#he's not the comic relief in your disaster thriller

[anyroads]

From the look of the neighborhood and distance from the towers, this is almost definitely in TriBeCa, and that tube is way too large to be a poster, so it's much more likely he's delivering an art print or maybe blueprints. There were a lot of galleries and some architecture firms in TriBeCa at the time and it was a primarily artistic neighborhood. The tube looks more like one that would house a rolled up canvas or building plans than a poster. In any case, it's probably something that's expensive and requires fast shipping and delivery, is insured, and must be hand-delivered. It's also possible he saw the tower on fire didn't see the plane hit, so he might just think there's a building fire.

What strikes me most about this photo is that whether or not he saw the plane hit, it's much more of a commentary on the divide between working class and middle class in New York at the time. The people behind him can afford to stop and look at what's happening. The guy with a messenger bag wearing a button down shirt and khakis can afford to pause and look up. This guy can't. He has more deliveries to make and doesn't yet realize how bad this situation is, or maybe he does, but is too used to pressure of his job to get a package like this delivered. This is a city where sirens hurl past every couple of minutes and if you've lived there for more than ten seconds you've seen a lot of shit. An emergency nearby is an excuse for some people to stop work for a few minutes, but not those who have a schedule to keep to. The city infrastructure hasn't shut down yet in this moment. You need to separate the knowledge of hindsight from what the people in this photo know in this moment.

He's a UPS guy in New York City - unless a plane falls directly on his truck, he has to keep making deliveries, or he loses his job and can't make rent. In the moments after the planes hit, very few people understood that this meant the towers would probably collapse, or that Downtown Manhattan would be unapproachable except to rescue workers for weeks. Not least because shock will shut your brain down and some people's reaction to it is denial and carrying on with what makes them feel normal for as long as possible. This guy is carrying something that's probably expensive that he's liable for if it's lost or not delivered on time. He's prioritizing the daily pressures of his job against an emergency that's too far away to affect him in this moment.

It's funny to me how so many people think this is a guy who's too cool to care about a plane hitting the twin towers 15 or so blocks south of him because he's got something cheap and common to deliver when nothing in this photo says that to me, from the neighborhood to the tube's width, to the fact that this is the only uniformed worker in the frame. I see a guy whose job carries so much pressure he has to focus on it even in a situation like this, and I see a New Yorker who - like many of them - has seen a lot of shit and isn't going to bother worrying until that fire stops being 15 blocks away and 90 stories up.

This picture of a UPS worker delivering a package on 9/11 right after the second tower was hit is so fascinating to me. I totally would have used two buildings being blown up and the city infrastructure pausing as an excuse to not do my job. Just go back to the depot and call it a day. But no he’s bravely delivering that Backstreet Boys poster or whatever while everyone else stares at the buildings behind him in shock. Went “Well, that sucks. Can’t do anything about it I guess.”

[cinemaandallthat]

Strangers on a Train Review/ Analysis:

Strangers on a Train is one of my favorite films of all time and one of Hitchcock’s greatest films! I’ll divide this review/ analysis by Plot, Character Analyses/ Actors, Symbolism, Tone, Homoerotic Subtext, and then my final review of the whole movie (my review out of 5). You can read whatever section interests you or the whole thing, your choice.

There are also no huge spoilers of the movie! Enjoy. (;

Plot:

The film is about Guy Haines, a semi-famous tennis player, who meets Bruno Antony, a wacky (but charming) momma’s boy who has an unrelenting hatred for his wealthy father. The two meet on a train where they then get acquainted. Bruno tells Guy about how he hates his father, and Bruno finds out that Guy’s unfaithful wife will not let him divorce her. Bruno, who is quite the psychopath, then proposes that they should swap murders so they cannot be linked to one another since they are merely strangers. His proposition? Guy kills Bruno’s father and Bruno kills Guy’s wife so Guy can get married to the woman he really loves. This meeting then leads to disaster, and Guy must decide whether he should murder Bruno’s father or not.

Character Analyses/ Actors:

The casting for Strangers on a Train is perfect. Farley Granger plays the cool and calculated character of Guy Haines very well! In fact, he plays the character so well that the film does not need to spell out to the viewer that he is a morally righteous man because Granger makes it quite clear. Robert Walker absolutely steals every scene he’s in as Bruno Antony, a flamboyant and psychopathic mamma’s boy who is intelligent but immature. He is incredibly entertaining to watch as he gushes over Guy Haines, and forces his way into his life. His hatred for his own father is vague, yet seemingly unjustified, which really shows the viewer how unstable he really is. Watching the two characters together is immensely entertaining as well, as they’re like night and day. Bruno is impulsive, obsessive, and arrogant, whereas Guy is calm, strategic, and humble. The supporting cast is also very well-done with Ruth Roman as Guy’s fiancé, Pat Hitchcock (Alfred Hitchcock’s daughter) as her sassy sister, and Laura Elliott as Guy’s spiteful wife who refuses to finalize their divorce.

Symbolism:

Strangers on a Train is extremely well-written and is covered in symbolism, which I can’t help but love. One would expect such, as it’s directed by Alfred Hitchcock! The first few minutes of the film already has some very clever symbolism. The scene begins without showing the faces of the men who are boarding the train, and only shows their shoes/ legs. Here it is, if you’re interested! The music varies intensity as it flips from man to man, and you can already get a grasp on their personalities. Bruno wears flashy shoes to match his unique and flashy personality, and Guy wears plain and sleek black shoes which matches his humble self. Their shoes are completely different, for their personalities are completely different as well. The carousel scene symbolizes the dangerous escalation of events after their initial meeting (the carousel goes from a normal pace to a very speedy, dangerous pace). Also, Guy’s strategy when playing tennis (he’s a tennis player) brilliantly summarizes his character. His normal approach to tennis is to take his time and to analyze his opponent. However, when he is pressured/ racing against time, his approach to tennis becomes more impulsive and rushed. Guy’s lighter also symbolizes Bruno’s manipulation of him and Guy’s guilt. Bruno has Guy’s lighter after Guy leaves it on the train, and Bruno later plans on using it to frame Guy for the murder of his wife. The lighter then holds the power to make Guy guilty of Miriam’s murder (which he never actually agreed to).

Tone:

The tone of the movie is a big part of the reason why Strangers on a Train remains a masterpiece to this day. The thriller holds a great amount of suspense and handles it extremely well. The scene where Bruno drops Guy’s lighter in the sewer while Guy is in a tennis match stands out to me in particular. The whole movie is a race for Guy’s fate, but that scene is where it really takes off. Bruno follows Guy to numerous places throughout the whole movie, which reminds both Guy and the viewer about Guy’s pending decision (whether to murder Bruno’s father or not) and lemme tell ya... the pressure is there! To make the viewer wonder about whether a morally righteous guy will commit murder means that you’re doing something right! Overall, the suspenseful/ dark tone of the movie is phenomenal and Bruno’s crazy personality provides some good comic relief.

Homoerotic Subtext:

Bruno’s immense fascination (and attraction) for Guy is barely even hidden from the viewer. As soon as they meet, Bruno gushes about Guy to his face and expresses his admiration for him. Bruno serves as the devil in this scenario. He’s trying to seduce and tempt Guy to commit a heinous, immoral act. For instance, when they first meet on the train, Guy appears to want to be left alone yet it is still evident that he is entertained by Bruno’s charming personality. Guy bashfully smiles down at the ground when talking to Bruno while Bruno looks at Guy intently and often tries to make him laugh/ spend more time with him. Anyways, after meeting Guy once, Bruno is completely enamored with him. Bruno clearly has a superiority complex and is selective with people, yet he claims that he would do anything for Guy after barely getting to know him, and visibly makes an effort to hold back his amorality when talking to Guy. I will make a separate post about the homoerotic subtext in the film at one point and I will be more specific because there’s a lot to cover!

Final Verdict:

‘Tis a masterpiece! Definitely one of my favorite films, and I’d recommend it to anyone!

Personal Review: 5/5

Critical Review: 5/5

[moviemavengal]

If you haven’t seen Spyder, and want no spoilers before you see it, watch this spoiler free review of the film I recorded moments after seeing it.

I warned you ….. SOME SPOILERS AHEAD!!  (but not the whole plot)

The first thing you should know is that I am a Mahesh Babu fan.  I’ve seen several of his films, and my favorites are probably Athadu (killer disarmed by love!) and Pokiri.  Unfortunately, my first Mahesh Babu film in the theater was last year’s flop Brahmatsovam.   It’s been a long wait for the next Mahesh film, over a year.  I think he took the lessons from that flop, and hooked up with a quality director.  My friend Kartik even sent me a quote from Mahesh about that flop:

So anticipation has been sky high for this film Spyder.  Expectations, too.  I felt it was a decent film.  Not perfect, but it had some notable sequences that were unique and something fresh I had not seen before.

I walked out of the theater satisfied, and I was surprised that several young men who cared enough to come to the very first 2 p.m. show were disappointed.  Maybe the hype was so high nothing would have been enough.  They said the second half was not a “practical” plot.  I think they wanted a more grounded story, like Pokiri or Athadu.  From the trailer we could see there would be huge boulder rolling down a street crushing cars — and that sequence was certainly in the film.  The last half felt almost like a disaster movie or a superhero film with buildings collapsing and villains wanting to crush people with huge boulders!  So, not realistic, but it didn’t bother me one bit.

Are all those village Telugu dramas with machete fights with one hero fighting 20 men realistic either?

AR Murugadoss set up a tight cat and mouse thriller between Mahesh and our big villain.  Mahesh is some sort of spy analyst.  I got the sense he worked in the equivalent of the Indian FBI.  He’s monitoring phone conversations ostensibly looking for terrorists and the like, but almost like Minority Report he prides himself on preventing crimes before they happen based on something he’s overheard.  He saves a young girl from being robbed and dishonored by a goon who has convinced her he’s going to marry her out of town.

But then a girl he overhears being scared in an empty house is murdered savagely, along with the woman cop he dispatched to check on her.  And that sends Mahesh into a crisis, and then ultimately on a solo quest to find their killer.

Mahesh Babu, Rakul Preet Singh @ Spyder Shooting Spot Images

In the first half, we get a tiny little romance track with the adorable Rakul Preet Singh. He overhears her discussing wanting a “blind date” and I think wanting a friends with benefits situation (something that maybe didn’t translate fully in the subtitles).  He stalks her a bit, and she confronts him on it.  But she eventually agrees if he’s not in love with her it will be okay for them to go out.  There is a hilarious scene where she tries to explain this to Mahesh’s mother — who warns Rakul Mahesh is shy, just like his father.  “It took four years of marriage for my son to be born!”  LOL

There are a few flight of fantasy songs that show their feelings for each other, and a bit of their relationship.  The first song, Boom Boom, I liked much better in the film, than in the teaser snippets we saw.   That’s the first song, and for some reason has all white girl back up dancers!

When Mahesh goes on a hunt for the killer, he uses a viral video to try to find someone who’s seen him.  This film has a lot of cool use of technology, with scenes of Mahesh monitoring real time cell phone calls, searching through CCTV footage and the like.  It was all very clever, and kind of scary to think how much info these agencies can gather.  There’s a speech in the beginning that the analysts in Mahesh’s office are not to monitor calls for personal reasons, but obviously Mahesh breaks that by listening in and researching Rakul!

The back story of the villain was super creepy and really unique.  I’ve never seen anything like it, as an origin for a sociopath serial killer.  While other reviewers may quibble that this took time away from the main story and slowed down the film, I really liked this segment of the movie.  That kid was a good actor — good at being super creepy and evil!!

There are actually two villains.  Won’t spoiler why, but they were both good.  Bharat is one, but the big bad is played by S. J. Surya.  He was mostly excellent playing this sociopath killer.  There was on interrogation scene where he really gets crazy and it was over the top for me, but especially this scene above with the mask.  Whew!  So good at being evil.

At times in the second half, it felt like he was becoming an over sized super villain like in a comic book movie, though.  Maybe that’s what those young men at my screening were complaining about.  That and the rolling boulder of doom.

The first half of the film was really good, but there were some logical misses in the plot of the second half.  Rakul not telling Mahesh something crucial because she was in a snit with him was egregious.  Really?  You’re not going to help catch the murderer because you’re mad at your boyfriend?  And there were times Mahesh went alone into a situation when it would have been more realistic if he’d had back up.

There was one segment where he fooled a bunch of ladies who were watching a soap into helping him find a fugitive.  It went on for a long stretch and was pretty over the top, too.  But I do have to acknowledge to Mr. Murugadoss that I have never seen the like!

The CGI in a couple of crucial action scenes was not seamless, but I found the roller coaster fight scene incredible anyway.  Just the concept of it alone!  We get a snippet in the trailer but it was really something to see.  The ending has a building collapsing as Mahesh tries to save people.  That was another part that felt like this was a disaster movie rather than a grounded thriller.  But, still, the film didn’t end with the cliched fight sequence in an abandoned factory.

Mahesh has a preachy speech at the end about humanity and helping others without expecting rewards.  A bit long, and kind of a weird note to end the film on.

There’s also some plot holes as to how Mahesh is just going rogue in his job.  He doesn’t follow privacy rules AT ALL and gets all his buddies to just give him info for his solo investigation.  He’s working around the police and just ignoring their efforts.  He also kills one guy in front of a huge crowd, and seemingly has no repercussions at work or otherwise  It was definitely a take the law into your own hands kind of movie.  I was disturbed at that cold killing scene.  Mahesh’s character just has his own morality compass.  He’s the hero, so he’s always right.  Definitely not an examination of two sides like Vikram Vedha.

The background score by Harris Jayaraj was incredible.  It kept the tension taught throughout the film.  I have an issue with thrillers that don’t have good enough music to set the mood (Ahem, Malayalam thrillers….),  This score was a standout.

For the most part, AR Murugadoss has given us an exciting thriller with a great villain.  Mahesh just looks so cool in all the action scenes.  He has a couple of great fight segments.  Even the Boom Boom dance number sort of had fight choreography.  I liked Mahesh and Rakul’s chemistry in the songs and their sweet romance, although that isn’t the thrust of the film.  It’s mainly there as some nice comic relief from the darkness in the rest of the film.

Mahesh reacts emotionally to the death of the young girl and police officer in the first part of the film, but other than that does not show the range of emotion that he has in other films.  It wasn’t there in the script for him to do.  The film did have more of a story than a strictly action film like Vivegam, but didn’t pack the emotional punch I usually like in Telugu films.  Still, I left satisfied that I’d had a good rollercoaster ride of my own.

Another unique aspect to the film is that it was filmed in Telugu AND Tamil.  Mahesh is fluent in both languages, so they filmed each scene twice!  I attended the Telugu version (with subtitles, of course.)

  Movie Review #Spyder with some spoilers by @moviemavengal If you haven't seen Spyder, and want no spoilers before you see it, watch this spoiler free review…

[yeoldontknow]

Hero: Chapter 1 (M)

Song for this chapter: The Answer - UNKLE + Trentemøller Genre: Vampire!Chanyeol AU; suspense; thriller; eventual smut Pairing: Chanyeol x Reader (oc; female) Rating: M Warnings (this chapter): Graphic violence; blood; guns; kidnapping; blood/drug trafficking Word Count: 3,486

prologue || masterlist || next

When you open your eyes, you’re consumed by darkness. Impenetrable, complete darkness so warm and heavy for a moment you’re sure you’ve gone blind.

Blink once. Blink twice.

There’s no light here, but you’re living. Hyperaware and waiting for your eyes to adjust, you take a minute to luxuriate in the act of breathing. You are breathing.

Correction: you are hyperventilating.

You’ve been buried alive.

It takes all your effort to focus on controlling your breath through the headache promising to prise your skull apart, rhythmically throbbing at the back of your head. Calm down, you think, don’t use all the oxygen here in one go.

A dull, even hum floats through rush of blood and ringing in your ears, and you recognize the sounds of an engine.

Not dead, not buried. The trunk of a car.

There’s hope.

The trunk is not airtight. The only thing that will kill you now is time, heat, or yourself. You have twelve hours, at most.

Every car has a safety latch for this exact purpose. You remember this from your self defense classes. It’s more than likely this feature has been removed. As a national regulation and no secret, it’s the first thing ripped from any get-away car. But if your captors started their day not expecting to abscond with an adult woman, if this was unplanned, accidental, and messy, it’s still possible there’s an escape plan that doesn’t involve strategizing. You’re acutely aware the car is moving, your body gently jostling over each bump in the road, but adrenaline has been responsible for its fair share of miracles and road rash seems more appealing than the virtue of patience.

Through the haze of your senses, you assess the state of your body before scouring the trunk. Stifling moans and keeping as quiet as possible, you focus one by one on your limbs - formulating the most basic of checklists. You don’t expect to be in perfect condition, if you’re being honest you feel as though you’ve fought a war and have only just survived but, you need to make sure nothing is already broken.

Stifling a groan, you move your neck and hear it crack. Who knows how long you’ve been unconscious and in this position, but the soreness goes beyond tension, the sharp sting of whiplash lingering throughout the base of your shoulders. Your arms are aching and bound behind your back, and only now do you realize you’re on your side. Bent into positions threatening dislocation, your wrists feel as though they’ve been sprained and your fingers, scratching desperately at a knot that feels too complex to be invented by man, are trembling.

By contrast, your mouth and your legs are not bound and, while you imagine these things should provide a sense of relief, a faint memory arrives in a blur at the front of your consciousness. There are no details, just smears of sensations and fear, and you slowly accept that these revelations are not things to be celebrated. There is a reason these pieces of you are not bound, like they have been deemed vulnerable or their strength underestimated. It’s because they don’t matter. If you run, you will be caught, and if you scream, no one will hear you.

As if protesting it's small energy reserve being used so fruitlessly, your body attempts to cave in on itself as you feel the bile rise from your stomach. Curling your back with such force you fear your muscles may tear, you’re struck by how lucky it is you’re already on your side as you vomit violently, though there’s little to show for it. You don’t remember the last time you’ve eaten and you are positive you’re dehydrated; possibly concussed given the strength of your headache and vomiting spell. Struggling awkwardly to turn onto your other side, scooting away from the foul liquid, you fight past the roar in your head and the whimper building in your chest to remember how exactly you got here.

~~~~~~~

Su-Jin was ill, complaining of an aggressive cough and a fever. At least, this is what his replacement told you as he handed you a clipboard detailing the day’s deliveries, inventories, and locations. You’d never seen this person before, and he told you he was new.

‘First day on the job. Mind if I drive? Want to get used to handling the truck.’

He smiled at you, though for some reason you didn’t think it was genuine. Rather, it felt like an awkward, forced attempt at standard social practices in an effort to placate your nerves. Dressed in all black, looking severe with a strong brow and dark eyes, his smile seemed extraordinarily out of place and unpracticed. Nonetheless, you nodded with a smile of your own and tried to quell the unease that had started to spread through your nerves.

He introduced himself as D.O., and you were struck by how odd it was he should provide you a nickname within minutes of making your acquaintance. Sliding into the passenger seat, you prepared several quips regarding his name - what secrets are you keeping, were your parents cruel, don’t be ashamed we’re all adults here - hoping your day together could be easy and comfortable. But the look on his face told you this conversation had died before he’d even opened his mouth to speak and, as he looked everywhere but in your direction, you got the sense he wasn’t the joking type.

Sitting in such close proximity made the air feel thick, like you could choke on it the instant you said something he didn't want to discuss. But you swallowed, the air and your pride, as you glanced down to the orders for the day and put the addresses in the GPS.  

‘Looks like first delivery is MACPS Labs, about fifty miles south of here. If traffic is good on the highway, we should make it in about an hour,’ you said gently.

You cast a brief glance at him, and he hummed in acknowledgement, jaw set and clenched, eyes trained on the road. You decided to read out the order, if only to fill the silence.

‘Forty crates of whole and cord blood, thirty crates of donor A, B, O, thirty of donor AB neg-’ you stopped reading the list out loud as you scanned the rest of the page. ‘This is a significant amount of blood,’ you muttered to yourself. The flow for the day detailed at least six other orders, but the sheer amount of this would force you back to the depot to reload the truck before you could carry on.

A slight panic rose in your chest and you reached for your phone to check the news. This kind of order comes with disaster relief. This kind of order comes straight from hospitals as they cripple beneath unexpected and unprecedented demand. This kind of order saves lives in mass casualty events.

Your feed told you the world is quiet. Today, there was only the silent acknowledgement that the world was at war with itself.

‘I know,’ he said quietly.

His effort at conversation caught you by surprise and you thought it was nice he was trying, that maybe you had him pegged wrong. He was new, you were still a stranger to him, and transporting possibly pathogenic materials would make anyone nervous.

‘Before you got in I checked the order and thought the world was ending. An almost comical amount of blood, right?’

‘I wonder what they're doing with it.’ You allowed yourself to study his profile, eyeing the almost Roman curve of his nose and the arch of his lips. He looked regal. He looked powerful. He made you feel so incredibly young. You didn’t want to say subservient, but if asked to define the feeling you would have used the word.

‘Maybe they found a cure.’

‘For what?’

‘Everything.’

He said the word with such conviction you thought he knew something you didn't, that he'd seen and endured so much it was only logical to conclude living was the only epidemic in need of a cure. For a moment you expected a philosophical debate, a no exit scenario about life and death and the sameness of humanity, but before you could respond, he started to laugh. It wasn’t someone laughing at their own joke, it wasn’t even pleasant, it was bitter and it was angry.

The drive was silent after that, filled with anxious glances between your hands, the road, and his face. He never once brought his attention to you, even as you stared. You told yourself to stop, that it was rude, that you'd memorized the details of his jawline so clearly you could paint it, but you were waiting. To you he appeared dangerous, volatile and unpredictable - perhaps that's what made you so wary. There was no way to calculate his actions because he operated beyond your frame of reference; he’d swallowed the sun and at any moment could burn you alive.

Humanity routinely silences its instincts, the one thing given to every living organism. Nature has gifted itself a superpower, an inherent trust in the energy of all things and circumstances, and humans, as brilliant and magnificent as they are, have continuously neglected or ignored this tether to the universe. This has been done in favor of free will - as if it has nothing to do with instinct at all. Instinct and choice are the things humanity repeatedly struggle with, even more so than with each other.

Instinct and choice have been your greatest companions. Instinct was what made your distrust of D.O. settle and take root in the center your chest, spreading like spores until your mind made the choice to watch, and wait, and fight.

Instinct is what made you panic when he pulled off the highway saying he knew a shortcut. Instinct is what made your palms sweat as you watched the arrival time on the GPS steadily increase until you knew for certain this route would never be completed. Instinct is was told you to run the second you had the chance, told you the black cars gathered by an abandoned warehouse were waiting for you. Instinct is what told you this place means death.

Choice is what told you fight. Choice is what told you to push as hard as you could on D.O.’s right leg, forcing him to press the gas as he approached the cars. Choice is what told you to use your other hand to unbuckle his seatbelt. Choice is what told you to pray, even though you’d never been the religious type.

The truck barreled through the cars, metal and glass yawning around you at a thunderous volume. You felt yourself bleed. You felt yourself scream. The truck careened onto its side and it took you a moment to realize that you hadn't died.

It took you a moment to realize neither had D.O.

Your ears were ringing and burning with the heat of our own blood as you tried to gather your senses. Above you, thanks to the truck’s new angle, D.O. sat angrily tearing the deployed airbag with his fingers like claws. This wasn’t a movie. You truly didn’t think you could save the day or your even own life, but you knew physics, you knew the laws of motion, and D.O. had defied them all.

He’d anticipated your movements and tried to correct the truck’s path, turning the steering wheel as hard and as quickly as he could to avoid a head on collision. His wrists were not broken, they didn’t even look swollen or sprained. The force of the wheel jerking through the crash should have caused him severe pain, but he still was able to tear away the airbag and rip the wheel out of the dash to give himself some room.

This was not the biggest concern you had.

You’d heard the click of his seat belt releasing. You felt yourself push the latch down - it was the one thing you knew was successful. Even if he could have corrected the path of the truck or stopped it, he still should have been thrown. He should have been ejected. You should have been covered in his brain matter. But he was fine. There wasn’t even a single scratch on him. And he was furious.

In one swift motion he reached out to you and tore your seatbelt away, hands coming to fist in your hair as he dragged you of the driver window. He was growling with rage and you didn’t think it was possible for a human to make such a sound. You started to shiver. Perhaps this was shock. Perhaps this was a panic attack. Perhaps your soul was beginning to abandon your body in protest of all you put it through.

Your limbs started to flail frantically behind you when you were planted on your feet, searching for anything on his person to hold as he dragged you away from the wreckage. Attached to his belt you could feel a holster and a gun. You fumbled desperately to grab a hold of it, one hand pushing back against him with all you could muster while the other clumsily grappled with the grip. The moment you had a hold of it, he hit your arm with such force you thought the bone might break and the gun fell from your grasp.

As you watched its trajectory, you suddenly became aware of your surroundings. You weren’t alone. The black cars, now dented and steaming, were surrounded by men who looked vicious and animalistic. Something had been compromised here. There was no search for casualties, no great concern for their own well-being, just an anger so pure and raw you thought you were being pulled through the gates of hell.

Instinct told you to run, to fight your way free. Choice told you to thrust forward, ripping the hair in his fist from your skull as you lurched out of D.O.’s grasp. You bit your lip to stifle a howl of pain, refusing to grant him the sound. You would never give him the pleasure of hearing you suffer.

He was infinitely stronger than you, something you’d underestimated given his small frame. Hand to hand combat would be impossible. You were surrounded. The only hope was to get to the gun.

As you stumbled toward you found yourself slipping, feet struggling for purchase on the slick ground. You fell onto your hands and knees, continuing to quickly crawl to the gun until it was held tightly in your hands.

You hands. Covered in blood, coated and stained.

The truck. Leaking blood as if the metal were bleeding, hemorrhaging behind you and into the street.

This is what had been compromised. The blood was meant to be delivered, but never to a lab. This was trafficking. This was gang activity. Blood money. You’d interrupted a deal and you’d likely have to pay with your own.

D.O. approached you with a smile on his face, almost teasing you and letting you know he was enjoying this. To him, this was fun. To him, you were exciting and new. You’d never seen anyone or anything so threatening in your life or so beautiful. You were glad he’d never looked at you in the truck or in such close quarters. His eyes made you feel vulnerable and naked, and you felt ashamed of your skin as his gaze traveled from your face to your chest, like he could hear your racing heart, and then to your hands.

You wanted him to stop. You wanted this to stop.

You’d only meant to fire one round. It didn’t matter that you were grossly unprepared for everything pertaining to a gun, you thought one squeeze of the trigger would be enough. How could you ever have known you were holding an automatic Glock 17? How could you ever have known the kickback and the sudden rise in your arms would send you falling backwards? No one had prepared for you these things.

And no one had prepared you for how incredibly loud the gun was without protection and at close range.

You knew your aim was off and wrong, your hold of the gun inexperienced and admittedly dangerous. You’d missed your imagined target completely and had resulted in nothing but causing the world around you to fall silent. You’d succeeded at nothing but deafening yourself and those around you.

While you hadn’t really expected to hit anything, never really even planned to cause anyone harm, you merely wanted to fire off warning shot. Thought you could startle the world into action around you and that, if you couldn’t save yourself, at least the sound of a gun firing and people screaming would alert others to the area. But these were professionals, and you felt your mind ache with knowledge that no one would save you as you watched everyone revert to hand signals.

Wordless conversations were happening around you and, as you brought yourself to your knees, D.O. stood before you, glowering and looking ready break you apart with his bare hands. He made it a point to look you directly in the eyes, commanding your attention as he picked up the gun you’d carelessly dropped from surprise.

As he brought his face close to yours, you thought about spitting on him. You thought about screaming. You thought about clawing at his face until it was nothing but blood and dirt under your nails.

You did none of these things, and instead remained quiet and stoic as he mouthed, slowly and clearly,

‘No one likes a hero.’

With a swing of his arm bordering on graceful, he raised his hand holding the gun and brought it to your temple, pistol whipping you into the comforting hold of darkness.

~~~~~~~

The sudden onslaught of memory makes you release a choked gasp from your sore throat. You find yourself drowning in the realization of your circumstances, the gravity of the situation coming to crush your chest without remorse. You choke back a howl of distress and suddenly your mental checklist of wellness reaches a new low.

You’re covered in blood and you can feel it now, dried and caked on your arms, legs, and hands. If you could, you’d skin yourself just to peel it off and cleanse yourself of it. Never before have you considered yourself an innocent thing. You’ve seen images of war and you’ve witnessed death firsthand, but now your mind is wandering into the dark realms of possibility and all at once you feel fragile. As if now, after everything you’ve seen and survived, you’re a delicate thing that’s too pure for all this chaos.

Reminding yourself to breathe, you allow the cold chill of reality to slowly creep back into your senses.

The car is stopped and you don’t know how long it’s been idle, but you can hear voices. They’re low, deep, and mumbled, no discernible words in their sentences just grumbles of implication. The garbled tones make your skin crawl, hungry for a natural conversational cadence. As they come closer, though, you can make out the distinct pitch of two speakers until you’re sure they’re standing directly above the trunk.

‘How much was salvaged?’

‘Less than a third. Sire, they aren’t keen to renegotiate.’

‘Of course they aren’t. Did they take any of it?’

Silence.

‘You brought her here?’

‘Had to. She knows too much.’

‘We don’t deal in human trafficking, Kyungsoo. Not anymore.’

Anymore.

You hear the latch for the trunk get released and you turn your head to look them in the eye. Mouth shut, you eye them with as much vengeful conviction you can manage and watch their nostrils flare. Your gaze is drawn to the man in the center, the one who seems to command the room just with his very posture. He seems bored and put out by your presence, but the corner of his mouth curls into a faint smile before he speaks.

‘Leave her with the pigs.’

He turns and walks away, and you’re lifted from the trunk as if you’re weightless. Arms held in a firm grip by two men who seem too young to be caught up in what you assume is the mob, you look D.O. directly in the eye as you’re lead away. You will not cower from anyone’s gaze.

When you’re tossed unceremoniously into a cage filled with pigs and goats, you immediately turn to face the men who brought you there.

You’ll stare every single person down, fixating on their eyes even it means they have to watch the life fade from yours.

[briarsouls]

Cloverfield Paradox SPOILERS

Ok so I just watched The Cloverfield Paradox and let me tell you it was a wild ride. Cloverfield 1 was a nice iteration on the shaky-cam monster flick, and 10 Cloverfield Lane was probably the most tense thriller I’ve ever seen, so I was ready to really enjoy a true sci-fi film from the series. And my god it was a disaster.

It started off ok, with the presentation of an energy-starved earth and the multi-national endeavor of the Cloverfield Space Station to solve the crisis. The main character is a woman who blames herself for the death of her children after a battery she installs in the house causes a fire, thus her involvement in the project is sort of a redemption thing. The rest of the cast includes a stoic commander, a goofy maintenance guy (Chris O’Dowd, which gave me a lot of hope), a German physicist, a Russian dude (who was actually a Norwegian actor) that mostly just serves as a crazy man, a Chinese engineer, and finally the bad guy from the Fast & Furious movies playing as the resident doctor.

So, all in all, a pretty diverse cast. All is well as we go through a montage of them failing to successfully get The Science™ to work. Now, it’s pretty standard for Sci-fi to be shaky in the way of explanations, but they seem to use an awful lot of real physics terminology (a particle accelerator, the “God Particle”, quantum entanglement) and then basically say that it will give them Unlimited Power. Painful, but suspension of disbelief is important to all fiction, so we’ll roll with it. Then the news comes on and a conspiracy theorist that looks slightly like Guillermo Del Toro says that if The Science™ doesn’t work right then portals could open and demons could flood out. Ok.

So the science finally happens and, of course, overloads the entire space station. Once they’re mostly settled though they notice the earth is gone. Somehow one of their first reactions is that they accidentally blew it up? Like, the entire earth. Just, vaporized. Whatever. Also missing is the gyroscope that is apparently the main component of their “Navigation system”. It looks like it’s straight out of Thor, and they very well could have called it the Allspark.

So that’s about the time things go completely off the fuckin rails. They hear screaming from within the walls, and when they open it up, there’s a woman that looks kinda like Tilda Swinson inside. Except, she was obviously teleported there, as she’s impaled by like 100 wires and pipes. SOMEHOW they’re able to extract her, and take her to the medical bay, where before she passes out she seems to recognize some of the crew. They got no idea who this bitch is though.

Meanwhile, crazy slavic man is losing his goddamned mind, wiggling one of his eyes about and 3d printing a gun. He then confronts German Physicist, who has been trying to help Chinese Engineer get the Science Machine working again. Before Crazy Russian can extract ANY paranoid facts about the government infiltration, he breaks down and starts foaming at the mouth and convulsing. The two people he threatened rush to help him (???) and later he vomit-bursts a room’s worth of missing earthworms onto the floor before dying. What? The fuck?

So mysterious Tilda wakes up and basically explains that everyone should know her except Chinese Engineer, whose job is hers. Also, the main character shouldn’t be on board?? She supposedly couldn’t come on the mission because of her family? (For those that haven’t caught on, Tilda’s from a parallel dimension, one where main character’s family is still alive). Also she seems to think Crazy Slavic man was right and German Physicist is, indeed, a government spy who has been fucking up the whole experiment this entire time, in both dimensions. She gets Stoic Commander to check the message logs and?? He is totally a spy???

Comic relief Maintenance guy is (tHe OnLy OnE doing his goddamned job) fixing the ship when he suddenly acquires super strength and punches through a metal panel, only to have the panel steal his arm. Not, like, bloodily sever it. Like it pops off painlessly and he’s like “Doc I got a problem”. Then the doctor looks at what is *clearly* a cross section and is just “It’s like he was born this way...” WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU EVER SEEN SOMEONE BORN WITHOUT A LIMB IT’S NOT A PERFECT CROSS SECTION AAAAHHHH

Anyway.

German Physicist, who is still very much under suspicion, finds the arm. Except it’s still alive like it’s Thing from the Addams Family. And when they give it a pen, it tells them to cut open the corpse of Crazy Russian, as it contains secrets (and, also, the Allspark. Just hanging out in his intestines. Except it’s the size of a big softball?? So I don’t really know how they missed that.) The arm is also mostly forgotten about after that, even though it clearly seems to be the only character that knows what’s going on.  ._.

So they have a nice long chat with Tilda and she lays out the whole parallel dimension thing, and somehow they get to the point where they’re like “Oh, yeah, YOUR German Physicist was a traitorous spy, but OURS definitely isn’t” even though?? The message logs?? Also, literally they are just on the other side of the sun from the earth.

Chinese Engineer finds out that The Science™ only needed some ventilation and it would have been totally fine, and tells possibly traitorous German Physicist to “Run the math” before she’s unceremoniously drowned/frozen/killed by the vacuum of space. Ok.

So they come to the conclusion they just need to run the machine again to get home. Oh, and also, the current dimension has a wreckage of the Cloverfield Station, so Tilda’s whole crew is probs dead, and the world has gone to war. The main character puts 2 and 2 together and realizes her two children are alive in the current dimension and (shocker) wants to stay. Except SHE IS ALSO ALIVE, THERE IS ANOTHER ONE OF HER. Which is the same opinion Stoic Commander has, though at a certain point he seems to be like “Fuck it I don’t care anymore” and tells her she can do whatever.

So one armed maintenance guy sets off to get the machine ready to run again but gets killed by the sweet magnetic putty he’s been using the whole film (and, also, an explosion). They then have to detach the part of the station ruined by the explosion, so Stoic Commander makes an entirely unnecessary sacrifice to uncouple it. For those counting, those we have left are the Doctor, the Physicist, the Main Character, and Tilda Swinson.

The plan now is, send Tilda and the Main character off in a shuttle so that they can Save The World with the information that they have on how to build the machine and get it to work, then overload the machine again to send the Doctor and the Physicist back, then run it one more time at proper levels to unlock Unlimited Power. Cool.

Except Tilda steals the 3d printed gun, knocks out the main character in the shuttle (with the intent of sending her to the alternate earth, with the information) then shoots and kills the Doctor, and shoots and almost kills the Physicist. Apparently she blames them for the death of her crew? Much more practically, she knows that her planet has broken out into war, and that they need the Unlimited Power immediately. Faced with those deaths in the world she knows, she feels compelled to fight for the working science machine. Fair enough.

The main character wakes up and succeeds in foiling the insidious plot (read: moral dilemma) by wrestling the gun from Tilda and shooting out a window, sucking her into the vacuum of space. All better!

The main character then sends a heartfelt message to herself about the importance of love and family (she *literally* just murdered a woman) and attaches the schematics and parameters for a working Science Machine, because suddenly the communication systems with the earth work again. Then, she and German Physicist return the station to their dimension, after which they run the Science Machine with the right parameters for Unlimited Power. Then they board a shuttle and send themselves down to earth. The end!!!

Oh except there’s been some flashes to what her original dimension husband has been up to during this. The Cloverfield monsters have been wreaking havoc (Guillermo was RIGHT) and he saved some kid and took her to a bunker. He’s also been in contact with Nasa or whatever about the legit missing space station while it’s been in the other dimension. The movie ends with him screaming into the phone that the Main Character and German Physicist should stay up on the station where it’s safe, even as the Nasa guy says it’s too late, they’re coming down. As they break the cloud cover, the original cloverfield monster rears up and screams.

Theeee Eeeennndddd

[nightmareonfilmstreet]

[Fantasia Review] French Disaster Thriller DANS LA BRUME Will Leave You Breathless

I was talking with a fellow member of the press the other day on what qualifies as an opening movie for the Fantasia Film Festival. Based on last year’s opening film, The Villainess, my guess is that it would have to be both high-adrenaline and visually stunning. In that sense, this year’s opening film Dans la brume (or Just a Breath Away) was an excellent choice on the programmer’s part. Being a joint creation of filmmakers from France and Quebec was enough reason to draw hundreds of Montrealers for its sold-out North American premiere.

Dans la brume is set in the not-too-distant future, as evidenced by the advanced computer tech used in the beginning. Mathieu (played by Romain Duris) returns home to Paris after a business trip in Canada. Upon arriving, it’s revealed that his preteen daughter Sarah (Fantine Harduin) suffers from Stimberger’s, an autoimmune disease that requires her to be quarantined in an air-filtered glass case. Being trapped in a bubble can be extremely dull, but Sarah breaks the monotony by keeping in contact with her parents using walkie-talkies and corresponding with other kids diagnosed with Stimberger’s over video chat.

    In the background, the news warns of an oncoming earthquake that will hit Paris. Within minutes, the ground briefly shakes and knocks out the power. Mathieu goes out to investigate. The streets are in panic, with people running for their lives. Eager to see what they’re running from, Mathieu goes into the main square where a large cloud of thick brown mist is rapidly approaching. Those trapped in the mist immediately fall to the ground, vomiting a white substance. Mathieu bolts back to his apartment to warn his estranged wife Anna (Olga Kurylenko). Leaving their daughter behind in her bubble, they take refuge in the top floor apartment, occupied by old couple. Lucky for them, the mist stops at the third story. Their daughter is protected from the mist, but the filtration system is running on battery power, and its only a matter of hours before it runs out. Worse yet, the mist is slowly rising.

The majority of Paris is engulfed in the toxic mist. Survivors have either escaped to their rooftops or to the hill on Montmartre, where riots soon break out. Mathieu speculates that two-thirds of Paris is dead and there’s no help coming for them. It’s up to him and Anna to find a way to secure their daughter away from the mist. They must scale the rooftops, travel from oxygen tank to oxygen tank and navigate the lawless streets of Paris in search of a solution.

  ” I will never take breathing comfortably for granted ever again.”

  The most nerve-wracking scenes are when characters are forced to hold their breath as they run through the mist. The average human can only hold their breath for roughly one to two minutes, so mere seconds can make all the difference between survival and certain death. I must admit to holding my breath in suspense during these scenes and gasping along with the protagonists. I will never take breathing comfortably for granted ever again. There were other moments when I found myself close to tears, and that’s all thanks to the impressive facial acting ability of the main cast.

I particularly want to applaud the performances of Michel Robin and Anna Gaylor as the elderly couple Lucien and Colette. At first, their senility is used as comic relief, but near the end, I grew rather fond of both of them. They’re willing to help Mathieu and Anna however they can and encourage them to never lose hope.

    Visually, Dans la brume is breath-taking (get it?). It’s a chance to observe the beautiful rooftop architecture of Paris, where everything is bright and eerily calm. The attention to detail in the set design within the mist shows a society fallen apart, with bodies and overturned vehicles as far as the eye can see. The sound design alternates from dead silence to panicked breathing to heart-pounding crescendos.

According to Canadian director Daniel Roby, the version of Dans la brume I saw in theaters in Quebec is very different from the version that premiered in France this past Spring. Roby was reportedly frustrated by the intervention of the French producers and was unsatisfied with the original cut. He reworked the film using existing footage to tell the story the way he wanted it to be told. It’s very possible that I saw a different ending from the original, however I was pleased with the how the movie ended, even if some things were left unanswered. The origin of the mist is never explained, but truth be told, the origin is not important. What truly matters in this film is the story of a family struggling to survive from a natural disaster, and it delivers on that front.

Even if you don’t normally watch non-English films, I would highly recommend Dans la brume, that is, if you’re willing to be on the edge of your seat, anxiously holding your breath.

3.5 / 4 eberts

  Dans la brume celebrated its North American premiere at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal on July 12th. Gravitas Ventures acquired U.S. rights to the film ahead of the premiere, and has announced plans for a theatrical release in 2019.

Check out more of Nightmare on Film Street’s Fantasia Fest Coverage here, and be sure to sound off with your thoughts over on Twitter and in our Facebook Group!

  The post [Fantasia Review] French Disaster Thriller DANS LA BRUME Will Leave You Breathless appeared first on Nightmare on Film Street - Horror Movie Podcast, News and Reviews.

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[njawaidofficial]

How 'Sharknado' Casts Its C-Listers and Nearly Landed Trump as President

http://styleveryday.com/2017/08/03/how-sharknado-casts-its-c-listers-and-nearly-landed-trump-as-president/

How 'Sharknado' Casts Its C-Listers and Nearly Landed Trump as President

Months before he declared himself a candidate, Trump was set to play commander-in-chief in the schlocky Syfy film franchise that has lured everyone from Ann Coulter to Charo for cameos while regular Tara Reid makes a quarter of one male co-star’s pay.

In January 2015, two years before he was sworn in as president, Donald Trump was set to step into the same role in a very different capacity: He had signed on to play the president in 2015’s Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!

Producers’ first choice to play the leader of the free world in the Washington, D.C.-set disaster film was Sarah Palin, but negotiations with the former Alaska governor and vice presidential nominee had fallen through. That’s when Ian Ziering, the gung-ho star of the schlocky Syfy franchise, had the inspiration to capitalize on the special relationship he’d developed with Trump while taping Celebrity Apprentice (Ziering made it as far as the penultimate task). His reality TV boss would make a good commander in chief, he reasoned. An offer went out. Almost immediately, it elicited a response.

“The Donald said yes,” recalls David Latt, the 51-year-old co-founder of The Asylum, the off-brand assembly line behind the Sharknado series. “He was thrilled to be asked.”

Alas, Trump never did get to fend off a swarm of hammerheads in the Lincoln Bedroom. (More on why later.) But his story is far from unusual — just one of thousands of familiar faces who have been approached to star in a Sharknado, in what has grown over the course of five films into Hollywood’s D-list answer to a federal jobs-growth program.

“It’s the long-lost love child of The Love Boat and Hollywood Squares,” offers Scotty Mullen, the bubbly casting director responsible for wrangling more than 80 celebrity appearances in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, which airs on Syfy on Aug. 6, with a splashy live viewing party in Las Vegas that night. (In true low-budget form, Mullen does double-duty as the newest installment’s screenwriter.)

It sounds like the recipe for a fatal drinking game, but fret not: You’re not expected to spot them all. Some of these faces are famous only overseas, while others haven’t been seen in decades. But you probably will recognize a few, including Charo as the Queen of England, Fabio as the Pope, Clay Aiken doing a spoof on Q from the James Bond films and Olivia Newton-John in her first screen role in 17 years, playing a scientist who gives star Tara Reid a Grease-style makeover.

If this terrain is familiar to anyone, it’s Charo, a fixture on such stunt-casted 1980s escapist fare as The Love Boat and Fantasy Island. The 66-year-old star was already a Sharknado fan when she was approached to play Her Royal Highness. “I think the Sharknado movies are hysterical,” she says, pronouncing it “shark-NAH-doe.” “Nowadays especially, we need shows that put a smile on your face. Coochie coochie!”

Coochie coochie ka-ching, that is: Sharknado has become an invaluable, if unlikely, crown jewel for Syfy, watched by tens of millions around the world (the globe-hopping new film capitalizes on that international popularity), registering billions of Twitter impressions and popping up in everything from Jeopardy! questions to The New York Times crossword puzzle.

But it began as just another title in a string of B-movies commissioned by Syfy — no-budget thrillers with names like Bats: Human Harvest and Mongolian Death Worm. Its path to the screen was fairly straightforward: An executive at Syfy heard the word “sharknado” and said, “I love it. Let’s make it.”

Asylum, which has cornered the market in this strain of cinematic dreck, was brought on to produce. They paid screenwriter Thunder Levin (his real name — “It was the ’60s,” he says) $6,000 to turn the word “sharknado” into an actual story — which he did, concocting a tale of a freak cyclone that scoops deadly sharks out of the Pacific and flings them at unsuspecting Angelenos.

With Sharknado script in hand, producers approached more than 100 actors to play male lead Fin Shepard, including Kevin Dillon, Dave Foley, Seth Green, John Stamos and Fred Durst. All of them passed — even the Limp Bizkit frontman, after being told he could also direct. The closest anyone got to signing on before Ziering was Back to the Future‘s Crispin Glover.

“I ended up in this 30-minute conversation with him during a location scouting in San Pedro,” recalls madcap director Anthony C. Ferrante, whose genuine enthusiasm for the franchise — he coined the word “sharknado” and has helmed all of the films — calls to mind a slightly more self-aware Ed Wood. “He wanted to play Fin like he had brain damage or something. And in my head I’m like, ‘OK — my job here is to make sure he says yes to the movie.’ ” Glover said no anyway.

But then something exciting happened: A legitimately talented and famous actor — John Heard — signed on as the movie’s comic-relief barfly, George. (Heard died July 21 while undergoing back surgery; there was barely a mention of Sharknado in tributes.) Reid was next to board, playing Fin’s ex-wife, April. This was after Teri Hatcher, Rebecca Romijn, Tiffani Thiessen and several others had already passed. Still, Reid was considered a big get for the project, whose title was proving to be a potent actor-repellent. “Tara had a profile,” says Gerald Webb, an actor and casting director who worked on the first three films (and appeared in the second). “Syfy liked her.”

With production commencing and still no Fin, a frantic Asylum went back to Ziering, who had already passed several times, and raised the offer to $100,000, according to a source with knowledge of the deal. Also a key conciliation: The title was changed to Dark Skies. (Syfy later changed it back to Sharknado, much to the cast’s dismay.) At the urging of his wife, who had just given birth and wanted Ziering to qualify for SAG medical insurance, he finally said yes.

And then a funny thing happened on the way to the DVD bin: Something about the movie’s ludicrous title and its cast’s commitment to the equally ludicrous premise (the film climaxes with Ziering’s ex-surf champ diving into a great white with a chainsaw) made Sharknado an instant cultural phenomenon when it premiered on July 11, 2013.

While ratings were modest — 1.37 million tuned in — the film lit Twitter on fire, with everyone from Patton Oswalt to Mia Farrow (“Omg omg OMG #sharknado”) singing its so-bad-it’s-good praises.

As a result, Sharknado 2: The Second One was a very different animal. “Everybody wanted to be involved,” recalls Webb. “Every C-list and D-list actor on the planet.” With the unlikely franchise’s new cachet, Asylum decided to take a kitchen-sink approach to casting, with Latt instructing Webb “to literally ask every celebrity we could think of. We came up with a list of a thousand people, including many A-listers.” Most passed. James Franco was a nonstarter. (There was hope he might be up for a cameo after his arc as a serial killer on General Hospital.) William Shatner’s agent replied with a single word: “Sharkna-no.”

But there were a few notable turns in the New York-set sequel, including Judd Hirsch and Airplane‘s Robert Hays playing into type as a taxi driver and jet pilot, respectively; rapper Biz Markie as a pizza chef; and Richard Kind as a Mets legend who bats a shark into the scoreboard. In many cases, their lines were written when they showed up on set.

Sharknado crews are nonunion (they staged a strike on the third installment and were replaced), but the films are SAG-AFTRA-compliant. “Everyone makes the same amount — a flat rate — and nobody was making close to their quote,” says Webb of the cameos. Asked if the pay — for anywhere from two to four hours of set time — would cover the cost of a Ford truck, Webb responds, “Absolutely not. Well, maybe a really beat-up one that would be at the junkyard a week later.”

Bigger roles, which require several days of shooting, pay more. Chris Kattan, whose career has seen some hard knocks since Saturday Night Live, was reluctant to take a cameo in Sharknado 5 — but was open to playing the meatier role of the U.K. prime minister, a part he approached “dead seriously. They were into me doing it that way.” He has gotten good feedback from his co-stars. “Ian said, ‘You’re going to be really, really happy with it,’ ” says Kattan. “So it’s not like Mariah Carey in Glitter — where nobody said anything.”

Mullen, 37, was a struggling screenwriter working as a publicist when his spec script Double-D Island (“It’s like The Hunger Games but topless”) got him noticed by Asylum, which first put him to work writing jokes for Kelly Ripa on Sharknado 2. “They said, ‘We forgot to write something for her,’ ” he recalls of the fateful phone call. “I said, ‘How soon do you need something?’ They said, ‘Well, we’re lighting her now.’ “

But it’s Ann Coulter whom Mullen credits with his big break. Asylum wanted the conservative firebrand to play the vice president in Sharknado 3, but was having no luck through her agent. Mullen suggested the company go through her publicist — “Sharknado‘s more of a publicity opportunity than a thespian exercise” — and Coulter “jumped at the chance. So then they asked me if I was interested in doing more of this.” Asylum agreed to pay Mullen a per-cameo bonus.

He sees his role as very different from that of most casting directors — people whose calls, typically, are eagerly answered by agents and managers. Instead, Mullen says, “you’re always selling them on the publicity value. An agent won’t care because they just want the money, and there is none. But if you pitch it to the publicist, they see all the value to be gotten out of it. You’re here to ride the hell out of that crazy publicity train.”

If it’s really true that there’s “no such thing as bad publicity,” Sharknado is determined to test those boundaries. Some of the most reviled figures in pop culture have popped up as chum. In Sharknado 2 alone, there was Andy Dick (who “was having a tough day that day,” says Webb — Ziering had to hold up cue cards with Dick’s lines on them), Perez Hilton (swallowed whole on a subway platform) and Jared Fogle (“You should really be eating fresh, too,” says Subway’s then pitchman, currently serving 15 years in a federal prison for child porn possession and having sex with minors). Among the few stars Asylum has rejected: porn legend Ron Jeremy, who once stopped by the offices to pitch himself.

Sharknado 3 features a cameo by Anthony Weiner, the disgraced ex-congressman who in May pleaded guilty to sexting with a 15-year-old girl. “I guess I am on that C- to D-level cusp of celebrity that they were looking for,” Weiner told THR in 2015. “But I wouldn’t have conceived of doing it if I were going to play myself.” In fact, a sexting-scandal spoof was exactly what the producers wanted; when Weiner refused, he was enlisted to play a dull NASA administrator instead. Most of his performance was edited out.

For Sharknado 5, everything is bigger, starting with the budget ($3 million, double the cost of the original) and star salaries — Ziering now makes $500,000 per picture. Asylum manages to limit costs when it comes to Reid’s paycheck — she makes about a quarter of what her male co-star earns on each installment. She protested the disparity during the filming of Sharknado 3. Syfy later asked fans whether or not to kill off her character — but the network flatly denies that the two incidents are related. (Fans voted to let her live.) “I think Sharknado cares more about their ‘extra of the day’ than they do about their own cast,” Reid says, clearly weary of the franchise. “You work at something for five years and you don’t get treated as well as someone who shows up for a single day?”

She may be on to something, as the piled-on cameos haven’t added up to higher ratings for the franchise, which peaked at 3.87 million viewers for 2014’s Sharknado 2 before dropping to 2.77 million viewers for 2016’s Sharknado 4. The newest installment — which introduces the concept of wormholes to the, uh, Sharknado mythology — shot on location in London, Tokyo, Rome, Sydney, New York, Los Angeles and Sofia, Bulgaria. Some cameo players were flown to those far-flung places (Greg Louganis jetted off to Sofia to play an art thief), while others (Fabio, Poison’s Bret Michaels — also a Celebrity Apprentice alum) shot a few close-ups at home in L.A., with their stunt doubles in rocker wigs doing the heavy lifting overseas.

Lee Mountjoy, a London-based casting director, was brought on to fill out the ranks and went about enlisting local talent Katie Price (the “Kim Kardashian of the U.K.”) and diving champion Tom Daley — Mountjoy randomly “bumped into him in a train station in London. I said, ‘Do you know Sharknado?’ And he said, ‘Oh, my God, definitely!’ “

Similarly, the Asylum guys ran into George R.R. Martin at a Comic-Con event in 2014, whereupon the Game of Thrones author confessed to being a Sharknado superfan. “I own a theater in New Mexico, and they wouldn’t let me play it,” bemoaned Martin. The producers pulled some strings, and Martin was able to screen the original movie at his theater. (He later showed up in Sharknado 3.)

“We look for cameos from all areas of pop culture to appeal to every fan watching the movie,” says Josh Van Houdt, Syfy’s vp original co-productions. “Whether we’re casting a professional athlete, reality star, actor, musician or politician, our goal is to include a wide variety of stars for viewers to either get excited about or, on the flip side, witness getting eaten by a shark in a spectacular fashion.”

And so it might have been for our 45th president. “We got pretty far,” says Webb of the Trump negotiations. “It was serious talks.” A contract was drawn up and sent to Trump attorney Michael D. Cohen — the same attorney currently under FBI investigation in connection with the Russia inquiry.

But enthusiasm turned into weeks of silence from the Trump camp. Eventually, a reason for the stalling emerged. “Donald’s thinking about making a legitimate run for the presidency, so we’ll get back to you,” Latt recalls Cohen saying. “This might not be the best time.” With the production clock ticking, Asylum pulled the trigger on a backup plan, offering the role to Mark Cuban — a modest casting coup that Syfy trumpeted with a press release.

“Then we immediately heard from Trump’s lawyer,” recalls Latt. “He basically said, ‘How dare you? Donald wanted to do this. We’re going to sue you! We’re going to shut the entire show down!’ ” Contacted by THR, Cohen acknowledges a dinner with Ziering to discuss casting Trump but says he has no recollection of the angry correspondence.

Webb, now at his own production company, is philosophical about the dustup. “I took it personally, but I get it now,” he says. “That was my moment of doing business with Donald Trump. And that’s Sharknado.”

This story first appeared in the Aug. 2 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.