A brief thought on Asylum Studios...

Do you know who Asylum Studios are? It's okay if you don't off hand, they're responsible mostly for direct-to-DVD films that are not worth watching and have names similar to big name films in theaters for the express purpose of tricking people into buying them.

Yeeeah.

But they're also responsible for other things. One of which ended up being one of the most discussed movies of last year....

Yeah. Oh god. A movie sold simply on the premise of the title alone. It was a made-for-TV film for SyFy, and captured some of the highest ratings of 2013. Because idiots. Anyway, due to its overwhelming success...a sequel was quickly announced for this year.

Flash forward to yesterday, when Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett formerly of MST3k and currently of Rifftrax announced that Sharknado would be the next Rifftrax LIVE! event this July. So out of morbid curiosity I nipped over to IMDB to check who was involved with the continuing trainwreck beyond the surviving cast. And what names did I see? Billy Ray Cyrus. Perez Hilton. ANDY DICK.

And then it hit me: Asylum has cracked the code to success. It's not about mixing an animal name with an adjective or natural disaster. It's not about tricking people into buying your shit.

It's about getting people to watch as you have some of the most loathed quasi-celebrities possible killed in extremely messy fashion. The instant I saw the words ANDY DICK listed in the cast list, I knew I'd have to watch out of a vain desire to see the weird little bastard get chomped.

However, I will accept Ziering having to cut his way out of Andy Dick with a chainsaw.

Is..is it really that easy to get people to watch? 1: Make crazy-ass movie. 2: Plan Sequel. 3: Cast Sequel with actors/celebs that the viewing public would cheer to see get killed. 4: PROFIT.

I think I need to work on my Squiddicane spec-script.