When people think about Indie Horror companies they usually go to A24 (Midsommar and Hereditary) or Blumhouse (The Purge and Insidious) for some of the more popular films. Then there are the next step-down companies like Troma (The Toxic Avenger and Class of Nuke ‘Em High) and Dark Sky Films (The Innkeepers and Starry Eyes). The Asylum I would consider to be even a step down from those. Nazis At the Center of the Earth, a sci-fi comedy horror, come to us from The Asylum. I’m not saying they are bad at making horror films, I mean they gave us all the Sharknado films and like them or not, they have left their mark on the horror genre.
Good or bad; The Asylum makes a lot of independent horror films, and they deserve to be supported whenever we can. NATCOTE (the full title is way too much to type out repeatedly) is about a group of researchers in Antarctica who are attacked by a bunch of Nazi soldiers and taken to a secret bunker deep in the center of the Earth. It’s like the area we see Kong living in the new movies of that series. Soon after they are abducted, they meet Dr. Josef Mengele who is still alive and along with a large group of Nazi soldiers is planning an invasion of Earth. Their goal is to create the Fourth Reich.
Dominique Swain (Lolita and Face/Off) stars as Dr. Paige Morgan and Jake Busey (Starship Troopers and The Frighteners) is Dr. Adrien Reistad. NATCOTE was filmed in 12 days and cost less than 200 grand to make. So yeah, low budget for sure. The story is so off the wall that it makes the film interesting. Some of the effects are very well done too. The film came close to setting a record for most visual effects in a film produced by The Asylum. Other than the two I’ve mentioned, the rest of the cast are names I’ve never heard of before. Doesn’t mean they can’t act just that I’m not listing them here.
Clocking in at around 90 minutes, the film never drags but some of the acting leaves something to be desired. I mean Jake Busey, who has been in nearly 100 films, still needs to polish his craft. Directing here is Joseph J. Lawson. Now the main reason I mentioned him is so I can also mention that he has also directed Bone Alone. Bone Alone is the dog version of Home Alone. Paul Bales (the COO of The Asylum) wrote NATCOTE and was one of the producers of the film but he usually does that. The producing part I mean and for the most part he IS The Asylum. Now thankfully I have all the Mike Flanagan films in the countdown this year because if not, this is the second Nazi film I’ve reviewed this year. We don’t want that to be this years theme!
Most people hate NATCOTE while a few have called it the Citizen Kane of films from The Asylum. I will say it’s not for everyone (obviously not for kids) and has some really disturbing scenes but nothing I haven’t seen before. I don’t know if it’s the best film from The Asylum but it’s certainly on the same level as any of the Sharknado films so that’s saying something. Most of the Sharknado films I rated somewhere around two stars (give or take a half a star) so I will give this a strong two and a half gas masks out of five.
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