all. So you want to start us off? Yeah, let's go ahead and start off. I'm gonna go with 220 22 film, The Four Horsemen a pox of the apocalypse. We're seeing a variety of natural disasters around the globe. The frequency and severity of these disasters are increasing. They are originating from a location near you. What does this look like to you? Sounds like something out of the book of Revelation. It's the end of the world. Man, I'm assembling a team of scientists, and they will do everything that they can to stop this thing. Molten fire will rain down on every continent. So what's the plan? I need to know the exact epicenter of the volcano so I know how much ordinance that we need we have less than 12 hours before the eruption. Look, look, look, I we're gonna go down if you don't do something about these books, A pale horse emerged and death was its rider. Ah, box office, budget unknown. Directed by Josh Mead, who has four credits, including asteroid again, Amityville hunting and DC down, mostly an actor. He has 74 credits, mostly background and smaller roles. He wrote that with Joe Roach, who has 16 Credits. Mostly asylum stuff. He is also an actor and Laura Pritchard, who has 36 acting credits and seven writing credits, all asylum stuff. So bunch of actors get together in a room and make a movie starring some more actors. Arie Thompson, 14 credits, including keeping up with the Joneses, Dr death and the wrong Valentine, Eric st John, 42 credits, including dark gospels and isle of dead and some other people you would not recognize ever this. The story is we're starting off with the world already in chaos various natural disasters globally, which all seem to be linked to a spot in Brazil. There are some soldiers and major Jones in charge. Of them are signed by a general somewhere off screen who is watching remotely to go to this lake. They are also teamed up with three scientists, a meteorologist, volcanologist, volcanologist and a biologist to figure out what is happening and stop it before the world ends. The area is experiencing guerilla warfare, so they need to be careful. It's also experiencing quakes and lightning storms and locusts, oh, and four horsemen, which are kind of around randomly, and no one reacts to them showing up and link standing there on the hillside and having like loud, booming horse sounds. One of the soldiers starts acting really weird, then turns very aggressive and tries to kill somebody. It's discovered that a strange plant near the lake in Brazil is releasing a toxin in the air which can only be eradicated with oxygen. Oh, yeah. Okay, that's gonna be hard to come by. This is the level of writing we are dealing with. There is a lot of this. I'm like, wait, what now? Excuse, okay, they pinpoint all of this to the lake and realize that everything is connected to it globally. The only solution blow up the lake. Right as they're about to drop a bomb on the lake, the major goes crazy from the spores and sees the four horsemen in the clouds and starts talking about them. Is it the spores, or are they really there? I'll leave it to your imagination to how this film ends. This film has like, four sentences in it that people say over and over again in different ways. It is boring as hell. I don't know why they need to blow up one lake to save the entire world. And like, they don't have enough time to do anything else. All they can do is blow up this lake and it's gonna fix everything. I'm like, I don't get any of the science that they are trying to use in this half the characters they kind of, there's like, two of the scientists they just leave on the side of the road for half this movie. It sucks. I'm like, Okay, I guess you guys aren't important. There's so much saying and not showing. The budget is weird, because they use a bunch of things to, like, blow up buildings and have huge storms and have all these crazy things happening. But then, like, they couldn't hire more army guys, so at one point they go to this abandoned, well, it's supposed to be an army base, and they're like, No one's here, weird. And then never discuss it. Or, like, one of the scientists goes to into a room, like a closet, to do some experiments, and they will not show him. And like, one of the other scientists knocks on the door and is like, they're like, oh, you can't go in there because you're not wearing a mask. And she's like, Oh, no, I'm not going to I'll just talk to him through the door. I'm like, you couldn't get some speakers. What is the deal? I really wanted to watch this film because I wanted to see how they would battle the four horsemen. This did not happen. Shockingly, there was a lack of horsemen over the use of locusts and armies and God in general. The ending is a huge disappointment, but you do get to watch the four horsemen, kind of rot ride off into the sunset and just sort of give up because their special like, plan fell apart. It's very religious. Like, it feels like a Christian propaganda film. They're constantly doing weird stuff, like, Major, are you a man of God? Yes, good. We're gonna need that. And then they, like, randomly keep quoting the Bible. When the major's about to seemingly die, the scientist lady asks for his favorite memory, and he talks about going to church with his mom and her not scolding him for knocking something over. And it is the most mundane land ass favorite memory I've ever heard in my entire life that was rough. This is free on prime. Watch the trailer. You'll get the gist. There's really not that much trivia. There's a previous film in 1962 that looks a lot better with the same title. The tagline is, the end is here, that's what I got. Well, great. I didn't even see this one pop up and my list. Find a movie for this. I found it on the YouTube asylum channel. I went through the A. Apocalypse section. And I was like, oh, okay, this one looks interesting, like the trailer looks I was like, oh, you know, like, nowadays it's easier to make lower budget films because you have drones, you have like, they have their library of CGI. I thought maybe the bar would be easier to reach, but I was sorely disappointed in my pick. Wow, there's no Sharknado. There was no Sharknado. What you go, yeah, okay, Eric, you don't mind? Okay, yeah, dive in. Okay. Five minutes on the buzzer. I picked from 2021, Aquarium of the Dead The Shining Sea Aquarium, I'm checking to make sure that all of those medications that you received from our facility were destroyed. Yeah, I handled it myself. Here we had an animal that had a severe adverse reaction to the dosage. You're saying. This was an octopus. So something is up with the animals. We may have a bomber go, but we need to get out of here. Would you stop? What was that? They're trying to compromise the tank run. I'm going 911, now, lockdown. What do you mean? We stuck here. They're dead, but not dead. I directed by Glenn Miller, who directed zoomies. Zoomies two top gunner danger zone and death aquarium. He directed a movie called Death aquarium. After directing a movie called Aquarium of the dead, excellent, wow. He's got a real pigeon hole. This was written by a couple of guys, Mark Gottlieb, who wrote super volcano ape versus mecha ape, Snow White and the Seven Samurai. Oh my god and mouse of horrors. And also written by Michael variety, who wrote code name Dyna stud nightmare house and Hornet, which is the Bumblebee, rip off, starring, believe it or not, Vivica, a fox who has 261 credits, the wrong wedding planner, the wrong stepfather, the wrong cheerleader coach. These three movies are not connected. Oh, my God, she does not play the same character, and they're not written or directed. I was like what I have to talk about that. Also in this is Eva Seija, who has 86 credits, including Titanic 666, American Bigfoot and hell past nightmare. And also, DC Douglas, who has 353, credits, including Isle of the Dead ribbons and 31 episodes of Ultraman, there you go. Okay, guys, I really could have picked a better film. There's a pretty low rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but I like the idea. What I didn't realize is this is the third film in a series that started with a movie called Zoom bees, which was about a zombie outbreak in a zoo that turns all the animals into undead zoo animals. And it should be noted that about 15 years ago, I had this exact same idea with this exact same title, and I pitched it to a couple of folks who shot it down immediately. I don't know if it made its way to style, if it's just in the zeitgeist. And I had a brilliant idea. Somebody else had the same one. Wow. Anyway, zoomies came out, did good enough for asylum to get at least one sequel. Zoomies two and then this side Quill, I guess it also drops a few hints that it is taking place in the Sharknado universe. But then I was like, I don't know. Maybe there is a asylum cinematic universe, and these are all related. I wondered the same thing, oh, God, this is the same idea as zoom bees, only. It takes place in an aquarium, and it ties back to the zoomies movie with a zoom piece with a particular character. But I didn't know that, but I am pretty smart cookie, and I was able to follow this movie without having seen it starts at the shining Sea Aquarium where a couple of workers are doing a regular checkup on the resident octopus, but the octopus goes into cardiac arrest from the procedure and seemingly dies, then suddenly reanimates, attacks and kills the workers and escapes into the ducts. Coincidentally, at this time, one of the scientists at the aquarium, Miranda, receives a transmission from the zoo warning her to dispose of any epinephrine the aquarium has received. Her colleague, Daniel assures her that he took care of the disposal. And I think this is what happened in the zoomies movie, the epinephrine. Foreshadow. So Miranda meets with the local senator, who's there with his assistant, and they are touring the facilities because he's going to secure additional funds for them. But of course, everything falls apart when it becomes clear that the octopus slime has somehow con time contaminated the rest of the animals in the aquarium, who then all shatter their tanks to escape. I didn't realize octopuses created slime. I But yeah, it's new on me. The movie then becomes a mishmash of every zombie movie slash Jaws rip off the various people in the aquarium, which seems to just be workers, and the senator and his aide are trying to avoid the zombies, and they keep coming up against zombified alligators, walruses and a bunch of undead spider crabs that are actually pretty fucking great. It does seem like this aquarium has way more types of animals in it than it should, but we don't get to see anything cool, like a fucking shark or a dolphin. That would have been awesome to see. People are dying left and right. We find out, of course, that Daniel, who was supposed to get rid of the epinephrine, did not do that, and it was somehow not exactly sure part of a deal he made with the senator. Doesn't make a lot of sense. But what did I expect? A pretty good movie with this I had a pretty good time with this movie. Vivica, a fox is the name actor, and she is by no means the best actor. Sure, not unusual. She flubs her lines a couple of times, and they use those takes. I don't understand if they just didn't do more than one take on these things. All of her scenes take place in one room. She is locked in. And I'd like they had it for one day. Yeah, that tracks the aquarium, though, is really cool looking. And there's lots of shots of them walking by, you know, huge tanks of fish and beautiful scenery. And I'm like, this adds a lot of production value. The effects are the horrible type of plug in effects that they have where you see an alligator walking towards them, and then in a completely different scene, that same alligator walking towards somebody else, shit like that. Tagline, don't touch the glass. Don't knock on the glass or something. Not a lot of trivia, as you might expect from asylum. I mean, are you going to be surprised as something that looks like this cost so little or that it was shot in only six days? No, I do have a couple of interesting quotes. Lloyd Farley at collider called it, quote, one of the most enjoyable animal attack movies ever made. Wow, think that's stretching it a little bit. Paul mount at Starburst scored it a three out of five, and said, quote, it's unlikely to make you throw up after you've digested it all. UNQUOTE, certainly faint, glowing. And Phil wheat at nerdly said, if you liked either of Glenn Miller's zoological zombie films, you'll enjoy this one too. Which that is the best price? I think that's probably true. It was called Aquarium of the dead. Wow, here's my problem. I just went and as soon as you decided this was going to be the thing, I was like 10 Best asylum flicks, and this showed up in one of them. Oh, but then when I looked at it, had like a 23 so yeah, I kept looking at, like the 10 Best and then just being like, I I don't know. They were just random. They just didn't seem quite right. So I was a lot of random movies when you're looking at trance morphers and top gunners. Exactly I should have done top gunner danger zone. The titles, awesome, Eric, you want to wrap this up? I will five minutes with 2015, flight World War Two. Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our cruising altitude. Forecast called for clear skies to sit back and enjoy your ride. Something up over there you see in this way around it, that's not a storm. Never have to go straight through you. None of this makes any sense. Can help you figure out where we are. You've flown through a German Bombing Run, 17th of June, 1940 we have traveled through time to change human history. We're up here all alone, and we're in a war zone. We got something close coming in hot in our night. You're trying to hijack this plane, nothing. We couldn't handle the damn thing out of the sky ourselves. Lily is World War Two. This one current to yours. It's a blockbuster 28% Whoa. Yeah, luckily and happily, this is available on hoopla for you know, no charge where every place else is rental directed by Emil Edwin Smith of mega shark versus mecha shark ice, sharks and age of ice. He's actually best known for his visual effects, where he was the key, one of the key guys on Sharknado, but also serenity, the Firefly film. Wow, he has actually a shitload of effects credits. Oh, damn. The writer was Jacob Cooney of flight 666, and Titanic, 666, and three headed shark attack and five headed shark attack, and the fast and the fierce. What? He skipped four headed shark attack, I don't know. Man, they wanted odd numbers. Also. Bill handstock, who also wrote a lot of silent films, included three headed shark attack and five headed shark attack, the fast and the fierce and apocalypse. Pompeii, which is not a period piece starring ferranta Here, who you probably have seen because he's an Iron Man. Star Trek, tons and tons of television. Robbie K who also has lots of TV heroes, once upon a time, blood Fest and aqua. Lee Zoll dances with werewolves, coherence and wrong turn six. I wish I'd come up with that title. Dances With werewolves. Very good. I didn't know there were six of them. I thought wrong turn had ended at five. Wrong Turn six was written by our buddy, whose name I can't remember, right? Look it up. Yeah. So right off the bat, you go, yep. This is an asylum film, because it takes place in a plane that is obviously not a plane. You know, not that to ever use a real plane in a movie. But this is Wow, rough the it's a giant 747, and you see, like, slightly larger than the first class area through the entire movie. And that's all the interactions. Like, it's like, yeah, there's nobody else on this plane. It's very, very empty flight. Plane is hit by a crazy storm and seems to pass through some weird blue haze. And when it comes clear it's night, nobody knows what happens. Why is it night? The pilot says it's because they pass through the corner of the Bermuda Triangle. And I don't know if he was joking, okay, but the plane, of course, is lucky enough to have all the experts you need in a situation like this, as you learn while the flight attendants are handing out the water. Hi, we're here because we studied World War Two. Look, we're working on this book. Oh my God, but they take the plane down just to kind of see where they are. And it's a world war two sea battle. And decently rendered, although very short. Was not there long, but it was done all right. The two experts kind of figure it out. And of course, one grumpy guy overhears them in the most unrealistic part of the show, man sitting in front of two people quietly talking on an airplane and overhearing everything they're saying, no, but definitely not final countdown level stuff, because obviously it's a commercial airline, and they're not loaded with guns, although, being that, the guy who overheard everything thinks they should go down and kill Hitler like UK, get a fly from they figure they're in central France to Germany, land an unarmed plane and go anyways. Luckily, that was nixed like immediately, almost as soon as the guy said it, there's two military guys that stand up and go, that's stupid. Well, they'll die. So, you know, that was nice. Let's see what else. No logic, no reality, but I gotta tell you, absolutely entertaining. Oh, really, I enjoyed the shit out of this stupid movie. It was so fun to watch. It makes no sense in a logical way. But interestingly, the biggest criticism in you know, the IMDB stuff was, well, this kind of plane didn't exist until this time, and a 750 or 757. Has a maximum speed of 659, miles an hour while a the planes are flying can at least maybe hit 560, so it could easily Out Run and shit like that. But there's a that's a point in the movie where they figure out what's going on that Nix is everything, as far as what you could say about Well that didn't exist at that time, which is a surprisingly smart move for an asylum film. No kidding, but this is really just largely because for on and Aquila ferrans a great performance in the. Film. He's got gravitas as the captain. It works. Mostly. They do incredibly stupid things. But it's an asylum film. I didn't go in there going that this is all going to connect and logical work, and so I actually really enjoyed it. This might be one of the best asylum films I've watched that sounds like it. I kind of felt bad making us do this, because I was like this. These are all real stinkers. I had a good time with it. Eric, do they? Do they land the plane? No, they don't actually land the plane. The whole thing, they're up in the air. Well, yeah, they do communicate with soldier on the ground. There's some the like, they go back in time, and the only thing working is, what would work? Like? The radar works and the radio works. Okay? So there's that becomes very important, the radar and things like that. And it the premise, you know, silly and ridiculous, but they actually connect the dots much better than a lot of asylum films where you're like, Okay, this probably wouldn't work, but in the context of a film, sure? Why not? Context of a film where you traveled through time by flying through a storm cloud at the edge of the Bermuda Triangle, but then land over France somewhere, Yeah, where's the Bermuda Triangle? I thought that must be like a joke. I don't know. It disappeared sometime in the late 90s, I think, or early, late 80s. They just stopped talking about the Bermuda Triangle at sea. I remember hearing it being a big deal when I was a kid. Oh yeah, man, but it's that's in, like, just below Florida, I believe. Yeah. Okay, so interesting. Okay, well, I guess then Eric that, oh, wait, no, you're, I've got the next one. Oh, Kelly, damn, we're gonna watch another asylum. You know how we did the Sci Fi decade? No, uh, no, I want to do movies that have a number in the title. However, that number can't be the sequel number. Okay, so you could do Friday the 13th, but not Friday the 13th. You could do any of the Friday the 13th movies, as long as it's got 13 like you couldn't do Fred you couldn't do Freddie versus Jason, because it has no number in the title. You could do 2001 because the number 2010 you can do those kind of things. Three Days of the Condor, the fourth victim. Oh, I'm really excited about this is gonna be a really fun challenge, yeah, so that's what we're gonna do next week. Okay? Then that means that we're at the end of the episode, guys, we fucking made it somehow. Let's hope these microphones work to this. I've got, you know, the one things you always throw to me about where to sign up. I've been working on our website. It's working a little bit better. So you can go there for make us a pizza, is the one that's on the homepage. But if you go to support us, you got the makeup pizza and you got the PayPal buy us a pizza. Yeah, why not? Oh, man, cookies, thinking of me. Oh, the makeup pizza. Just remind me, like, a week of the thing, and then I'll do it. Not like I need any more. I'm not gonna fight you. I want cookies cheese. But so it's up a little bit better. I've got an experimental email on there, through the see if it works through the website. So questions at strangeeons radio.com, if you want to send that, I'll hopefully remember to check it, because I haven't figured out yet how to forward it out of the site to like something that I easily check all the time. But now nobody knows how to do that. It is one of life's great mysteries. So so if you want to send an email now, strangers at strange hands, radio.com, I love it, okay. Well, that part is called value for value. If you decide to, you want to donate anything to us, and we can't tell you how much to donate, you decide, yeah, then that also counts for like, liking, sharing posts, reaching out on the YouTube channel or Vanessa. You can also reach our strange eons radio hotline and leave us a message that number is 253-237-4266, you can also text it. That's right, yeah, we haven't had a text in a while. It's been a hot minute, yeah, right now I'm doing the annual 100, 100 days to Halloween, 100 days to horror thing, which makes means I'm posting daily. So get on there. You know, let me know if you think I'm a moron for liking this movie or, yeah, this is actually really good. I just finished my series of friends. Shy is watching. So now start watching just some random ones. You're watching underworld as well. Yeah, talking about this, I really enjoy seeing what the hell you've been wasting your time on. I'm like, What did Eric watch today? Cool. All in the service to you fine people. All right, gang, how about we come back in seven short days, and we are going to be talking about movies with numbers in the title. Sounds good, see you next time. See you. Next what transportation and other considerations for strange eons, radio produced by Pan Am airlines. When you think of traveling, think of Pan Am. You can't beat the experience. Guests of strange eons radio stay at econo Lodge, Everett. It's an easy stop on the road. Strange eons radio is recorded live in front of a studio audience. 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