Nazis at the Center of the Earth (2012)... the addendum.

NATCOTE Director Joe Lawson sent us this comment/criticism of our review of his movie:

"I'm asking this in all honesty and without snark: Did you watch the movie? Because while you have done a fair review of The Asylum, I would love to hear an honest critique of the film itself... we learn to be better by knowing what works, what doesn't, perhaps even why. Your review provides none of that for the film itself so I find myself genuinely curious to know more than just your reaction to the producer's M.O.. Thanks, I look forward to your thoughts, the good, the bad and the honest! :-) Joe Lawson, Director, Nazis at the Center of the Earth"

He made a pretty great point; our review really was about the Producer's M.O. more than it was about the film itself. So in the interest of fairness, and because he definitely deserves comment on his film, here is an addendum of sorts to our NATCOTE review.

The idea of NATCOTE is an interesting one, and I suppose I didn't go into the plot because with Asylum films, plot tends not to matter much and ends up being totally ridiculous. Asylum movies are about camp and shock for the most part, much like the Troma films of old.

The plot involves group of researchers that discover Hitler's Third Reich hiding under the ice in Antarctica, are captured by the evil Nazi bastards, and forced to treat their various dermatological issues. They have bad skin. The Nazi's also want spare body parts and brains, so really, it's just Mengele doing what he's always done, but this time to usher in a new 1000 year Reich... That's all I got.

Daniel Craig's Dad as Herr Gandalf.

It's definitely an Asylum film, although it's one that is reasonably constrained by its restrictions; small crew, short time and little money. If Joe Lawson had the option of making this movie with more money to improve the bad CGI and was allowed to shoot this film on a more "serious" level, it wouldn't be bad at all. The Nazi's look good, and their motivation is interesting. The story itself is workable, and the direction isn't bad at all. It almost felt like your average genre flick until the tried and true Asylum antics reared their damn head, and brought it all back down to b-level. More budget and more time could have made this the first Asylum movie to not be an Asylum movie, if that makes any sense.

While the cheesy CGI is ever present, I will say that the practical FX work was pretty good. A lot of the skinless Nazis and other bloody FX shots were well done. Some of it even recalled horror movies of old. The Nazi's flying saucer (yes, really) looked pretty good too. Cyborg Hitler I can't budge on though. I mean, come on!

"You're all my Nazi's now!"

For those fans out there who do not like cheesy b-grade flicks, like myself, the original grade of DO NOT WANT still stands.

For everyone else... There is a decent movie here, buried underneath the trappings of its own b-movie schlock; as a b-movie aimed at the part of our fandom that loves the cheesiest of b-movies, Nazis at the Center of the Earth is somewhere around a solid C+. There are lots of people who will dig this for exactly what they think it is, and be surprised when it's better than they expected it to be. In this case, that's above average as b-movie's go, and it should please fans of all that which is schlocky.

This is probably why I don't review many movies along the lines of what The Asylum or Syfy offers us, because films like that are not my taste and they earn my venom outright. Most of the time, they deserve the venom.

In some cases though, what I see as dismissible would be welcomed with open arms by other horror fans, and so I say nay to movies that might just make those other fans happy. Then again, b-movie fans wouldn't listen to my critique anyhow, as they already know that most cheesy movies are right up their alley.

So, there it is. That was the fair shake. Not my thing, but it is definitely the thing of others, and they should find it pretty enjoyable.

And for the record, this wasn't any sort of retraction or me bending to the whim of an ego-filled director who though his film was better than I made it out to be... on the contrary, Joe Lawson was fine with us liking or hating his movie. He just wanted some honest feedback about it either way, and he was really nice in asking for it, so who in the hell are we to say no to that? 

We're waiting for your next movie, Joe. Next time, more boobs please.

Maybe remake Lolita where she's a vampire, and add in something about karate and the zombie apocalypse... and lesbian stuff.