“It’s ultimately a rather weak affair (and really difficult to grade knowing the average viewer walking into this coldly will have an entirely different take on the result), but despite the best efforts of Mancini and friends to salvage this mess, I think the patient is lost and they should have just pulled the plug.”
by Rob Rector
Five minutes in, one of the characters of the new After Dark film Asylum, utters in a voiceover: “This is unwatchable…” You said it, brother.
Unfortunately, this film’s travails to screen in far more interesting than anything in the final presentation. While I do give writer Chris Mancini props for trying to polish a turd, it is, at its very core, a turd nonetheless.
This release is in desperate need of context, for if you walk into it blindly, you will most likely not make it through the first half hour.
So, in the interest of viewers who may not follow the Comedy Film Nerd Podcast, I will try to sum things up. Writer Mancini (credited for penning both the “comedy” and the “horror” screenplays for this film) sold his original horror script to After Dark, the struggling one-time horror festival which branched out into the production business with a string of mostly poorly-received films.
- Asylum
- Directed by
Todor Chapkanov - Cast
Stephen Rea, Bruce Payne, Dimo Alexiev - Release Date
2014 - Rob’s Grade: D+
Mancini said he wished to direct, but was informed that the production of his script was packed up and moved to Bulgaria and was to be shot by country native Todor Chapkanov. Mancini recounts being called in to a meeting with reps from After Dark, and fed a tale of a producer who ran off with the money to shoot his story (which was re-written and altered dramatically, according to the comic), and came back with an “unwatchable” 88-minutes that the studio did not know what to do with.
Mancini continued (in episode 219 of his podcast) that producers asked him to “fix it” and when handed that seemingly insurmountable task decided to drape the entire film in the context of a comedic “found-footage” film with a Mystery Science Theater 3000-style mocking narrative running throughout. So Mancini penned a bookend comedy bit featuring a fictitious production company receiving a shitty film and trying to figure out how to salvage it (comedian Mike Schmidt and a cast of his other pals all pitched in for these little vignettes).
*****
I mention this because it is imperative to know this before pushing “play” on Asylum. Without this knowledge, it’s a mess. The film-within-a-film itself is not bad enough to be the usual MST3K fodder, it’s just rather plodding and incompetent, but nowhere near the level of some of the dreck that served as target practice for the long-running cult show.
And while some of the jokes within the final version of Asylum hit, the impact of their commentaries bile is much more meaningful when a little backstory about the production is known. Without it, and without knowing the writer’s involvement, we are left watching two unknown actors riffing on a dull flick filled with over-the-top comedic bits about a fictitious production company that really carry no weight.
It’s ultimately a rather weak affair (and really difficult to grade knowing the average viewer walking into this coldly will have an entirely different take on the result), but despite the best efforts of Mancini and friends to salvage this mess, I think the patient is lost and they should have just pulled the plug. Instead, viewers should head over to the Comedy Film Nerds podcast and listen to the whole travesty unfold from the writer himself.
