This week in the Deep Hurting Project, for reasons related to my trying to get back into my normal genre cycle and not having many other options, is a double-header of two Asylum films: Mega-Shark vs. Giant Octopus and Mega Piranha.
This is my first time watching an Asylum movie in full, but thanks to the past (mostly past) and present TGWTG producers, I have a decent idea of what to expect from them: schlocky action movies. So, imagine my shock when I put this disc in my player and hear what I can only call Not-Loreena McKennit singing a boring ballad with three stills from the movie that make it look like one of those indie dramas that get middling reviews and whose biggest legacy ends up being populating bargain bins. And to throw you further for a loop, the opening shot of the movie promising a showdown between these two giants of the deep: snowy mountaintops.
And what do these snowy mountaintops have to do with anything? Well, they set up that global warming is a thing, via a scene of the ice caps melting that looks like it was from a Turbografx 16 game, because PS1-level CGI is too expensive for the Asylum.
And something else you can expect from The Asylum: really shitty-looking action scenes:
It's scenes like this (also, the scene of the Megalodon eating the Golden Gate Bridge that I can't show because fuck the three-video-per-post limit) that made the trailer go viral when it first came out. Unfortunately, scenes like these are very short, and very few and far between. This wouldn't be a bad thing if not for the fact that the main plot of our heroes, Marine Biologist Debbie Gibson, Unusually Formal Japanese-American Pretending to Be Native Japanese Vic Chao, and Actually Interesting Irish Professor Sean Lawlor isn't really that interesting. The characters are written without much charisma, although Sean Lawlor's own bargain-store Sean Connery acting ability shines through, thus making it all the more frustrating when you remember that, oh yeah, there's supposed to be a giant shark and octopus fighting and attacking shit, except there's only one brief scene of them for every ten minutes or so, and the rest of this is boring scientists in a very shittily paced drama. You're so uninvested that when they announce plans to SOAK SAN FRANCISCO AND TOKYO IN THE MEGALODON AND GIANT OCTOPUS' PHEROMONES (and eventually a Nuke, which the Japanese guy doesn't seem to have an extraordinary issue with), it almost doesn't register.
And Lorenzo Lamas plays a racist government official who acts bigoted towards Chao and Lawlor, even name-dropping Manzanar, kewpie dolls, and I think a brief reference to "When Irish Eyes are Smiling." And somehow, I get the impression that Lorenzo Lamas does a better job of acting like someone who's been frozen since WW2 than Matt Salinger.
On a positive note, when there's no CGI involved, Jack Perez has a good eye for visuals. While they might not always make sense, like I think a battleship that's bathed in what looks like "Bi lighting" and some montages where every shot ends with a photo flash that turns everything greyscale and dissolves to the next shot, but fuck it. At least it's a legit positive with this movie, something I rarely find myself giving out with the Project.
This is my first time watching an Asylum movie in full, but thanks to the past (mostly past) and present TGWTG producers, I have a decent idea of what to expect from them: schlocky action movies. So, imagine my shock when I put this disc in my player and hear what I can only call Not-Loreena McKennit singing a boring ballad with three stills from the movie that make it look like one of those indie dramas that get middling reviews and whose biggest legacy ends up being populating bargain bins. And to throw you further for a loop, the opening shot of the movie promising a showdown between these two giants of the deep: snowy mountaintops.
And what do these snowy mountaintops have to do with anything? Well, they set up that global warming is a thing, via a scene of the ice caps melting that looks like it was from a Turbografx 16 game, because PS1-level CGI is too expensive for the Asylum.
And something else you can expect from The Asylum: really shitty-looking action scenes:
It's scenes like this (also, the scene of the Megalodon eating the Golden Gate Bridge that I can't show because fuck the three-video-per-post limit) that made the trailer go viral when it first came out. Unfortunately, scenes like these are very short, and very few and far between. This wouldn't be a bad thing if not for the fact that the main plot of our heroes, Marine Biologist Debbie Gibson, Unusually Formal Japanese-American Pretending to Be Native Japanese Vic Chao, and Actually Interesting Irish Professor Sean Lawlor isn't really that interesting. The characters are written without much charisma, although Sean Lawlor's own bargain-store Sean Connery acting ability shines through, thus making it all the more frustrating when you remember that, oh yeah, there's supposed to be a giant shark and octopus fighting and attacking shit, except there's only one brief scene of them for every ten minutes or so, and the rest of this is boring scientists in a very shittily paced drama. You're so uninvested that when they announce plans to SOAK SAN FRANCISCO AND TOKYO IN THE MEGALODON AND GIANT OCTOPUS' PHEROMONES (and eventually a Nuke, which the Japanese guy doesn't seem to have an extraordinary issue with), it almost doesn't register.
And Lorenzo Lamas plays a racist government official who acts bigoted towards Chao and Lawlor, even name-dropping Manzanar, kewpie dolls, and I think a brief reference to "When Irish Eyes are Smiling." And somehow, I get the impression that Lorenzo Lamas does a better job of acting like someone who's been frozen since WW2 than Matt Salinger.
On a positive note, when there's no CGI involved, Jack Perez has a good eye for visuals. While they might not always make sense, like I think a battleship that's bathed in what looks like "Bi lighting" and some montages where every shot ends with a photo flash that turns everything greyscale and dissolves to the next shot, but fuck it. At least it's a legit positive with this movie, something I rarely find myself giving out with the Project.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.
![[Image: harmlesskitchen.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/yxR97P23/harmlesskitchen.png)
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
