MOCKBUSTERS OF THE UNIVERSE!!!

A young man must use his untapped powers to fight back against an evil alien and their army, who will stop at nothing to take over Earth and then the universe.

The Asylum's Masters of The Universe mockbuster, Master of The Universe - starring Matthew Gademske, Morgan Flanagan and Jay Kramis, and directed by Marcel Walz - is released on Friday (May 22).

If nothing else, it certainly looks like they've upped their CGI game when it comes to spaceships and the like.

Ape vs Mecha Ape (2023)

After the surprisingly enjoyable nonsense of Ape vs Monster, I'm delighted that The Asylum decided to return to that particular well with an even wilder sequel, Ape vs Mecha Ape.

Nearly two years after the events of the original movie, the American government has been working on a Mecha Ape program (for reasons).

The film opens with the Pentagon taking its giant robot for a test drive in the Eastern European country of Vololodrezjk (aka The Great Sovereignty), where it flattened an illicit chemical weapons factory (along with all the troops guarding it).

Understandably miffed by this, a rogue cadre of elite Vololodrezjkan Foreign Intelligence Division operatives - husband and wife Arnott (Xander Bailey) and Pavla Oalk (Iris Svis), along with hacker Blanka (Lindsey Marie Wilson), Florien (Sady Diallo), and Zara (Eugenia Kuzmina) - head to the States, with the aim of hijacking the Mecha Ape so it will steal a nuclear warhead and detonate it in Chicago.

Meanwhile, our old friend Abraham, the 45-foot tall giant ape with alien DNA in his blood, is about to be moved from his secure location, much to the concern of his main handler, Sloane (Asylum regular Anna Telfer), who has developed a canny method for communicating with the oversized primate using different coloured lights.

However, once Mecha Ape starts his out-of-control rampage (and Sloane ends up trapped inside him!), the American government decides the only course of action is to release Abraham... so he can destroy the Mecha Ape before it has a chance to set off the 1.2 megaton nuclear bomb.

Even though none of the human stars of the original movie return for this sequel, Ape vs Mecha Ape crashes ahead with such gusto that you soon forget about that and are drawn into the unfolding chaos.

The script from writer/director Marc Gottlieb (another familiar name from Asylum credits) does a great job of foreshadowing useful plot twists and - as with the original - distracting from the fact that the two giant creatures don't actually appear onscreen as much as perhaps we would have hoped (although there are plenty of shots of people looking up or reacting to sounds from off-screen).

Obfuscation of plot holes and budgetary deficiencies is handled with deft dollops of technobabble again and extended scenes of people doing anything but interacting directly with the giant ape or towering robot.

However, it's the climactic fight in the streets of Chicago between Abraham and Mecha Ape that we paid the £7 cost of the DVD for and that delivers, once it arrives. Sure, it doesn't last long but the kaiju-scale property damage is still impressive.

I realise the financial limits of an Asylum budget mean the CGI content has to be carefully shepherded but why don't they take a leaf out of the classic Toho playbook and put some stunt people in rubber suits and have them crash around on a model city?

While I don't think Abraham has quite the cachet of a Sharknado just yet, I really hope The Asylum continues this entertainingly silly franchise (although some returning human characters would be a nice, and useful, touch for continuity).

And I want to know more about the Vololodrezjkans! From just the titbits we heard about it here, I reckon that fictional country is prime real estate for a whole cavalcade of Asylum movies.

Ape vs. Monster (2021)

A long-thought lost joint Russian and American space probe crashes back to Earth after 30 years, releasing its simian test pilot, Abraham, into the New Mexico desert.

The chimpanzee, and his craft, are coated with a green, alien goo that causes him to grow at an incredible rate... and unfortunately a passing gila monster lizard sups from the liquid and transforms into a kaiju beast of its own.

Abraham is captured by the American authorities, led by Dr Linda Murphy (Arianna Scott), who has a childhood connection with the ape through the controversial work of her scientist father, Noah Murphy (Rudy Bentz).

Assisted by an old Russian friend, Eva Kuleshov (Katie Sereika), with whom there is obvious sexual tension and an unspoken past, Linda tries to study Abraham while tracking the escaped gila monster, which is tunnelling underground and has some kind of power-dampening field.

Abraham escapes while Linda is away, and it becomes a race against time as both giant creatures appear to be converging on Washington D.C. 

The military, under the gung-ho and patronising General Delaney (R.J. Wagner) wants to blast both creatures off the face of the planet, but Linda believes that Abraham is still the ape she knew as a child and is really on the side of humanity.

Oh, and there's an alien ship coming round the dark side of the Moon that seems to be beaming some kind of mind control ray at the giant monsters.

Just another day at the office.

Originally crafted by the crew at The Asylum as a Godzilla vs Kong mockbuster, Ape vs Monster is an unsurprisingly awful - yet hilarious - flick that just manages to scrape into the "so bad it's good" category, as long as you're willing to cut it a lot of slack.

If you watch the film closely enough, you realise how little the two giant CGI beasties actually appear on screen, but also you gain an appreciation of The Asylum's masterful melding of stock footage with their own material to fill out the 88-minute flick.

It should also be noted that while the giant ape certainly resembles an oversized chimpanzee more than a direct rip-off of King Kong, the mutated gila monster bears more than a passing resemblance to Godzilla.

Dramatic action scenes are broken up by protracted, earnest, exchanges of waffle and technobabble in an attempt to stitch together a nonsensical story into something an easy-going (possibly drunk) audience might be willing to swallow.

And while it starts off far-fetched, the plot of Ape vs Monster rapidly goes so far off the rails that credibility is stretched beyond breaking point and the moment they start talking about "aliens" you can't help but wonder if you're somehow watching an entirely different movie.

However, I certainly don't regret the £2.35 I spent on Amazon to buy the DVD of this movie, and I can't wait to see what Abraham gets up to next.

Thor - God of Thunder (2022)

Over here in the UK, the rebranded SyFy Channel - now the much more palatable Sky Sci-Fi - christened its late night Asylum Movie Slot in 2022 with the latest from the mockbuster factory: Thor - God of Thunder.

Like the majority of The Asylum's output it's not great, but I've seen far worse and, as I've come to expect with this particular genre of film, it has some interesting Asylum-style twists on established mythology and fables.

Thor: God of Thunder opens with some deceptively decent CGI of an aerial Asgard, clearly "inspired" by the version we know from the Marvel movies, but as soon as it cuts to inside we're back on more familiar Asylum turf, resplendent as it is with amdram levels of set decoration and acting.

Loki (Daniel O'Reilly) escapes imprisonment, stabs Odin (Vernon G. Wells), steals some trinkets and flees to Earth, with the aim of freeing the giant wolf-god Fenrir.

Sadly, in hi-def, Loki's staff - clearly made of cardboard and gold-painted gaffer tape - looks rather cheap and nasty.

The god, who may be Thor's brother or uncle, wants Fenrir to destroy Yggdrasil - The Tree of the Nine Realms - so he can plant a new one and shape the universe to his own designs.

Summoned by his dying father, the titular god of thunder, Thor (Myrom Kingery), follows Loki to Earth and arrives at an archaeological excavation in California.

Grace Choi (Vaune Suitt), the site manager, had believed they were excavating an Indigenous Native American grave, but - just moments before the pair of Norse gods show up - she begins to suspect that the cave system is something more, possibly a prison for Fenrir.

The wolf-god is freed and it's now up to Thor and a handful of humans to stop Loki's schemes before the Earth shakes itself to pieces and a new world is born in the image of the trickster god.

On one - very large - hand, Steve Doucette's script, under Noah Luke's direction, is riddled with weak dialogue and plot holes, but on the other the impressive thing about Asylum films is there is usually no unnecessary padding and they don’t tend to hang around.

Thor: God of Thunder makes great use of its 87-minute run time, with enough momentum and action that - unless you're deliberately hate-watching this - will buoy you along with a wry smile on your face.

Sure, some of the CGI is naff and a lot of the acting is overacting; for instance, Vernon G. Wells (possibly best known as Wez from 1981's Mad Max II: The Road Warrior) has clearly been taking lessons from the William Shatner School of Acting, cranking up the mid-sentence dramatic pause to 11.

And while initially I was disappointed that Myrom Kingery's Thor lacked the golden locks we're accustomed to from the old Norse myths and Marvel Universe, he had the physicality of a Viking and his portrayal grew on me through the movie.

Even if every time he cried out for Odin all I could picture was this scene of the brilliant Matt Berry from The IT Crowd :

But for all the slack I'm cutting Thor: God Of Thunder, there was one scene that was simultaneously pure Asylum and possibly a new low.

At one point, towards the climax of the film, Thor is "rowing" a Viking ship across the sea and absolutely no effort is made to suggest that he is actually anywhere near water, it's almost as if Myrom Kingery is simply waving a paddle around in the air.

Honestly, the film is almost worth watching for that scene alone, even if you're not traditionally a fan of The Asylum's unique oeuvre.

I'm also surprised - and I suspect it's due to the lack of budget, which probably also explains the absence of decent wig work - that The Asylum, when mockbusting a Marvel movie (this one's clearly targeted at the Thor: Love and Thunder audience),  don't employ the classic mid- or post-credit scene, potentially setting up a sequel.

Grace even asks Thor: "Will we see you again?"

And I half-expected him to look to camera and say: "That depends on how well this film does!"

However, no matter how much Myrom Kingery's Thor grew on me, I also think it's a shame that The Asylum didn't get back Cody Deal - who played the character for them in 2011's Almighty Thor - as, at the time, he'd said he was up for a sequel.

If they'd also brought back Loki from that flick, Richard Grieco, and Kevin Nash as Odin, it would have gone a long way towards establishing some degree of continuity for their own "Asylum'Verse".

Lord of The Elves aka Age of The Hobbits aka Clash of Empires (2012)

Okay, confession time. I have a bit of a weakness for Bai Ling. I know she's not the world's greatest actress, but I find her alluringly watchable in whatever awful B-movie she turns up in.

And Lord of The Elves is a classic of that genre. Crafted by the masterminds at The Asylum as a mockbuster of Peter Jackon's first Hobbit movie, this was originally called Age of The Hobbits until the lawyers stepped in and its name changed to Lord of The Elves.

Then, without any warning or explanation, it suddenly underwent a bland renaming to Clash of Empires.

The Blu-Ray I have of this is entitled Lord Of The Elves, but for the sake of clarity I should point out at this stage that not only is the word "lord" never used in this 82-minute flick, but there are also no "elves" in it, nor is that word mentioned either.

Of course, both of these words do have connections with the rather popular Lord of The Rings movies, but that's surely a coincidence, right?

Inspired by real-world archaeology, the action of Lord of The Elves takes place 12,000 years ago on Flores Island, Indonesia (where examples of an early hominid, Homo floresiensis, were found in 2003).

But this is an Asylum movie, not a National Geographic documentary. As well as being populated with giant lizards, some of which can fly (like dragons), and giant spiders, the island is home to three types of human: the diminutive vegetarian Tree People, cannibalistic cavemen called the Rock Men (who ride the flying lizards on occasion), and a tribe of hunters that the Tree People refer to as "giants" but are simply humans.

When the Rock Men raid the Tree People village - to stock up on snacks for their cooking pot - one family escapes, fleeing to the land of the "giants", where they gain assistance from Amthar (Stargate SG-1's Christopher Judge), Laylan (Bai Ling), and a couple of disposable prehistoric red shirts.

Together, despite being severely outnumbered, they stage a rescue mission on the Rock Men's encampment in the hope of saving the captive Tree People.

Shot on location in the jungles and mountains of Cambodia, Lord of The Elves certainly looks mythic.

It just kind of falls apart when people get involved.

Eric Forsberg's script is simplistic, to say the least, and much of the acting is am dram level. While some bad dubbing contributes to this, I have a suspicion that Christopher Judge was the only true actor on set, and most of the rest were Cambodian locals randomly roped in because they 'looked the part'.

I'm sorry, I can't help myself...

Except for eye candy, I'm not exactly sure what Bai Ling or her character really contributed to the movie. Being generous, you could say that Laylan has a basic revenge arc, but she could easily have been excised from the movie and nothing would have changed.

Of course, I might not have been so keen to watch it. But that's a different story entirely.

The giant creatures, and the faux-dragons, are delivered as mediocre CG monsters, but actually they're not so poor that they take the audience out of the moment (come on, you're watching an Asylum joint, what were you expecting? Marvel Studios level CGI?).

The monsters help add some colour to the otherwise human-centric "fantasy" tale , which, barring its prehistoric setting, has an element of Willow about it as well.

Let's be honest, Lord of The Elves (or whatever you want to call it) is not a great movie, and bears absolutely no resemblance to any of the big budget Hobbit movies.

However, if you're a fan of classic cavemen movies, such as One Million Years B.C., Clan of The Cave Bear, Quest for Fire, When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth etc then you might be able to eke out some silly fun from this nonsense.

Dragon Crusaders (2011)

You have to admire the unrepentant chutzpah of The Asylum for its continued use of unattributed quotes making grandiose claims on their DVD boxes.

For Dragon Crusaders, an "anonymous critic" has declared it: "an epic action adventure in the tradition of Clash Of The Titans and Reign Of Fire!"

The Reign Of Fire angle being that it features dragons and the only Clash Of The Titans (presumably the remake) connection is the use of dodgy CGI - and, to be honest, it's actually a bit better here.

Dragon Crusaders is typical, low-budget Asylum mockbuster fare, but I've always contended that their fantasy, sword-and-sorcery titles are among their best - 2006's Dragon was the first Asylum flick I saw and remains my favourite.

A group of outlawed Knights Templar are fleeing across faux-Medieval England to find a sanctuary from the pursuing soldiers of the king (who we never see and are quickly forgotten about) when they are distracted by sounds of battle in a nearby town, which is being raided by pirates.

The Templars - of course - ride in and save the day, slaying the pirates, and then heading out to the pirate ship (which looks oddly anachronistic) to finish the job.

Unfortunately, as they arrive, a captive witch - Neem (Shinead Byrne) - on the ship has just finished invoking a curse that any who set foot on the boat and have shed blood will be transformed into demonic gargoyles.

The curse has a couple of twists - first anyone affected by it, but slain before the transformation takes place, will rise as a revenant and secondly the purer the soul of the cursed the longer the transformation will take.

Dispatching the pirate-revenants with the aid of wandering warrior woman Aerona (Cecily Fay), Neem reveals that she found the curse in a grimoire she stole from the "Black Dragon" sorcerer who has her people in thrall.

And the only way to break the curse is to travel to the Black Dragon's fortress and slay him. Oh, and Faolon (Steve McTigue) is called the Black Dragon because he can transform into one and has another seven, smaller dragons under his control.

There's witchcraft, bickering, internal disputes, chaste romance and some pretty decent fight scenes (even if one of the largest, against an entire 'village' of the sorcerer's slaves, just seems to suddenly stop without any resolution) along the way and if you can ignore the plot holes, dreadful acting, cheesy dialogue and laughable attempts at banter, Dragon Crusaders is an okay film.

Welsh-location filming certainly adds to the verisimilitude, and the woodlands and sweeping, rolling landscape makes for a dramatic backdrop to the action.

A 'silent' knight turns up at one point, peppering our heroes with arrows, seemingly commanding Faolon's dragons and then challenging the lead Templar, John (Dylan Jones), to single combat... but then disappears from the story as suddenly as he appeared.

Throw in some exploding salt peter for good measure, some slick fight moves from Aerona and the Templar's resident archer (Feth Greenwood) and there's quite a bit to keep you entertained for an hour-and-a-half as long as you aren't expecting a replay of Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings or either iteration of Conan The Barbarian.

Grimm's Snow White (2012)

Remember the other week when I was reviewing fairy tale films? Well, I thought I'd kick off this week of Asylum movies with one of their "fairy tale"-inspired offerings: Grimm's Snow White.

Once again The Asylum proves that their strength lies in fantasy stories with this joyously gonzo, kitchen-sink spin on the story of Snow White that throws elves, dragons and magical falling stars into the traditional mix.

On the other hand there are no dwarves (that's where the elves come in - it being easier to stick pointed ears on an extra than turn them into little people) or poisoned apples (there's a poisoned ring instead) in this tale.

A long time ago a star fell from the skies and where it fell a magical flame sprung up that created the dragons and the elves.

Queen Gwendolyn (Jane March) of Whitevale wants to get her hands on the magical flame - the source of the elves' magic - but it is in the neighbouring land of North Phalia.

So she engineers the death of her husband and then sets about winning the heart of the North Phalian prince, Alexander (Jamie Thomas King).

Unfortunately for the queen, Alexander has fallen for her drippy step-daughter Snow White (Eliza Bennett).

Therefore, the queen arranges for Snow to meet with an unfortunate accident in the woods at the hands of her huntsman... only she is rescued by the elves.

Initially the elves, especially the outspoken Orlando (see what they did there?), played by Alan Burgon, don't want to get involved in the affairs of humans for fear it will bring further oppression down on them.

Eventually, of course, Snow wins them round and everything culminates in a deliriously lacklustre woodland battle between about a dozen elves and a similar number of the queen's troops (this is supposed to be a major battle, by the way).

Some of the acting, especially from the heavily-accented extras, is a bit stilted, the CGI dragons are pretty poor and the queen's CGI hunting dogs have clearly been based on the Garmr from its 2011 Thor-mockbuster Almighty Thor.

Yet there are elements (albeit minuscule) of an inventive story here - even if, ultimately, it comes to nothing.

There are hints of an interesting take on elves and the whole deal with the Veridian Flame is a really nice touch which, hopefully, the Asylum might pick up and run with in another of their fantasy flicks. It seems too good a concept to dismiss as simply a MacGuffin in Grimm's Snow White.

I'm not sure what went wrong with the non-fire-breathing dragon though as I've seen better in Asylum flicks - perhaps they blew the budget on rubber elf ears and costuming, as there's a distinctly well-tailored Georgian feel to many of the outfits worn by the human characters.

Eliza Bennett is rather unimpressive as Snow White and totally overshadowed by Jane March's evil step-mother, clearly loving the chance to devour some scenery in her wonderfully melodramatic role.

Demons On A Train? Cult Status Guaranteed!

Aboard a high-speed train, a Nun who lost her faith must perform her first Exorcism on a possessed passenger hellbent on crashing the runaway train.

Not a weird Asylum mockbuster of Snakes On A Plane (or Speed), Speed Demon - starring the Arrowverse's wonderful Katie Cassidy and the always great William H Macy - is real movie with the potential to be a genuinely unexpected cult classic or a "so bad it's good" cult classic.

And it's barrelling into American cinemas, and digital, on May 31.

Sleeping Beauty (2014)

Years before they became a byword for cheap, blockbuster cash-ins (i.e. mockbusters), the first movie I discovered by The Asylum was a fantasy film (simply called Dragon, I believe) in the discount aisle of Woolworths in Tonbridge (which shows just how long ago it was).

Since then I have remained firm in my belief that although they're not exactly known for quality productions, The Asylum is at its best when working in the fantasy genre.

That said, Sleeping Beauty isn't up to the pulpy, B-movie calibre of, say, an Arrowstorm film, but it still has its moments.

Directed by Casper Van Dien, who also appears as King David alongside his wife, Catherine Oxenberg as Queen Violet and his daughter Grace Van Dien as Princess Dawn aka Sleeping Beauty, the film is a liberal reworking of the fairy tale that starts in Disney territory then caroms off into its own little world.

To complete the family atmosphere on set, Maya Van Dien (daughter of both Casper Van Dien and Catherine Oxenberg) appears as a totally random addition to the story - a young girl called Newt (Aliens, much?) who has survived inside the enchanted castle and gives aid to Princess Dawn's rescuers.

Events initially unfold as they do in Disney's Sleeping Beauty cartoon, with the Three Good Fairies bestowing gifts upon the newborn Princess Dawn (although the guards' ill-fitting helmets and the treasure chests that look like cardboard boxes give away that this isn't the Disney version).

But then busty, yummy-mummy, evil witch queen Tambria (Olivia d'Abo) - whose invite got lost in the post - turns up and zaps Dawn with the familiar curse, then proceeds to blow up the good fairies.

In The Asylum's version, Dawn is raised alone in a castle tower, educated by her parents, and kept away from spinning wheel needles (several on-the-nose double entendres involving the word 'prick' got my hopes up this was going to be a wittily-scripted comedy; it's not), until just before her 16th birthday. And what do you know? She only gets tricked by Tambria into pricking her finger and falling asleep (taking the whole kingdom down with her).

A century passes and in a neighbouring kingdom, a servant called Barrow (Game Of Thrones' Finn Jones) discovers fragments of a map and a message leading to the cursed castle. Now, I'm not sure exactly who wrote this as Princess Dawn (as is suggested) is, of course, in a magical sleep.

I presumed it was actually an elaborate trap set out by Tambria - who has also been trapped inside the castle and unable to harm her slumbering nemesis - but this is never made clear.

Barrow's master is the obnoxious, privileged, bullying Tory-boy Prince Jayson (Edward Lewis French), who, learning of Barrow's discovery, decides to lead his coterie of yobbish mates on a jolly wheeze to rescue the treasure in Sleeping Beauty's castle and claim that kingdom for his own.

Again, it's never exactly clear how much this neighbouring territory knows about the curse on King David's land or the power of the wicked sorceress Tambria who now rules (kind of) there.

Given that it's just "over the mountain" from Jayson's realm, the general knowledge of the whole "asleep for a century" scenario seems rather vague.

Of course, Tambria isn't going to make things easy and throws a scaly pliosaur, a giant lizardman, a legion of shadowy wraiths and a never-ending army of zombies at the adventuring party that's coming for the treasure (and maybe the chance to snog a sleeping 115-year-old princess).

A particularly wonderful aspect about Jayson's loathsome cronies is, given that they are supposed to be trained fighters, just how cowardly they are. Their go-to tactic when confronted by any monster is "run away, run away".

The only one who shows the slightest bit of decency towards Barrow, and some backbone, is Gruner (Gil Kolirin) - who may be a commander or captain or something in Jayson's army, again it's not very clear.

The adventuring party gradually gets whittled down as they wander, seemingly aimlessly, around the same sections of castle and overgrown garden, until the final confrontation with Tambria.

By this time, Jayson has switched sides (or is he bluffing?), Newt has popped up and disappeared in a cloud of cryptic warnings several times, and Gruner and Barrow have bonded.

I'm not entirely sure who Sleeping Beauty is aimed at as there's some gore (Tambria pulling the head off of someone and dragging out their spine comes to mind) and an uncomfortable, rape-threat moment where a couple of brothers in Jayson's gang discover a magically sleeping servant woman in the castle kitchens. Thankfully Barrow steps in before that goes too far.

There's certainly an attempt at a Dungeons & Dragons vibe in the latter stages of this movie (torch-lit exploration, traps etc), but despite constant references to Barrow's map, there's never any real feeling that the adventurers are navigating a convincing, contiguous environment.

One minute they are stuck on one side of a lake, the next there's a bridge; they talk about going to certain places, but are next seen elsewhere.

This also isn't some hallucinogenic, dreamscape either, but simply a combination of poor directing, editing and scriptwriting.

The low-budget monsters aren't too bad though; the giant lizardman (despite being a cheap CGI creation) is quite interesting and the various undead have the added bonus that Tambria keeps resurrecting them every time they get nobbled.

As well as the many, many plot holes in the story (some of which I've alluded to above), more often than not the dialogue is delivered in quite mannered ways; now I'm not sure if this is director Van Dien trying to create a "fantasy Medieval" ambience but it doesn't really work.

Budgetary limitations abound in this version of Sleeping Beauty (there's no big dragon showdown at the end, for instance) - both in the effects and script - but it's an okay way to pass 90 minutes, if there isn't anything better on TV.

Ator The Fighting Eagle (1982)

"During the childhood of mankind, while some colonies have only just discovered fire, others are already using technology, Inventor Akron discovers the 'radiating matter' which can be used to make earth a paradise or a hell. Soran, a strayed former pupil of Akron, steals his invention. Akron sends out his daughter to fetch the invincible Ator to fight Soran..."

-- so reads the descriptive blurb on the back of my DVD of Ator The Fighting Eagle. Only that's not the plot of Ator at all! But then the poster shown above is also rather misleading as Ator never uses a three-headed flail and his animal companion is a cute bear cub - not a sabretooth tiger!

This (unintentionally?) hilarious, cheesetastic film has Ator (Miles O'Keefe) on a mission to rescue his new bride, Sunya (Ritza Brown) - who he had believed was his sister until the moment his 'parents' gave their blessing to his wedding plans - from the Temple Of The Spider.

A mockbuster years before The Asylum made it an artform and released to cash in on the original Conan movie, Ator has a by-the-numbers, Joseph Campbell "hero's journey"/Star Wars storyline.

The titular protagonist even picks up an Obi-Wan-style mentor, Griba (Edmund Purdom), and a money-driven Han Solo-ish female rogue Roon (Sabrina Siani) along the way to help him blow up the Death Star... er... destroy The Temple Of The Spider.

It's all tied-in to a very long - and highly detailed - prophecy about how Ator's true father, the legendary Tauren, was doomed in his quest to defeat the Spider Cult and so the destiny has passed to his son, Ator.

The main problem is Ator is rather a rubbish hero - frequently bested in combat, gullible and, frankly, not the sharpest tool in the box - he is constantly being rescued by Roon and the cute bear cub.

The fights are joyously lacklustre, which only adds to the humour, and a couple of times Ator simply abandons Roon during a fight when his attention is distracted by something else.

He only appears to be able to beat people if he catches them by surprise - or has an incredibly powerful magic shield of zapping to hand!

Couple this with stilted and corny dialogue, some wonderfully WTF "monsters" (the walking dead that simply disappear, the blind warriors, the shadow demon, the shapechanging sorceress, the giant spider etc) and all the elements combine to make Ator The Fighting Eagle an incredibly entertaining - and amusing -  way to waste 90 minutes of your life.

That said, as Italian swords-and-sorcery films go, it's head and shoulders above Conquest, the scenery is surprisingly interesting - with strange statues dotted around the landscape - and some of the 'encounter' ideas aren't half-bad.

In The Name of The King - The Last Mission (2014)

Dominic Purcell (from The Arrow'verse shows and Prison Break) is Hazen Kaine, a burned-out, no-nonsense American hitman working in Bulgaria. His "last" job - before retirement - is to kidnap the two daughters of the Bulgarian royal family, so his paymasters can demand an enormous ransom.

Although he's having doubts about his latest assignment, he hides the girls in the nominated shipping container anyway, then notices that one is wearing a pendant that matches the tattoo on his arm (which his late wife chose for him).

The girl tells Hazen the medallion, a family heirloom and talisman of protection against things he wouldn't understand, is magical. He takes it outside for a closer look... and causes a rift in time and space to materialise and drag him through.

Hazen finds himself in a mysterious land - which, he later learns is also called Bulgaria, but clearly is a fantastical, pseudo-Medieval version - and stumbles into a nearby village which is being attacked by a dragon!

He uses the last bullets in his gun to drive off the dragon, in the process befriending a pair of warrior princesses, Arabella (Ralitsa Paskaleva), and Emeline (Daria Simeonova).

They're living in this village because of Game of Thrones-style violent machinations which saw one of their uncles, Tervon (Marian Valev), usurp their father and steal his throne.

They are now part of a rebellion led by their other uncle, Tybalt (Nikolai Sotirov).

Eventually, Hazen comes to accept his position in this new world - his tattoo marks him out for a special destiny - and hatches a plan that will allow him to slay Tervon and steal the king's magical medallion, which will send Hazen back to our world.

During all this he develops a rather cute and chaste romantic relationship with Arabella; the hitman's flirting technique seems to be telling her about the horrific fiery death of his wife at the hands of other gangsters.

Hazen's big plan comes to nowt, as the rebels are ambushed in a forest by Tervon and his men.

However, the fight goes surprisingly well in favour of the rebels, even though Tervon has been controlling the dragon this whole time.

The evil king flees back his castle... followed by Hazen and Arabella.

The castle is remarkably easy to access and our heroes fight their way through Tervon's goons to confront the Big Bad on the roof of the castle, where Hazen dispatches him, causing the time rift to reopen.

This time, not only does Hazen travel back to our world, but also the dragon. Not entirely sure why Arabella didn't go with him.

Hazen then races to where the kidnapped girls have been hidden and fights the mobsters who have come to collect him... at which point you realise that the head gangster Ayavlo is also played by Marian Valev.

Does this mean that Hazen's whole isekai adventures in In The Name of The King - The Last Mission were a dream? Or a metaphor? He does kidnap two young princesses in our world and then become entangled with two princesses in the fantasy world. But then how do explain the dragon now loose in the skies over Sofia? 

There's a lot that's handwaved in Joel Ross's 85-minute script and under Uwe Boll's taut - let's get things done - direction. As an example, I particularly loved the blasé attitude of, I guess, the king of Bulgaria to having his daughters kidnapped and then returned by the same person. It rather implies that this happens all the time!

Honestly, for my money, too much time is spent in modern day Sofia and I'd have preferred Hazen to stay in mythical Bulgaria with his new love... but then that would have left the kids in the shipping container and at the mercy of the gangsters.

In D&D terms, I reckon it's a young black dragon (although it breathes fire)

For a decade-old, low budget , direct-to-video sword-and-sorcery flick, all the special effects, including those that bring the dragon to life, are pretty decent. Of course, the beast is obviously CGI, but I've seen far worse in this calibre of movie (yes, Asylum, I'm looking at you).

On the other hand, the fact that the rebellion relies on caves so much - despite having several villages to call their own - is a real throwback to '80s sword-and-sorcery films that also often operated on similar microbudgets and had to make do with what nature provided.

Director Uwe Boll certainly makes great use of the beautiful Bulgarian landscape and the film was largely filmed at Nu Boyana Film Studios where, co-incidentally, the new Red Sonja movie was shot as well as Jason Momoa's Conan The Barbarian and the excellent last Hellboy movie, The Crooked Man, and many other great films.

Dominic Purcell and pretty much the entire Bulgarian cast of In The Name of The King 3 are all great and clearly invested in their roles, but they're not always best served by a script which barrels along at such speed that a lot of plot threads are just left dangling.

It's also a shame that In The Name of The King - The Last Mission appears to be totally disconnected from either the first or second films in the franchise.

I'd rather hoped that Hazen was actually in the Kingdom of Ehb (where the previous films took place) and that Arabella and Emeline were the daughters of Dolph Lundgren's Granger, to continue the generational narrative of the two earlier movies.

I guess there's always headcanon. 

HALLOWEEN HORROR: Aquarium of The Dead (2021)

Aquarium of The Dead (which I only just discovered was a sequel to Zoombies) sees a batch of infected animal vaccinations turning a random selection of creatures at a sea-life centre (from star fish to a giant octopi, giant crabs to a single dolphin) into man-eating monsters. 

While the film looks half-decent, it is undermined by awful acting, a lame script, continuity errors, a surfeit of two-dimensional characters who add nothing to the mix, and just a shit-ton of stupid.

To give it its due, the film tries to add depth - particularly in the sub-plot of how the contaminated vaccines got into the creatures in the first place - but there's no rhyme nor reason to how this virus spreads and what affect it has on the creatures.

Even by Asylum standards, Aquarium of The Dead leaves a lot to be desired and this can be put down almost entirely to the script and editing.

Bad acting can be humorous, but an illogical, inconsistent narrative - that doesn't so much as come to a climax as it just stops - is pretty inexcusable when it could have been pared down to something far simpler.

HALLOWEEN HORROR: Zoombies (2016)

When a strange virus quickly spreads through a safari park and turns all the zoo animals undead, those left in the park must stop the creatures before they escape and zombify the whole city.

While it's doubtful this will spawn a franchise like Sharknado (that's a special kind of lightning you can't catch in a bottle twice), The Asylum's Zoombies had the potential, on paper, to be another cult classic.

The Eden Wildlife Park is about reopen after a major upgrade, to turn it into a family-friendly visitor attraction, when several capuchin monkeys are brought to the veterinary unit, exhibiting signs of an unknown virus.

Attempts to find out what's wrong with one of them results in its death and then immediate return to life as a zombie-monkey, which promptly kills the vets and infects its kin.

The monkeys escape, and soon all the animals in the zoo are turning into vicious undead monsters, as the few staff on duty - and a coachload of new interns - struggle to prevent the infection from spreading outside the park.

I appreciated the fact that there's no hanging around with Zoombies. It opens with a television advert for the park, and then the infected monkey shows up and all hell breaks loose. And all that's even before the opening credits.

The film is part Zoo (the TV series where the animals of world turn on mankind), with a dash of Jurassic Park, all mixed in with horror movie-standard zombies (even though, for a change, these can't spread their zombie infection to humans).

Unfortunately as the virus spreads and more, and larger, animals become infected, the story becomes increasing preposterous and ill thought out, the acting takes a hit, and the special effects deteriorate (particularly memorable examples being the fuzzy-edged CGI elephants and the least convincing zip line experience in cinema history).

Elements that would be seen as foreshadowing in a regular film - such as the bond zoo owner Dr. Ellen Rogers' (Kim Nielsen) young daughter, Thea (La La Nestor) has with the gorilla Kifo (played by Ivan Djurovic in a great ape suit), or lead character Lizzy's (Ione Butler) backstory about why she got into working as a security guard - turned out to have no bearing on the plot of Zoombies.

For the first half-hour or so, I had high hopes. This movie was never going to win any awards, but the core idea was intriguing, the set-up was good, and even the majority of zombie creatures were pretty decent (and I didn't even mind that Kifo was obviously a bloke in a furry suit).

Sadly, as the film progressed, I kind of got the impression that all the effort had gone into front-loading the story and no one had really thought out a convincing ending.

There are moments when Zoombies hits that "so bad it's good" sweet spot, but disappointingly not as many as I was hoping for from the previews (see above).

HALLOWEEN HORROR: The Gorge (2025)

To date, I've pretty much loved everything I've seen on Apple TV: the puzzle box that is Severance is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, one of the best TV shows ever; Slow Horses is near-perfection; the retro-futurism of Hello Tomorrow is wonderful; The Morning Show is great, engaging drama; and Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is a fascinating insight into the kaiju-filled world of the Monsterverse.

So, I wasn't worried clicking on The Gorge, especially as it has the added bonus of starring the flawless Anya Taylor-Joy who is incapable of making a bad movie. Even her co-star, Miles Teller (despite appearing as Reed Richards in the worst Fantastic Four movie of all time... and, yes, I'm including the unreleased Corman version), is generally seen as a safe pair of hands.

I couldn't have been more wrong. 

The Gorge is two hours and seven minutes of utter tedium. Our stars are a pair of elite snipers - Levi 'Married To His Job' Kane and Drasa - tasked with guarding a mysterious, smoke-filled, gorge and preventing whatever is down there from getting out.

Each stands guard in a tower on either side of the gorge, both forbidden to communicate with the other side.

The trouble from the get-go is that both characters are walking clichés (very early on Teller's Levi is sitting on a beach, cuddling a random dog, and I said to myself: 'I bet he writes poetry'... and an hour later, when Levi and Drasa finally get to meet he starts telling her about his poetry).

But it's also very obviously slightly racist/sexist because while both are supposedly the best at what they do, the implication is that Levi - representing America - is slightly better than - not-America - Drasa (who doesn't even warrant a surname), has slightly better technology, and so on.

For the first, painfully long, hour the couple are getting used to their new jobs and, as the months pass, starting to break the rules and communicate across the gorge.

This segment could easily have been compressed into 15 or 20 minutes, which might then have made what follows a bit more bearable.

Eventually, after a sneaky romantic rendezvous, they find themselves in the gorge, getting to the bottom of the mystery.

The trouble is there's a very strong chance that if you'd been thinking about what might be going on yourself you probably would have come up with something way more interesting than the 1950's B-movie explanation we get served up with.

At one point, I'd even wondered - when they were fighting giant insects - if The Gorge was somehow connected to Monarch: Legacy of The Monsters. But no such luck.

And the thing about the monsters our heroes find hidden in the mists is that we don't see enough of them. Perhaps horror-leaning director Scott Derrickson (Doctor Strange, The Black Phone) should have put more focus on the critters and less on the turgid banality of the padded first act.

There is absolutely no need for this Asylum-movie-on-an-Apple-budget to have been over two hours long. An hour and a half would have been fine and might have kept the pace (and my engagement) up a bit more. 

It's not that toothless creature feature The Gorge is really that bad, it's more a case that there's nothing memorable about it, from its generic stunts and forgettable monsters to its uninteresting explanation and predictable resolution.

Shark Exorcist (2014)

Let's be honest for a moment: in our time, Paul and I have watched a lot of shit films.

But Shark Exorcist takes this to a new low.

I'd bought the DVD for Paul's birthday, in March, as a joke present. It had both "shark" and "exorcist" in the title, so surely it was a film we needed to see.

Without even watching it, Paul had loaned it to a mate who - after viewing it - had decided to take it to Cash Converters before I foolishly suggested to Paul that it might be a good candidate for one of our horror film nights.

Paul and I finally sat down to watch it one weekend in 2017... and are both still reeling from the psychological trauma of the experience.

To put it politely, it makes The Asylum's output look like Alfred Hitchcock or Werner Herzog; it is unbelievably poor. Really, really, really awful.

Shark Exorcist gives Camp Blood a run for its money for the title of worst film ever to pollute our viewing history.

Possibly produced on a dare, or a student film that has escaped into the wild, 2014's Shark Exorcist was clearly made by someone who has never studied how a film actually works.

The movie's full of scenes that start too early and then run on for too long; extended sequences where the filmmakers were clearly unable to record the actor's speaking, so we get to watch a lot of miming and pointing; a script that tears up the basic concept of a three-act story (or any form of coherent narrative); and not one but two painfully redundant post-credits scenes.

This is before we even consider the universally abysmal level of acting, not helped by the fact that several of the actresses look noticeably bored or simply don't want to be there any more.

As well as lacking a protagonist (even the titular exorcist is only in a handful of scenes), what passes for a story in Shark Exorcist is risible nonsense, all over the place, and totally confused.

There's an evil nun who sacrifices someone to Satan... or a demonic shark. Which lives in a lake.

It's a crappy CGI shark that looks like it was designed on a ZX81 by the work experience kid during his lunch break.

Then a year later three women visit the lake and one, Ali (Angela Kerecz) gets bitten by the shark (her wound looks like she was eating a hot dog and spilled ketchup on her thigh).

She goes to hospital, but then miraculously recovers from her life-threatening ketchup spill... because she's now possessed by the demon shark (or is a wereshark?).

The girl starts attacking random people (maybe she shapechanges into the shark, maybe she summons it, the film isn't clear on this topic).

Unfortunately, she makes the mistake of killing the brother of a priest (Bobby Kerecz - husband of the actress playing Ali), who then tracks her down and decides to exorcise her (even though he admits he isn't a trained exorcist).

There's a ridiculously comical exorcism scene, which features the best line in the movie: "You're going to need a bigger cross!"

After which things get even weirder. The priest becomes possessed and bites another woman, but then the demon shark drops out of a portal in the sky (WTF?), and what passes for a story goes totally off the rails.

There's an assortment of oddities in and around all this, such as the "ghost hunting" TV show that's tracking the demon shark, some wannabe witches in a nearby churchyard, a sorority initiation (where something happens off-camera that's never addressed), a bizarre and prolonged sequence of a perv spying on a woman sunbathing (in the most miserable conditions), the return of the killer nun etc

If you enjoy bad movies then this is hilarious, and we were laughing out loud for large portions of its blissfully short 71-minute duration, but there are also moments of mind boggling bewilderment where you have no clue what's going on (and I don't mean in a trippy 2001: A Space Odyssey way).

Now, I'm worried that I'm making it sound better than it is. Trust me. Shark Exorcist is dire. As I write this, it has a rating of 1.4 (out of 10) on IMDB, from 2,100 reviews. Camp Blood has a 3.1 rating, from 1,300 reviews.

I also think Sharxorcist would have been a better name.

Oh, and there was also (somehow) a sequel, Shark Exorcist 2: Unholy Waters (which we haven't seen... yet):