Sinister Squad (2016) and The Asylum Putting Twists on Mockbusters

The Asylum is a name that anybody who knows bad movies will recognize. They made a name for themselves with a few types of cheap movies. They put out numerous creature features, many of which ended up on SyFy or whatever iteration of that channel was going at the time. The Sharknado movies are an example of that. The Asylum has also put out numerous low-budget horror flicks and sex comedies over the years. What made them into the studio they are, however, is their frequent production of mockbusters.

A mockbuster is a pretty simple idea that I’ve gone over many times before. I’ve seen enough of them for Sunday “Bad” Movies to know by now. A big studio (usually) will release a major blockbuster property. Another studio, much smaller than that big one, will throw together something that seems similar on the outside to try and cash in on the potential success of that major flick. Usually, the name will sound close enough to cause confusion for less informed viewers. Something like Mission: Impossible could become Mission: Not Possible. I don’t know if that one is real, but it could easily be. The quickly thrown together rip-off gets released around the same time as the big budget flick, and the small studio rakes in some of the overflow profit.

The Asylum grew out of a series of mockbuster flicks. There were a handful of flicks before the mockbusters began, but once they tapped into that market, people really began to recognize them. They became known as the studio that made the direct-to-video knock-offs filling rental store shelves. You know, for the maybe seven years between the rise of The Asylum and the agonizing death of rental stores. They also found their way onto streaming services, further confusing people who wanted to find something quick to turn on after staring at the menu of movies for half an hour.

As I mentioned a little earlier, I’ve seen a bunch of The Asylum’s mockbusters for Sunday “Bad” Movies. I’ve also seen a bunch of them outside watching movies for the blog. Some of them were better than others, taking the basic idea of another movie and running with it. They added their own twist, beyond the usual bad effects and insanity. Something magical happened. Here are five, technically seven, mockbusters from The Asylum that I thought put interesting spins on the material.

Sinister Squad and Avengers Grimm

This week’s movie is Sinister Squad. Alice (Christina Licciardi) was part of a government agency that also included Goldilocks (Lindsay Sawyer) and Piper (Isaac Reyes). They were tasked with capturing various fairy tale villains. With the help of Tweedledee and Tweedledum (Aaron Moses, in a dual role), they captured the likes of Rumpelstiltskin (Johnny Rey Diaz), Bluebeard (Trae Ireland), and the Big Bad Wolf (Joseph Michael Harris). While trying to capture the witch Carabosse (Fiona Rene), they discovered that Death was trying to break free of the Underworld and take over Earth. They needed the help of the captured villains to stop that from happening.

Clearly, Sinister Squad was a mockbuster of Suicide Squad, the DC supervillains movie. It was about a group of villains that were brought together to take down a bigger evil. The government was pulling a “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” sort of tactic to take down the baddest bad guy. The Asylum couldn’t use DC characters, though. They didn’t have the rights to those characters. Thus, they chose to go the public domain route. They took villains from popular fairy tales and placed them into the squad, instead. Rumpelstiltskin was there. Big Bad Wolf was there. Even Gelda (Talia A Davis), the Queen of Hearts from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, made an appearance.

The use of fairy tale characters in the place of the comic book villains brought everything together in a cohesive way, giving a better vision than some other mockbusters. It felt like the writers were actually trying for something beyond ripping off another film. The same could be said for The Avengers Grimm, which took The Avengers and replaced the superheroes with fairy tale heroes. It was the same idea and, again, felt like it had a decent vision behind it.

Dead 7

One of the more recent inclusions in Sunday “Bad” Movies was Dead 7, a mockbuster take on Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven, Battle Beyond the Stars, or the numerous other versions of that story. A few small western towns were overrun with zombies. One of the last towns decided they were going to stop the zombie attacks once and for all. They hired a team of the best gunslingers in the area to take down the woman sending zombies their way. Some of those gunslingers would not return.

The Asylum did another take on a classic western back when they produced 6 Guns, but it was Dead 7 that went above and beyond the call of duty when it came to being a mockbuster. It could have easily been a rip-off of The Magnificent Seven, with zombies instead of bandits. It could have left it at that and been the standard mockbuster fare. However, the casting changed things. The casting brought in a bunch of people from popular boy bands and placed them into the main roles. There were people from Backstreet Boys, N*Sync, O-Town, and 98 Degrees involved. It became a nostalgia-fest for anyone who listened to those groups growing up. It was more than a quick rehash of a classic story.

Utilizing members of boy bands showed the effort that the filmmakers put into Dead 7. They could have taken some of the regulars of The Asylum. People like Hayley Derryberry and Gerald Webb could have had major roles alongside one or two past-their-prime stars like Jamie Kennedy or Reginald VelJohnson. That’s how most movies from The Asylum are cast. Yet Dead 7 took the time to carefully consider the cast and put a whole bunch of boy band members into nearly every leading role. Sure, it helped that Nick Carter was a producer. Still… It was nice to see something different happen in the casting process.

3 Musketeers

The Three Musketeers is part of a series of novels that also include The Man in the Iron Mask and has been in the public domain for many years. That’s why so many adaptations of the tale have been made. If someone wants to make an adaptation, they can. Anyone can. The Asylum made their adaptation to coincide with the big budget studio Three Musketeers flick that was being directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. The two films couldn’t be any more different.

Where the Anderson flick created a sort of steampunk world in which the story was told, The Asylum took a much different approach. They set their film in the present day. The titular musketeers were spies trying to stop cyber terrorists. Their codenames were Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. They were joined by a newer agent, nicknamed D’Artagnan. It was all the elements of The Three Musketeers, placed in a modern cyber-security setting with espionage and guns.

The updated setting of 3 Musketeers made the story feel fresh again. It wasn’t simply another movie where four guys sword-fought their way to taking down Cardinal Richelieu and his agent, Rochefort. They were still going to try and take the villains down. It just wasn’t the same period-setting sword-fighting story. It was modernized in a way that I haven’t seen in any other adaptation. Even the Paul W.S. Anderson version, which added steampunk elements, still felt classic. Steampunk does that. It feels classic and futuristic all at once. 3 Musketeers felt like it was in the now, which made it stand out among other versions of the tale.

8213: Gacy House and 100 Ghost Street: The Return of Richard Speck

Here’s another two-for. Both movies kind of cover the same ground in terms of why I think they are some of the more interesting mockbusters from The Asylum. They were both made to cash in on the success of Paranormal Activity and its sequels. They weren’t as obvious about it as Paranormal Entity was, but they were still found footage haunted house movies released to coincide with the Paranormal Activity franchise, so they still count as mockbusters.

The big difference is that the Paranormal Activity films are complete fiction. The entire story, the full lore, was made up by the people writing the screenplays. They came up with the story. They created the villain. They built out the history from their own minds. 8213: Gacy House and 100 Ghost Street: The Return of Richard Speck were fiction as well. The stories of the people investigating the houses were complete fiction. Yet, there was a little bit of reality pulled into them by using real murderers.

8213: Gacy House involved a group of investigators as they spent time in the house that John Wayne Gacy owned. This opened the story to be about a historical person rather than a fictional entity stalking people. It grounded the film in the real world, giving viewers an opportunity to connect with the threat a little more. The same went for 100 Ghost Street: The Return of Richard Speck, which used the ghost of Richard Speck as the villainous entity. Knowing that the entities in these movies were real people who committed horrific acts could make things more frightening for viewers. In turn, it made the movies more interesting than simple rip-offs to a popular found footage franchise.

Nazis at the Center of the Earth

This one is a little different than The Asylum intentionally doing something to set the movie apart from what it was ripping off. Nazis at the Center of the Earth was a take on Iron Sky, the movie about Nazis thriving and surviving on The Moon. The difference was that this one took place in a Hollow Earth type of situation. That might not sound that interesting. All the filmmakers did was go from the sky above to the ground below. They didn’t try anything new with the story. They simply changed the location.

The strange thing was that it predicted the Iron Sky sequel. Iron Sky: The Coming Race involved people travelling into a Hollow Earth to find a power source that could help them survive on another planet. It was utilizing the same Hollow Earth setting that Nazis at the Center of the Earth featured. It was a fulfilled prophecy from The Asylum. Where they thought that their change of setting would set them far enough apart from the hyped Iron Sky, they ended making a movie that shared some major story elements with the sequel. It was unintentional foreshadowing.

That’s not to say that the movie itself was interesting. Nazis at the Center of the Earth was very middle-ground for The Asylum. It did, luckily, feature a rocking end credits song by Jake Busey’s band Sons of the Lawless. It had that much going for it. The most interesting thing, though, was the way it fumbled into predicting the sequel to the movie it was ripping off.

So there are five, or seven, mockbusters by The Asylum that ended up being more interesting than they deserved to be. Each of the mockbusters was the result of ripping off a major motion picture that was getting a wide release in theaters. In most cases, they leave the mockbusters at that. They’re typically a lazy attempt to cash in on the potential success of something else. In some cases, the movies become more than that. They become something that can stand on its own to be an entertaining piece of b-movie fare.

The Asylum has been making movies for two decades now, and they don’t seem to be slowing down. Their mockbusters made them famous, but they’ve found success in other genres as well. Creature features like Sharknado and Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus have become staples in people’s bad movie watching repertoire. The Asylum solidified their place in people’s hearts through their work in the b-movie genre. Whether the effort was there or not, the movies became fan favourites. Are they really that bad if that’s the case?

It’s time for some notes:

• Movies mentioned in this post included Dead 7 (week 442), 6 Guns (week 247), 3 Musketeers (week 384), 8213: Gacy House (week 60), 100 Ghost Street: The Return of Richard Speck (week 60), Paranormal Entity (week 60), Nazis at the Center of the Earth (week 73), Iron Sky (week 440), Iron Sky: The Coming Race (week 440), Sharknado (week 190), and Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (week 300).
• Nick Principe made his third Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance in Sinister Squad. He was previously seen in The Summer of Massacre (week 26) and Lavalantula (week 290).
• Have you seen Sinister Squad? What did you think of it? Have you seen any of the mockbusters I mentioned? Have you seen any others? Have you seen anything else from The Asylum? Illuminate me with your thoughts in the comments. Or we could converse on Twitter.
• If there’s a movie you think I should check out for Sunday “Bad” Movies, you can also use Twitter and the comments to let me know what the movie is. I’m open to almost any suggestions. And I’ll mention you if I watch it. Unless you suggested it when I had the giant list of suggestions that I lost when I lost my old computer. Then I’m sorry for not mentioning you. I’ll try my best, though.
• Sunday “Bad” Movies is on Instagram, keeping the bad movie fun going all week long. Check it out.
• Okay. Next week should be interesting. I’m going a little older with the movie. By older, I mean the 1970s. 1976, to be specific. I’m not entirely sure what to expect out of this one. It’s a movie in the “best of the worst” box set I bought a couple years ago. It’s called Track of the Moon Beast, and I’m going into this without any idea of what I’m getting myself into. I’ll see you next week with my thoughts.

Jumper (2008) and Setting Up Sequels in First Films

Studio filmmaking has become the norm for the movie business. Movies put out by the major studios have always been the biggest market share. However, they’ve been slowly and steadily pushing everything else out of the limelight. There might still be some independent films released that find some modicum of success, but most of them get buried beneath the newest big-budget superhero flick, or cheaply made, high-profit-margin horror flick that a major studio releases. Most people don’t complain. Most people enjoy the big budget action flicks because they love going to the theater to see the spectacle on the big screen.

The studio heads know that audiences will visit theaters in droves to see what the Avengers or the Justice League get up to in their newest adventure. The studio heads are always looking into the future to see what will give them the best chance of success. Usually, that comes in the form of sequels. If a movie finds an audience and the audience spends an inordinate amount of money to see the movie, the studio will obviously greenlight a sequel. It’s easy money. People liked the first one, so they’re willing to give a second flick a chance. Sometimes, though, studios get arrogant. They are so sure that their big movie will succeed that they greenlight a sequel early. They greenlight it too early. They greenlight it so early that the idea of a sequel is placed into the original film, setting up something that might happen in a future installment. Yet, those future installments may never happen.

Take this week’s flick, for example. Jumper came out in 2008 and served as the starting point for a major studio franchise that never grew beyond one film. David Rice (Max Thieriot) was a teenager with a terrible life. He had a crush on Millie (AnnaSophia Robb), a girl at school, which never went beyond the crush stage. His father (Michael Rooker) was a semi-abusive drunk. David was bullied at school, and almost died when he fell through some ice on a quick-moving river. It all turned around when he discovered he had the ability to jump to other places. It was kind of like teleporting, but using a self-made wormhole, called a jump scar. A few years later, an adult David (Hayden Christensen) got a second chance at love with Millie (Rachel Bilson), while teaming up with Griffin (Jamie Bell), another jumper, to stop Roland (Samuel L. Jackson) from killing all living jumpers.

The storyline of Jumper was fairly easy to follow. David learned that he had a superpower, exploited it, and tried not to get killed by people who thought the power was an abomination. Sprinkled throughout were hints to his familial past. His mother (Diane Lane) left when he was five years old. That abandonment was partially responsible for David’s father being an alcoholic. Partway through Jumper, David was apprehended in Rome for trespassing in The Coliseum and being near a dead body. His mother appeared while he was in custody to tell him to escape. He confronted her at the end of the film, only to discover she was part of the same agency as Roland, and it was her job to hunt people like David.

This was the set-up to a Jumper sequel that never happened. It positioned the pieces for a further conflict where David would have to evade his mother’s pursuit. He was going on the run from his own family. Where he could simply escape his father’s abuse by jumping into a new life in New York, his mother was coming back into his life. She had the resources to remain in his life even when neither of them wanted it. While Roland was a villain who pursued jumpers in the name of God, David’s mother would bring family conflict to the table. Their conflict would raise the stakes for a sequel, bringing more emotion into the chase.

We all know now that the sequel never happened. It likely never will. Though the final moments of Jumper included David’s mom telling him that she would give him a head start, nobody ever saw what happened when that head start was over. Would she find him? How would he escape family? Where would he go and how would he fend off her advances. It left questions that would be answered in a sequel. Jumper was supposed to start a franchise. But it didn’t. Everything just sputtered out and the movie was put in the past. People moved on. Nobody was interested in the continuing story of David Rice.

The same sort of thing could be said about Abduction, a Taylor Lautner flick that was clearly supposed to kick off a second successful franchise for the teen star. The movie was quite similar to Jumper, though the action was the result of espionage instead of superpowers. The main character was on the run from spies, assassins, and government agents who wanted to use him as leverage. There was a list of the names of double agents and his biological father was a superspy who knew where the list was. The people on the list wanted to use the main character as a means to get the list.

In a similar fashion, the movie was about the chase. The main character travelled from one location to another, avoiding capture from authorities trying to kill or kidnap him. But it was the family connection that really brought it together. He lived a normal life with a mom and a dad who loved him. One night, some assassins showed up and he learned they were not his real parents. They were handlers meant to watch over him as he grew up. His real father was a super spy and that’s why he was in the situation. That was why he was fleeing people who wanted to harm him. He dug into his father’s past and slowly dove deeper into the espionage world.

The sequel was set up near the end when the main character came into near contact with his father outside a baseball stadium. This time, it wasn’t so much about the story threads that were being tugged on. The story of Abduction was pretty open and closed. The pursuit was over. The main character had a new home and he began a new romantic relationship. Everything was cut and dry. It was over. The only reason this movie is even being mentioned as a movie that set up a sequel that never happened is the casting of the main character’s father. He was played by Dermot Mulroney. That’s a pretty big name to have for someone that only comes in for a scene to play a character that was referenced throughout the film, but also not a big enough name to be a cameo people would be talking about long after they saw the movie. He was on the level of someone cast for a franchise, whose role would expand later on. It never would, though, because there was no sequel to Abduction.

One last movie that should be brought up in this discussion of franchise starters that never started a franchise is Super Mario Bros. This was a clear attempt at a franchise starter by a studio. They took something with name recognition, this time a popular series of video games, and tried to bring that popularity to the big screen. The problem was that the movie wasn’t good. It was a tonal mess caused by the clear disagreements between filmmakers, studios, and video game company about what the movie should be. There were some major liberties taken in the adaptation which led to the movie being almost nothing like the video games, except in names and references. The world was changed. The origins of characters were changed. Nearly everything was changed. And the audience never showed up.

The story of Super Mario Bros. was a little odd. Two plumber brothers were transplanted from their New York life into an alternate universe called Dinohattan. They had to navigate their way through a strange world where dinosaurs evolved into humans. All the while, a princess that one brother was in love with tried to get rid of the dictator who usurped her father some years earlier. It was your basic two brothers go to a new world and one is in love with a dethroned princess story.

Obviously, they got rid of the dino dictator by the end of the movie. The two brothers went back to their Brooklyn life. Nearly a month after they returned to their world, the princess showed up again. This was where a sequel was set up. She was dressed up like an action hero and asked for their help in whatever was going on. They grabbed their tool belts, she smiled, and the movie cut to credits. The brothers and the princess were heading out for another adventure that would play out in another film. That other film was never made. The disastrous reception of Super Mario Bros. kind of ruled out any chance of a follow-up. There might be a new adaptation of the video game series at some point, but there will never be a sequel to the 1993 bomb.

When it comes to studio filmmaking, franchises are one of the biggest cash cows out there. The popularity of one film can lead to continued popularity in a sequel and beyond. Look at the movies released at any given time and there are bound to be multiple sequels and reboots. Recognizable intellectual property sells. Studios should learn, however, not to hype up sequels before the first film has been released. Placing hints to sequels within a film can backfire and look tacky if said film doesn’t find success. It can lead to moments such as those in Jumper, Abduction, and Super Mario Bros. that clearly plant seeds for a sequel that never happens. It makes the studio look too cocky for their own good.

In a studio system that has become all about profit over artistry, franchises have become a staple in people’s movie diets. They’re pushed in many ways. People talk about potential sequels. Actors sign on for multiple movies at the outset. It’s just an expected thing at this point. The less successful big budget flicks don’t get sequels, though. Even when they set up a potential sequel within the first film, it doesn’t always happen. If the first film doesn’t make any money, the franchise will stop. That’s the way the business works. For better or worse. For good or bad.

I’m going to get a few notes in here before we close out the week:

• Jumper was suggested by @deaddropfredd.
• Super Mario Bros. (week 248) and Abduction (week 433) were brought up in this post.
• Jumper saw the third Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance of Christian Pikes, who was in Air Buddies (week 270) and Snow Buddies (week 270).
• Michael Rooker was in The Marine 2 (week 30) and Jumper.
• Hayden Christiansen returned to Sunday “Bad” Movies in Jumper after previously being featured in Outcast (week 163).
• Brad Borbridge was in Jumper. He was also in Gooby (week 166).
• Jamie Bell played Griffin in Jumper and Ben Grimm in Fant4stic (week 172).
• Kristen Stewart made a small appearance near the end of Jumper. She was previously seen in American Ultra (week 261).
• Samuel L. Jackson was in Jumper. He did voice work for Star Wars: The Clone Wars (week 377).
• Finally, Ryan Grantham had roles in both Santa Buddies (week 420) and Jumper.
• Have you seen Jumper? What did you think of it? How do you feel about movies that spend time setting up sequels? Are there any sequels that were set up in movies that you wish happened but never did? Let me know your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter.
• Twitter and the comments are good places to find me and leave suggestions about what to watch in future Sunday “Bad” Movies weeks. This week was a suggestion!
• Don’t forget to check out Sunday “Bad” Movies on Instagram to keep the bad movie fun going all week long.
• It’s time to talk about next week’s movie. There’s a pretty big movie coming out soon. It’s a sequel to a movie people didn’t like so much. The reaction to the trailers for this movie has been positive. Yeah, I’m talking about The Suicide Squad. I could watch the first film, Suicide Squad, for next week’s post. I decided against that, though. I would rather go in a full Sunday “Bad” Movies direction and check out a rip-off of that original movie. I’ll be checking out The Asylum’s mockbuster version, Sinister Squad. I hope you’ll come on the journey with me next week. See you then!