The 10 Best B-Movies of 2011

 

Now that we're at the end of the year, every Site seems to be doing a 'Top 10 Movies of 2011' list and it made me want to do my own - but not some generic list that you can find on any site, that would include mostly all the same films as each other - no, I wanted to do one such list that fits my personal tastes - a list of the 10 Best B-Movies of 2011! Now to be honest, this entire list is pretty much being done on the spot, with no research behind it other then my own memory of what I've seen so far this year and which ones still stick out as having been really good in my memory after all this time, so forgive me if I ended up forgetting some by accident. Also, there is still plenty of movies from this year that I haven't yet seen, so it's possible I've potentially skipped over a few diamonds in the rough due to that as well, since this list is based off what I've actually watched myself.

The following list won't be in any specific order, as I clearly love all of them for them to even be on the list, so putting them in any kind of ranking order is a bit moot.


- Asylum puts out one or two movies about every single month, at least. Some are honestly not that good, at all, but most are a blast of low budget cheesy fun, and out of those ones this mockbuster of the more well-known Battle: Los Angeles has got to be one of my all-time favorites. You can read my full, previously-released, review of Battle of Los Angeles here.






- With the amount of movies Asylum releases, it's no surprise that more then one would make their way onto this list. This is the movie that Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus promised to be, but stumbled to deliver. Mega Python vs Gatoroid is filled with non-stop cheese and laughs from beginning to end, with 80's pop sensations Tiffany and Debbie Gibson stealing the show from the title creatures on more then one occasion. This is how you make a fun low budget monster movie.




- This one originally aired on TV in 2010, but was released on DVD and BluRay this year, so I'm counting it as a 2011 movie. Roger Corman is famous for a ton of well-known B movies from the 60's onwards and he returns this decade with Sharktopus - a movie that you can pretty much accurately guess what you'll be in store for based off just the title and cover art. Pure cheesy goodness all the way through with never a dull moment. This is one that one day I hope to see a sequel to.




- Hostel: Part III may not be as good as the first, but way better then the horrid second movie, and quite faithful to the tone of the series despite that it's not made by Eli Roth. Some really nice kills and unexpected twists throughout. Should have ended 5 minutes earlier then it did though, as the actual ending wasn't nearly as good or leave as much of an impact as the 'first ending'.






- Honestly, there's not really any plot to speak of with this movie, just seemingly random scene after random scene. But it's entertaining random scene after entertaining random scene, filled with really inventive and gory zombie kills by way of a whole slew of unique weapons, within some great post-apocalyptic set pieces, making it really feel like a fast-paced FPS video game adaptation. Plus it has Zombie Tigers.




- I'm never one to turn down a made-for-TV creature feature, but it's always an added bonus when it actually turns out good. Swamp Shark stars the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer as she battles a really old, really vicious shark that has made it's way into the swamp lands of her small town. Both the CGI shots, and the quick practical shots of the shark were surprisingly detailed and well-done, and the movie itself had a better-then-average plot, filled with better-then-average actors for this kind of flick. This one was a blast and a half.




- I love the Spanish horror flick [Rec]. I'm also one of the few that love the American remake of it, Quarantine. And as much as I enjoyed [Rec] 2, I'm glad this direct-to-video sequel decided to go its own path, because to my surprise, I ended up liking Quarantine 2: Terminal even more then I did the first Quarantine. Well-worth checking out for fans of the first, because this one is not only better, but also builds upon it in ways I never expected. It's more then one of my favorite B-Movies of the year - it's also one of my favorite horror movies of the year.




- While this is a sequel-in-name-only, when it comes to going direct-to-video that's almost a better route to take sometimes. This however felt like it could have easily gone to theaters. It was highly entertaining with a competently-written script, filled with very well-acted characters, excellent use of genuine tension, some really fun and explosive action scenes, and a creepy villain that you just love to hate. What more can you ask for in an Action B-Movie?




- Asylum's modern-day mockbuster of this classic story is pure adrenaline-fueled entertainment from beginning to end, with fun quirky characters that I never got tired of following, and well choreographed action scenes. Even has a couple of sword fights thrown in for good measure, which is quickly becoming a staple of Asylum action flicks. I wouldn't mind at all seeing further adventures of this group of Mission: Impossible wannabes.




- Sure, the actors may not be the greatest, the dialog is atrocious, and parts of the script are incredibly messy - but it's still the best of the Howling sequels, and overall a pretty damn fun little popcorn werewolf movie, with a gothic castle-like school as it's main setting. They also stick to mostly old-school practical man-in-suit effects for the werewolves which I can very much appreciate, keeping the design pretty close to the design of the werewolves from the original movie (which is something none of the other sequels ever bothered to do). As a werewolf fan, despite it's shortcomings, I can't help but see the genuine effort that went into this one and enjoy it based on that alone. The gory kills and fun werewolf-on-werewolf fights help as well though.

Honorable Mention

- I have a few too many issues with this one to count it as among 'The Best' of the year, but despite those issues it's still a really entertaining movie if you're a fan of the series thus far, and it's extremely short runtime (about an hour if you don't count the opening and closing credits) helps you to overlook a lot of it's problems because the movie moves at such a fast pace that it's over before you have much time to think. If you're not a fan of the previous two movies though, then there's no need for you to attempt this one because nothing in this will make you like it above the others.

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Battle of Los Angeles (2011)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: The Asylum

RUNTIME: 91 mins

FORMAT: Netflix

PLOT: Without warning an alien fleet invades Earth and starts destroying Los Angeles, and it's up to a ragtag group of soldiers to survive the onslaught and find a way to save the day.

REVIEW: A word of warning before I go into this review: This is not a review for the big-budget Hollywood summer blockbuster Battle: Los Angeles. This is a review of the low budget mockbuster knock-off Battle of Los Angeles, made by The Asylum.

Asylum, as much as I love them, tends to turn out movies faster then I can keep up with. I nab them on DVD or BluRay as quickly as I can, but then they sit on my shelf for months while I try to make time to actually watch them. Battle of Los Angeles aired on SyFy before it hit DVD, but since I live in Canada I wasn't able to catch it on TV (we don't have access to SyFy here) and have been putting off buying the DVD because Asylum has confirmed that it will be hitting BluRay (though it's been delayed). Then I was browsing the new arrivals of Netflix Canada's Instant Watch and noticed it was available there – and in HD! So I canceled my plans for the evening and loaded the movie up to finally watch (truth be told said plans involved simply cleaning my apartment and going for a bath, so it's not like I had anything better to do).

To be 100% completely honest, I was totally enthralled from the opening seconds, right to the end; the phrase 'Action-Packed' has never been properly attributed to a movie better than it is with this one. The movie opens on the mothership already hovering over Los Angeles with a squad of fighter jets heading towards it. Within 60 seconds, the action starts and it literally does not let up until the credits start rolling some 90-odd minutes later. If nothing else, this movie really captured the hecticness of war, never giving the characters a proper chance to just stop and catch their breaths, and never giving us, the viewer, a chance to even blink. From fighter jets attacking the mothership, to alien fighter ships attacking the jets and the city in general, to soldiers doing battle against stationary alien projectile turrets on the ground, to killer robots, to one-eyed hot samurai women taking out alien fighter ships with her katana sword, this movie throws everything and the kitchen sink at us, and oddly enough – it all works. The only problem I really have with the script is at the very end when our heroes bring down the mothership and make it crash, it crashes right into the middle of Los Angeles, sending up giant explosions everywhere. It did (what looked like anyway) more damage to the city then the aliens themselves did during the actual invasion. But that's just one minor problem at the very end, and it's more of a visual issue then one on the script-level.

On top of turning out a mostly well-written script, the scriptwriter also knew his shit. Not only did he seem well-versed on the original Battle of Los Angeles event from the 1940's, but he also seemed to be educated quite thoroughly on alien mythology in general, incorporating MJ-12 lore into it, which I feel not enough alien/UFO movies do. Upon researching, I found out that Mark Atkins (both the scriptwriter and director of this movie) actually had made a short film in his filmschool days, on this very topic, so it doesn't surprise me too much that he did such a good job here.

Of course more works here then just the script. There have been a few Asylum movies that have had great scripts, but still failed over all. It takes a combination of many successful aspects and something else that stood out to me while watching are the effects. Yes, ok, they suck...for a normal movie. But this isn't a normal movie – this is a low budget movie made by a low budget company and thus, the effects need to be judged on those merits and going by those merits, the effects rocked. They are easily the best effects I've seen to date from The Asylum, and leaps and bounds better then the effects from any other SyFy Original Movie of the Week. Both the extensive CGI work on the spaceships and Alien Lord creature, as well as the practical effects work for the captive alien - it all looked good. If this is the direction that Asylum is going for their effects work in future releases, I say bring it on. They've certainly improved from their early days. The only downside, and it's just a minor quibble, is that there were a few times we saw the exact same effect shot re-used over and over and it was just a tad distracting, but that's understandable considering the small size of the budget and how good everything looked.

To accompany the awesome script and better-then-expected effects are well-written characters and the stand-out performances of them. The movie is filled with all sorts of characters, but I'll only directly mention the very main ones because really – even the minor characters were written-well and performed perfectly by the actors portraying them. First up we have Kel from Keenan and Kel playing the timid unsure-of-himself army private that has to take charge and lead the fight against the aliens. Honestly, I wasn't too sure of him at first, being the weakest actor in the movie and not being very convincing playing the timid role. But once he started having to take charge, I liked him a lot more and felt he fit that kind of role much better, and by the end I was totally behind him, especially once he started piloting the captured alien attack ship and took the fight to the alien mothership, Independance Day-style. Alongside him is one badass eyepatch-wearing sword-wielding hot chick in a tight jumpsuit, who kicks ass and takes names. Not only can she bring down alien attack ships with nothing more then her skill with a katana sword, but she can order people around and spew lines with the best of them. Easily the best actor in the movie and totally stole the show almost every time she was on screen. Also, there's a tough-as-nails Michelle Rodriquez-wannabe fighter pilot that ends up crossing paths with Kel and his squad of soldiers and joins them once her jet gets grounded. That is one woman you do not want to piss off, and if trying to channel Michelle Rodriquez is what her goal was, she met it perfectly. Other then them, there are a few random other military characters but none really worth mentioning, as well as a couple Government scientists once they reach the secret underground facility. But unlike most Asylum movies, even the small roles for the minor side characters were played by mostly-capable actors that did surprisingly well with the roles. A highlight of them is an old army Sargent that barks orders alongside insults and threats and is so bad ass, he brings down an alien attack ship with just his pistol, then hijacks the weapons off that to shoot down another ship.

The set designs are also really well-created. We have the streets of a ruined city, a desert outpost, a dimly-lit secret underground government facility where they're keeping a kidnapped alien, and the corridors and inner-workings of the alien mothership – it all looked really well-done and believable. You can tell Asylum pumped a larger budget into this one then normal, and not a penny went to waste.

When all was said and done, I had had so much fun watching this little gem and despite being a low budget direct-to-video cheap knock-off, I actually enjoyed it way more then the bigger-budgeted version Battle: Los Angeles. Battle of Los Angeles never once took itself too seriously, and the creators knew what it was while making it and don't try to deliver on anything it's not. The acting, the effects, the script...it all adds various levels of cheese that makes watching this movie, and other mockbusters like it, so much fun to watch while chugging back on a few beers some weekend evening, which is more then what can be said for the crappy Hollywood version.

This is, without a doubt, Asylum's best production to date.

10/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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