Year of Release: 2009
Genre: Sci-Fi
IMDB Rating: 4.1 / 10
Level of Awful: Low
Breast-O-Meter: 0 / 5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

This movie and Arctic Blast (I’m pretty sure that Arctic Blast is this movie’s spiritual sequel) raise the question of who thought that playing with the atmosphere to create doomsday-scenario movies was a good idea. Neither movie is horrendously bad, but the flip side of the coin is that neither one is particularly good. All the same it is End of the World Month and, if you’re a particularly cold-hearted individual, there can be a strange attraction to seeing the world being both destroyed and frozen over in a matter of moments.

You just know this man has boobs on his mind.

One thing that’s beginning to emerge more and more as this experiment progresses is that the road to hell is paved with scientists with good intentions. Joanne is a lovely woman who has been deeply affected by the plight of people in areas plagued by drought and famine. Apparently Kansas and Ethiopia are on par with one another so far as these things go, which I’m not so sure of, but her intentions are good. Along with her colleague Damon Joanne has devised a revolutionary new technology that not only seeds clouds to make it rain but that will actually make the clouds in areas where there isn’t enough moisture for natural cloud formation. Now I can assure you that watching this pan out on-screen is about as thrilling as watching paint dry in slow motion but is apparently necessary if we’re to appreciate how this team of rag-tag scientists is going to save the world from their own creation.

Madonna warned him of the dangers of his heart not being open.

The other thing that has become overly apparent throughout the course of Earth’s multiple ends is that groups of scientists should never be allowed free reign of any experiment. Nobody ever foresees the inevitably destructive outcome that their actions will have. Thankfully our brave audience has Charlie Price to fall back on. Charlie was once one of the world’s most recognised and respected scientists before he was forced out of the community for unmentioned reasons to pursue an exciting career writing trashy sci-fi novels about how the world will end through a number of man-made and natural disasters. In this world of enormous coincidences Charlie just happened to be holding a book signing in Generic Small Town, USA where Joanne was conducting her experiments. One moment the sun was shining and everyone was happy and the next thing you know buses and cars and all manner of debris are flying around in a very darkened sky.

In today's weather there's a 80% chance of all hell breaking loose.

And the coincidences just keep on coming! Joanne, obviously aware of the fact that a small town’s near annihilation was not in the original test plan, goes to investigate the damage. She runs into Charlie and it’s revealed that they’ve known each other for donkey’s years. Charlie, using a little blackmail, convinces Joanne and Damon to take him along on their investigation to see what’s going on and how they can go about stopping it. Within a matter of moments Charlie has a theory as to what’s going on: the little machines flying around creating the clouds are doing so by draining the area of any moisture to form the clouds. As a result freezing cold air from the upper areas of the atmosphere are feeding down the way and creating the freezing tornadoes. This of course flies in the face of all scientific reasoning and no one’s prepared to believe him. Hopefully, through the use of a number of horrible analogies from his various novels, Charlie will be able to convince everyone that his plan is the best one and the only chance that humanity has to avoid becoming frozen popsicles.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• People thrown out of the scientific community can always fall back on being trashy novelists.
• Women only need to pee when someone’s told them that they can’t.
• People should never lose sight of the fact that they’ve made it rain.
• One should never smack a hornet’s nest in serious situations.
• Weather is known to be a fairly common occurrence across the globe.
• Bubonic plague is the only reasonable excuse for missing a TV interview.
• There is a big difference between a hug and trying to stay alive.
• You can justify breaking and entering by claiming that a series of doors are accidentally locked.
• It’s easy enough to ‘borrow’ access codes to US government satellites.

ICE TWISTERS TRAILER

BUY ICE TWISTERS AT AMAZON.COM

Year of Release: 2011
Genre: Sci-Fi / Action
IMDB Rating: 4.4 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium
Breast-O-Meter: 0 / 5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

I do love an accidental find. Sitting at home, having done all the exciting things for the day (like washing dishes and cleaning out cat litter trays), I was channel surfing when I landed on the Universal Channel and saw that the movie coming on in 5 minutes was Seeds of Destruction. An awesome title, and when I saw that it starred Stefanie von Pfetten (of Odysseus and the Isle of Mists fame) I knew that I had found the perfect way to kill an hour and a half. From the ludicrous plotline to the horrible CGI and spending the whole movie’s duration trying to figure out how Ms von Pfetten’s surname is pronounced, Seeds of Destruction was a delightfully cheesy romp worthy of End of the World Month.

Oh dear God, more nature!

Let us all cast our minds back, dear reader, to a much simpler time at the dawn of creation. Adam and Eve are froliccing in their delightful Garden, God doesn’t have too many humans to manage and the air has never been so fresh (because, up until this point, it had never existed). It’s the plants that make the Garden of Eden so wonderful; they suck up any and all pollutants and leave Adam and Eve with the luxuriously clean air to which they’ve become accustomed. And then they screwed it up because someone just had to be tempted and eat the forbidden fruit. Now, what if Adam had had the foresight to steal some of the seeds from the Garden’s plants so that he could plant his own Eden 2.0 while in exile? What if some of those seeds were still lying around for us to find today? What if…

Virgins.

Well we can all stop with the ‘what if?’ questions because the movie is going to explain exactly what would happen in this kind of scenario. Jocelyn is a brilliant plant archaeologist who isn’t afraid to be blonde and biblical. She and her team were the people who discovered Adam’s urn containing the seeds and sent it back to her boss Frame to carefully open and inspect the seeds. Frame lied to Jocelyn and said the urn was empty when in fact he’s been experimenting on them ever since the discovery. Unfortunately Frame wasn’t very selective when it came to hiring his other staff and one of his lackies is now trying to sell one of the seeds on the black market. Environmentalist kids Joe and Kate are there when the whole deal goes down and, as often happens in these situations, mistakes are made, people are accidentally shot and seeds from the dawn of time are dropped on the ground and allowed to take root.

The dangers of improper garden maintenance.

Now, the world as we know it today is just slightly more polluted than when Adam and Eve were running around so the plant, doing what God made it to do, goes a little berserk in its growth. The bigger it is the better it is able to absorb all the pollutants in the atmosphere. While this is a very noble attempt on behalf of the plant some people aren’t so happy about the fact that it will have to bury most of the North American continent in order to do its job properly. Jocelyn, Agent Jack, Joe and Kate want to find a way to destroy the plant and stop its rapid-growth rampage across the country, but Frame has different ideas. He wants to study the plant and try and slow its growth, thinking that a modified version of the plant would be infinitely more useful to mankind. Either way someone’s gonna have to do something fast before it reaches the ocean and decides to go global and wreck everything. Only Stefanie von Pfetten can get us out of this mess of Biblical proportions!

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Adam and Eve were the very first international seed thieves.
• Government agents can’t develop a battle plan based on the Bible.
• Blonde plant scientists, however, are more than willing to base their theories on the Bible.
• In moments of extreme disaster you should always go with the plan that has virtually no chance of success and the most horrifying consequences.
• The whole point of having a safe haven is to keep innocent people out of it.
• The Bible has a very draconian approach to pollution and global warming.
• Dead boyfriends are of absolutely no use to anyone.
• Running blindly into a situation is the best way to find out if it will help you or kill you.
• There is a debate as to whether or not giant plants ravaging the Earth are a part of God’s greater plan.

SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION TRAILER

Year of Release: 2008
Genre: Sci-Fi / Horror
IMDB Rating: 3.5 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium
Breast-O-Meter: 0 / 5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

Global warming: the great threat our generation faces. A number of possibilities have been given for what causes it: burning fossil fuels, deforestation, increased solar output, the list just goes on. The truth, however, lies in Heatstroke: aliens are the cause of global warming. This was a fantastic movie to watch; it goes back to the good old days of Syfy original movies where the special effects are so awful that they give you a great belly laugh while the endings aren’t anti climatic, a problem faced by so many recent Syfy movies. If you’re in the mood for a good laugh, some cheesy sci-fi goodness and indulging in an alien conspiracy theory then this is the movie for you!

Well well well, look what the tide washed in.

It’s a beautiful day for the world to end in Hawaii. The sky is blue, the oceans are crystal clear and bikini models are frolicking gayly on the beaches during a photo shoot. Captain Steve O’Bannon is busy flying his ultralight around one of the islands, taking a relaxing afternoon to monitor any usual radiation levels that may exist in these here parts. Given that this is such a relaxing pursuit and the weather is absolutely gorgeous he doses off behind the wheel of his 1 man aircraft and begins a rapid decent towards a tree. Thankfully there’s something very similar to a velociraptor living in the tree and it leaps up to try and guide the aircraft away but, unfortunately, takes a giant bite out of the ultralight’s engine. Captain Steve awakes with a start and is forced to make an emergency landing in the middle of the bikini models’ photo shoot, much to their dismay.

The script's first draft was a painful sight for all concerned.

Following Captain Steve’s emergency landing head bikini model Caroline comes over to read the man the riot act for interrupting this photo shoot of groundbreaking importance to mankind. When Captain Steve doesn’t seem very interested Caroline brings over her hired goons, who Captain Steve quickly dispenses with. He beats the crap out of them again later when he finds them at a bar, this time with the help of his team mates Jillian and Waters (first name unknown). Somehow between coming to the bar, having a boiling beer and beating the crap out of everyone the team (including final team-mate Romeo Romero) decides that there must be something on the island causing the strange radiation spikes and they’re determined to find out what it is.

He died a hero. 1000 alien virgins await him in heaven.

The cause of the radiation, of course, is an alien invasion. The aliens look like some reject bunch of dinosaurs and have come to earth to heat up our climate to make it a little more hospitable for themselves. I don’t know about you, but personally I find it a little rude when guests drop in on your planet unannounced and then spend the whole time complaining about how you’ve chosen to do the place up. Captain Steve wasn’t about to tolerate this lack of manners in the first place and he certainly isn’t about to tolerate these rather rude invaders when they start melting the faces off his crew and the hapless bikini models that inhabit the island. Unfortunately, since he isn’t a rogue scientist and is contracted by the US military to study these creatures, he’s going to have to play things by the book, at least until he can discover just how big their plans are and how quickly they plan on turning our little Blue Marble into an alien cafeteria. Thankfully he’s not alone in his mission to save the planet; he’ll be accompanied by a rag-tag group of old Hawaiian natives, military grunts and a bikini model with a flower in her hair. God speed to you all!

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Models take great offence when people try to inspect their own crashed ultralights.
• The military isn’t ready to believe global warming is the result of aliens living on earth.
• Afghanistan is many things, but it’s certainly not a boring place to go on honeymoon.
• Models are intrigued by kung fu fighting special ops agents.
• Women are terrified when sounds come out of the woods.
• ‘Top Secret’ means giving broad enough hints that everyone figures out what you’re doing.
• Earth is a prime insect farming location for extraterrestrial life.
• Earth can go from temperate to Venus in less than 2 hours.

HEATSTROKE SAMPLE

Year of Release: 2009
Genre: Sci-Fi / Action
IMDB Rating: 2.4 / 10
Level of Awful: High
Breast-O-Meter: 0 / 5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

Oh, The Asylum. There’s not an awful lot of good things that can be said about them but credit must be given to them for almost single-handedly keeping End of the World Month going. 2012: Supernova forms part of their 2012 (loose) trilogy of disaster movies. I’ve already reviewed 2012: Ice Age and, like it’s sibling, this movie is inspired by events in another movie. I’m going to hazard a guess that this one got its idea from Knowing. The whole thing is one giant technical inaccuracy and I spent most of my time looking at the TV absolutely gobsmacked that they thought this kind of storyline was going to hold itself together. But then I reminded myself that it was a movie by The Asylum and suddenly it all made a lot more sense.

Oops!

200 years ago in a far off constellation a star went supernova, destroying its solar system and sending deathly rays out in every direction. This supernova was so destructive, in fact, that its horrendous gamma ray beams are still every bit as destructive 200 years later, and they’re heading right for us. NASA is trying to prepare a crack team of the most ridiculously stereotypical people you can possibly imagine: Kelvin, the no-nonsense all American guy, Dzerzhinsky, the mummified-in-Vodka Russian with a terrible fake Russian accent, and Dr. Kwang Ye, a Chinese female who knows nothing in this world other than how to save the Earth and how to glorify The People’s Republic of China. I’m actually fairly certain that we could get the Asylum arrested for this type of stereotyping; I’m sure the UN would have something to say about it.

You just never know when a giant mole is going to strike.

Before we can save the Earth, however, we need to actually get Kelvin to the damn NASA base where this whole project is being coordinated. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, even more stereotypes appear, this time in the guise of Middle Eastern men with thick accents waving semi-automatic weapons in the air. They don’t seem to have any clue what it is they’re doing because first of all they try to shoot Kelvin and his family and then, when they have them cornered in a warehouse, ask them a number of questions, mainly about why the Americans have been taking nuclear weapons up to the International Space Station. Thankfully other government agents rock up and shoot the bad, bad non-Americans. Kelvin then heads off to the base while his wife and daughter head home to get some things and plan to join up with him later.

This movie is a testament mainly to the fact that women are awful drivers.

So the supernova is on its way, it’s already blown up a remarkably solid Pluto and is now busy jetting its way past and through the moons of Jupiter. What’s the plan? Well, the scientists agree that the Earth’s magnetosphere is not going to be enough to protect us from a direct hit from the supernova (duh, it just blew up Pluto), so what they’re going to do is blow up a few hundred nuclear warheads above the magnetosphere to give the Earth some extra coating and seal all our juices in nice and tight. We’ll deal with the horrifying effects of nuclear fallout across the planet later. Problems arise when the approach of the supernova begins to affect the planet’s weather, triggers earthquakes and randomly makes Mount Vesuvius erupt again. Couple this with the fact that someone’s trying to sabotage the launch to the ISS to detonate the warheads and we’re in for a tepid, adrenaline-lacking race to save mankind from total annihilation.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Nobody really wants to know the identity of the people aiming a machine gun through their car’s window.
• The art of kidnapping someone and taking them alive relies on shooting wildly in random directions.
• Some people view saving mankind from utter annihilation is just another part of the day.
• Wishing for nuclear warheads isn’t going to make them appear.
• An entire NASA launch pad only requires 3 minutes to undergo a complete safety check.
• It’s preferable to destroy the planet slowly than allow it to be destroyed in one cataclysmic blast. 
• You don’t need clouds to have thunder and lightning.
• Timing when something is about to destroy Earth is really just a matter of guesswork until it actually hits us.
• The kindness of strangers will usually end with you taking a lead pipe to the back of their heads.
• Computers just make space shuttle technicians lazy cowards.

2012: SUPERNOVA TRAILER

BUY 2012: SUPERNOVA AT AMAZON.COM

Year of Release: 2011
Genre: Sci-Fi
IMDB Rating: 4.3 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium
Breast-O-Meter: 0 / 5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

Just look at that movie poster, it’s like something the Discovery Channel would use to advertise their latest documentary. While I remain sceptical so far as this movie’s educational benefits are concerned I can vouch for the fact that it’s one of the better movies I’ve seen this month. Not better in the sense that it has brilliant actors or deserves awards or anything, but better in that it’s a fun variety of cheese. If you like trashy sci-fi with a few good laughs then you could do far worse than Earth’s Final Hours.

Lovely day for an apocalypse, don't you think?

What I like about this movie is that it’s very forward thinking in the end of the world department. Realising that black holes are very last season in the whole apocalyptic movie industry the guys behind this one decided to take the end of the world in an entirely different direction. What if the earth was hit, not by a black hole, but a white hole? It’s crazy, I know, but it was just the thing this movie needed to really make it stand out from its competitors; it adds a completely different dynamic to mankind’s absolute destruction. White holes, unlike their more emo counterparts, compress and then expel matter away from themselves. So, rather than the whole earth being compressed and vacuumed up into nothingness, Earth’s Final Hours has a small chunk of compressed matter blow straight through the planet. See? Very forward thinking movie.

Well, that's slightly unusual...

Now I can hear you all asking, “But James, how would we know if a white hole had blown something right through the Earth?” That, dear reader, is very simple. All you have to do is let a rogue scientist (preferably one who’s trying to evade the US government) loose in a number of fields and let him go about collecting data on the phenomenon. He’ll set up a whole bunch of instruments and satellites to gather any information he can, but ultimately the best way to know when something’s happened is to keep an eye on him. First of all you’ll hear a giant explosion in the sky and the atmosphere will rip open slighty. Now atmospheric rip can obviously be the result of a number of things, so you now need to look at the scientist’s chest. If it is a piece of expelled white hole matter it will find its way to him, blow through his chest and then through the Earth. If this happens, you will know that you are witnessing a genuine apocalypse by way of a white hole.

Green Peace resorted to some weird shit in those desperate days.

By this point you all probably have 1000 different questions, not least being what kind of effect all this would have on the Earth. Well, the thing is, something that compressed and hitting the planet at that speed would not only go straight through but would also exert enough energy to completely halt the planet’s rotation. Not only is this hugely inconvenient because of the effect it would have on daylight savings but it would also result in the complete collapse of the magnetosphere, the layer created by the Earth’s rotation that protects us from solar radiation. All we can hope for in these dark days is that somewhere, somehow, there’s a mad scientist locked in an institution with knowledge of a satellite system that can restart the Earth and a rogue CIA agent and his family who care enough about humanity to help the mad scientist out. Will such a hero answer our desperate call? Watch and be amazed!

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Driving through a big open field is very different to working in Washington DC.
• You know you’re a good person if you hack into a city’s financial system to save old ladies from being evicted from their houses.
• Turns out that if you dig straight through the Earth you actually land up in Australia, not China.
• When a child becomes too old to be sent to his room a parent’s next best option is to send him to prison.
• Just because the world’s coming to an end doesn’t mean you can’t go visit your aunt.
• Millions of dollars worth of security devices can easily be bypassed by hiding behind a bin.
• The lack of computers with floppy disk drives will be mankind’s downfall.

EARTH’S FINAL HOURS TRAILER