Micro-Shock Spotlight On: The Asylum

“How to make cheap movies look good”

By Jonathan Moody

You may or may not have heard of the company The Asylum. Love them or hate them or not know anything about them, you still gotta respect them. They make movies for very cheap budgets. Some less than 100,000 dollars. Now that’s remarkable when you actually see them.

My first contact with The Asylum was when I was having a very crappy day. I came home from work depressed and upset. The only thing I thought that could cheer me up was turning on the Sci Fi channel and seeing something fun and entertaining. What I didn’t know was that day was going to change my life for the better.

I turned on the TV to find, “The Beast of Bray Road” on the TV. A werewolf movie based on an urban legend in Wisconsin. How cool did that sound? I watched it. Mesmerized. I looked it up online and found out that the director Leigh Scott had directed about 8 movies in the span of 2 years. That was really cool. I mean I hadn’t even done one feature film in the 25 years I had lived and this guy got to direct 6 of them knack to back. I had to contact him.

I set up an interview with him and spoke about how he did it. He explained that the Asylum were a cheap and fast production company much like Roger Corman. In fact Leigh had worked for Roger back in the day and liked working for the Asylum more. He explained that these days they do what’s known as Mockbusters. Basically that’s when they take a blockbuster hit and copy it right before the theatre date. Usually the tuesday before they release it on that Friday. That way people will go pick up the movie in the video store thinking it’s the blockbuster by accident.

That’s a very effective tool if you think about it. Though they aren’t really the first company to think of it. However I do think they are one of the first companies to make a damn good living off of it. Maybe you have heard of some of their mockbusters like, “Snakes on a train”, “King of the Lost World”, “When a killer calls”, and the one that started it all, “H.G. Well’s War of the Worlds”.

Since my interview with Leigh I have spoke and had interviews with many of the Asylum’s cast and crew. They have taught me a lot about the Asylum. I have learned so much. And here are some interesting stuff about the company. Sometimes they try to save money on anything they can. Marat Glazer, one of the actors for The Asylum was called one day by Leigh when they were in the process of making 9/11: Commission report. “Hey Marat do you want to act in 9/11: Commission report” “Sure. When do you need me?” “Now!” Marat went to the set and found out that the motel set they needed was not even a motel room. It was one of the guys apartments. They just shot the outside of the motel room and then when they needed to go inside they just went to someone's apartment. I was shocked. Obviously they do this to save in any way they can.

Actor Tom Downey had to act in two Asylum productions back to back in the same building. Watch, “Dead Men Walking” and “Shapeshifter”. They are supposed to take place in prisons. It’s the same prison on the same week. Tom had to act in one and then play the shapeshifter in the other one. That’s another way to save money when you’re just a small production company.

Watch the outtakes of “Pirates of Treasure Island” because you will see that a motorboat whizzes right by in the middle of shooting the movie, and it was supposed to take place during the 1600s or so. The movies they do are full of fun stuff like that.

The commentaries on the DVDs are the most fun. They seem to know the movies are cheap and fun and the cast/crew commentaries show that. They all joke around and hang out. It’s more like one of the Saturday night get togethers. In fact that’s how an Asylum movie feels in general.

So to wrap this up if you want to hear more of my MANY interviews with the Asylum cast and crew go ahead and go to my website: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/JonathanMoody  I have interviewed many of them and they are all in the archives. And please check out their website:  http://www.theasylum.cc I guarantee you if you’ve seen one of their movies you’re gonna wanna watch them all.

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