How The Asylum Legitimized the B Movie

​Written by John Edward Betancourt

For every blockbuster and Academy Award winning film you've ever enjoyed...there exists a flip side to them. Where the acting makes you groan and the special effects leave something to be desired. These are movies we catch late at night on cable, or discover on Netflix, or back in the day...on the new release wall at the video store. These types of motion pictures are what are known as the 'B Movie', a film that's not quite as perfect as our everyday entertainment but over the years one or more of these cheesier flicks have found their way into our hearts.

As of late, these types of films can essentially be found everywhere, we celebrate them in popular culture, text our friends immediately when we uncover one that we thoroughly enjoyed and now...they've become an annual event on television courtesy of The Asylum and Sharknado, but there was a time when these films weren't always celebrated. In fact, not too long ago, these movies were reserved for direct to video releases, placed with care in the corner of the new release wall, where a niche viewing audience would find them and enjoy them, spreading word of mouth amongst their pals upon their discovery. They were simply an afterthought, films that would lose someone their investment but were part of the business none the less and despite their pseudo popularity in the 1980's and 1990's, the B Movie was nothing new.

After all, the filmmakers of those two eras were influenced by a B Movie King in Ed Wood Jr., whose silly over the top work was reviled upon release but celebrated years later because of Wood's ability to throw caution to the wind and simply create a film that he thought was outright fun. But the inspiration that Wood provided to so many, the B Movie was still something celebrated by a specific audience. So what then truly brought about the wonder of these cheesy flicks? How did they come to be something to be celebrated at every turn? The answer to that is simple...the wonder of cable, and the production company I mentioned earlier...The Asylum. 

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Now if that name sounds familiar, there's a reason for that. You've seen their movies, including their most popular offering but before they took the popular culture world by storm, The Asylum was primarily a distributor and along the way, they became a production house, putting together parodies/B Movie interpretations of mainstream films in addition to original content and much of their work found its way onto the SyFy Network. This pairing as time would go on, would become a perfect storm if you will (yes, Sharknado pun intended), because these earlier films would lay the groundwork for the phenomenon to come. These were films that understood the fundamental needs for a B Movie to be successful. They had to be fun, they had to have colorful characters and wild scenarios and as time went on, a few well known names would suddenly appear in these films as well, giving them a bigger draw come airtime.  

But the grand moment, where everything came together, is when The Asylum tried something new. They were overseeing a project so wild and carefree in its design that it required different care when it came to production and marketing. Yes, it was fun, sure it had big names, but the sheer concept could make or break the future of the B Movie. But somewhere along the way, a light bulb came on. The greatest mistake that B Movies made when it came to marketing was that they were always acknowledged as an homage or a re telling so as to only appeal to that niche audience, but what would happen...if everyone embraced the silly? What if by chance the wild and crazy idea that this film was going to present was played straight, and advertised like any other Hollywood blockbuster out there? It was a bold decision, but one that paid off because Sharknado was immediately embraced by fans, and at long last a B Movie was produced and celebrated for being something off the wall and silly. 

The rest as they say is history. Sharknado was a smash hit on cable, it produced three equally popular sequels and well, the B Movie is no longer a film relegated to Saturday Nights for a handful of people. They are loved and embraced and suddenly there is a hunger and a desire to see something new and silly from the film industry and much of that is thanks to The Asylum for taking a chance on a film like Sharknado and allowing for director Anthony C. Ferrante to bring something original to life in a sea of remakes and tentpoles and sequels and for those of us who grew up on B Movies, and had to work to find them and others that enjoy them...we thank The Asylum for making them legitimate forms of filmmaking and for showing everyone just how much fun movies like this can be. 

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