Asylum

Important note to potential film viewers of Asylum (2014): Before you watch this movie, learn about the history of Asylum. It is extremely important that you know the history of this movie before watching this movie.

On the Asylum IMDb message board, posters have provided links to various websites giving the story behind the movie Asylum. For instance, Comedy Film Nerds has a podcast where the original screenwriter for Asylum, Chris Mancini, talks about how After Dark Films managed to completely ruin the movie Asylum. If you go to the website Comedy Film Nerds, make sure you check out podcast 219 for the original story (the actual story starts at 34:20 of the podcast). You can search via the "keyword search" and type in 219. I also read that episode 242 has more information about the story behind Asylum but I didn't listen to that one. So I'll just give a quick rundown of the story of how After Dark Films thoroughly screwed up their own film Asylum: Chris Mancini manages to sell his script to the horror production company, After Dark Films. Then he pitches his proposal to be the director: he shows storyboards; gives information of crew members who are willing to work for a lower fee than normal (some of them somewhat well known); and runs down his idea of how to make the film work on time and within the budget. The After Dark folks say, "Thanks. We'll call you after we've made our decision." A short while later he gets a brief email basically saying, "Yeah, we decided to shoot in Bulgaria and go with a Bulgarian director and Bulgarian crew. I know you wanted it but we're going to do it this way. But we'll keep you in mind for any other projects in the future." That's it. He doesn't hear anything for around a year. Then he goes to a comic con in California and meets the After Dark people. They won't show him the movie, they will show him the trailer, however. He sees the trailer and thinks, "That doesn't look anything like what I originally wrote. But the trailer looked cool, nevertheless. So it looks like everything worked out okay." Time passes and out of the blue the After Dark producers call him up and ask him for a meeting. He says he'll be there. As he's on his way, the call back to confirm if he's going to show up. He says he will. Then, while he's driving to the studio, they call him again and ask if he's coming to the meeting. He's stunned. He thinks, "This is the third time they've called to make sure I'm coming to the meeting. If they have to confirm the meeting 3 times in one day, that must mean they're desperate to see me and something went wrong." He says he'll be there. But before the phone call ends they tell him to meet him at a local bar. Again, he's stunned but he says he'll be there.

When he gets to the bar he asks the After Dark producers what's up. They won't answer him. They continuously evade his question. They tell him to have a drink. No matter how many times he asks, they urge him to have a drink and evade his question. Only after he finishes two drinks do they tell him the truth: the movie is total garbage.

It turns out After Dark Films gave his script to one of their producers, told him to take it to Bulgaria and do what he could with it, and then let him have a free rein. Apparently, the producer completely chucked Chris Mancini's original script and made a completely new one. The only real thing that stayed in the new script is the title. The producer in Bulgaria made a completely unwatchable movie. When the people at After Dark Films saw it they were absolutely stunned. They had a deal with Lions Gate Films for Lions Gate to distribute their films and they couldn't give such an unwatchable movie to Lions Gate to be distributed. So they called Chris Mancini to rewrite it into a comedy. After seeing the unwatchable film, Mancini decides to turn it into an MST3K-style comedy because that's all he can do with the remaining few thousand dollars from the original budget.

So there it is, folks. The story behind Asylum and a little peek at the stupidity that goes on in Hollywood. After Dark Films is an utterly ridiculous film company. They used to have a festival called "8 Horror Films to Die For" but the films were so awful and so thoroughly trashed by the audiences that they stopped doing that festival and now put out fewer films since 2011. Their 2007 film "Captivity" managed to generate so much controversy and hate from feminists that Joss Whedon tried to get it banned from movie theaters. It's amazing how such a company can still manage to run. In fact, it's amazing how Hollywood still manages to run when you hear all the stories of thoroughly inept filmmaking that will make your jaw drop.

As far as the film Asylum goes, you should only watch it if you like MST3K and are willing to watch a movie inspired by it. The other reviewers didn't know about this film didn't know the story behind this movie before watching it. That's why they were completely perplexed and turned off. Knowing the story behind this movie makes it much easier to watch. I actually liked some of the jokes such as them calling Stephen Rea "lesbian Bob Dylan". If you're a fan of MST3K and have beer and potato chips, give this movie a shot. If not, then steer clear of this train wreck.

I actually signed up for IMDb for the first time, after reading hundreds of reviews, to complain about how terrible this film is, 100% a result of the completely boring voice over.

They should re-edit this film and remove them and I'd probably jump up 6 stars.

Maybe they were trying for this type of reaction, if so I want to commend them.

It's honestly worse than listening to people talk in a movie theater, please god don't rent it, see it, or even watch a preview.

At least I can yell at the people in the theater.

Strange film this.It starts with 2 editors trying to cut a horror movie from footage from a shoot in some fictional foreign country. What follows is that you see the entire horror movie with a Mystery Science Theater 3000 type comical voice over by the two editors. The film itself looks like a work-print with captions for missing effects etc. There's a couple of cuts to a side story with the editors but this probably only accounts for about 5 minutes of screen time. What ruins this film is the actual horror movie looks watchable whilst the editors are irritatingly unfunny. The production values in the horror movie seem quite decent whilst the editor sections are amateur hour. Its just a pity we couldn't see the horror movie and lose the editors voice over.

Asylum, there have to be a dozen films by that name. It kind of makes you wonder why they bother, is it so hard to come up with something original?

This one however is very memorable, though I'm not entirely sure for the best reasons.

Imagine a really quite dire horror movie starring Bruce Payne and Stephen Rea with a side story about the movies creation and comedy narration over it similiar to Mystery Science Theatre 3000. That's what this movie is, and it's totally bizzare.

So it tells the story of a swat team who are tasked with going into an Asylum and the whole thing is dreadful from plot to the actors who range from bad to bored. The saving grace is the narration and truth be told some of it is genuinely hilarious.

But it's not so good to make this a watchable 90 minutes, the movie itself is really damn bad but the narration mocks it every step of the way and often speaks exactly what you're thinking.

It's hard to identify who this is aimed at, all I can say is that it isn't a horror and does have enough comedy to make it watchable.........barely.

The Good:

Some genuine laughs

Caroline Ford

The Bad:

Bruce Payne

SO many films called Asylum

Plot is a mess

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Chris Brown jokes, still funny

I will not be able to look at Stephen Rea again without thinking lesbian Bob Dylan

If an ally gets pulled into a fridge by unknown forces.........shoot the fridge

The plot

An eleven-person riot squad races to an insane asylum to quell a recent inmate outbreak and hostage situation.

They arrive, only to be caught off guard by a sudden barrage of insane patients.

When they've finally fought off a wave, two of their squad members are missing, their communications return only static, and the doors are locked.

They're trapped.

They break up into three teams to track down the lost members.

Strange sounds and religious iconography suggest something beyond insanity has taken over the inmates.

Sure enough, a simple rescue mission quickly morphs into relentless life or death battles with possessed.

When McGahey, a trained, rational hostage negotiator, discovers the ringleader of this possessed insanity is none other than his brother, it falls on him to stop nothing less than the opening of a portal to Hell.

This is one bizarre movie.

It's sort of like Mystery Science Fiction Theatre. Very hard to describe and follow.

It starts out with a priest and then cuts to these guys who appear to be editing or adding special effects to a movie.

The rest of the movie shifts back and forth between the asylum and voice over of these two editors making dumb funny comments about the movie which, BTW was supposed to be found footage, and the producer back in the US.

It's nearly impossible to watch. Nothing makes sense.

Stephen Rhea has really dropped into the abyss.

Words cannot describe how bad this movie is.