Prime Time: Alpha House (2014)

Having recently enjoyed Incoming, a teen comedy made with the kind of intelligence and attitude needed to make something that is both hilarious and fairly unproblematic, I made a bad decision. I decided to scour my viewing options online and find something that might deliver some laughs without any consideration for the more progressive attitudes many of us try to prioritise nowadays. If you're wanting a teen comedy with bad gags and lots of gratuitous nudity then The Asylum, that production company best known for their mockbusters and creature features, has you covered. 

The plot is simple. An all-male campus frat house is forced to start sharing their accommodation with a number of young women. Nobody wants the situation to stay that way though, which leads to a battle of the sexes, with the victor hoping to return the house to a unisex state.

I've not seen any other films from director Jacob Coooney, who also co-wrote this puerile screenplay with Brandon Trenz, and I don't think I'll be rushing to check out anything else he decides to do. Alpha House is pretty dire, although those who somehow can't figure out how to see nudity on the internet may be easily pleased by the many moments designed to get young women naked. There aren't any characters worth rooting for though, none of the alleged jokes are even slightly amusing, and the slim plot is almost insultingly dumb.

I don't even want to name any of the men who starred in this thing. They have already been rewarded enough by being in a film that allows them to live out a number of teen fantasy scenarios. It's the women who deserve any praise, and I'll say that at least Heather Paige Cohn, Sam Aotaki, Audrey Ellis Fox, and Mindy Robinson all had more screen presence than any of their male co-stars. That's partially to do with their attractiveness, but it's just as much to do with them being able to do more than snigger and act as over-stimulated as a 17th-century monk glimpsing a woman's bare ankle.

There will be an audience for this, but I would encourage even the target demographic to seek out something better. There are comedies out there that are much funnier. There are titillating movies that have much better titillation. If you want something smarter and more in line with modern sensibilities then I can point you towards a few different options (although this was made just over ten years ago, it feels as if it was made back in the early 1990s . . . and I don't mean that in a good way). And if you want something decidedly non-modern then please feel free to go further back in film history to the likes of National Lampoon's Animal House, Screwballs, or even Porky's. At least they all feel like films made by people who did more than the bare minimum required to string together the set-pieces and wardrobe malfunctions.

2/10

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Titanic 666 (2023)

If you look through the films made by director Nick Lyon, or the films written by Jason Cooney or Jason White, you may notice a number of . . . interesting (yes, let's go with interesting) titles listed. Don't be too quick to dismiss their work though, because they all seem interested in making films that are at least fun, even if limited budgets and resources undermine whatever vision they're trying to put onscreen. That approach is also clear in the silly, but not entirely unenjoyable, Titanic 666.

The plot is on a level of silliness that you might expect. A group of people are on board the Titanic III - the usual mix of people you might root for, people you might hate, and someone who seems to have their own mysterious agenda - and there are also cabinets displaying items salvaged from the original Titanic. Could that be just asking for bad luck? Maybe, but Professor Hal Cochran (Jamie Bamber) doesn't believe so. He thinks there's a lot of money to be made. Idina Bess (Lydia Hearst), on the other hand, thinks that there's another way for people to pay for a piece of the past.

It's never scary, not really, but Titanic 666 is also never too dull, whether viewers are being introduced to the selection of characters (including a pair of influencers, played by AnnaLynne McCord and Derek Yates) or shown the appearance of numerous spirits about to cause havoc on the ship. It's typical of many movies from The Asylum, with very simple plotting, plenty of stereotypes populating the narrative, and runtime that's padded out by judicious use of stock footage, but those who know what they're getting into should find enough to enjoy here. While I wouldn't rush to rewatch this, nor would I recommend it to many people, I didn't have a bad time watching it. I wanted more AnnaLynne McCord, she's sadly underused, but everything else worked on the level I expected.

Aside from McCord, the cast members worth mentioning are Keesha Sharp (playing the Captain of the ship), Joseph Gatt (definitely up to something that may make the situation much worse), and both Bamber and Hearst, playing central characters with opposing viewpoints on the history of the Titanic, and the weight of the tragedy. 

The script is more concerned with filling time in between the minor ghostly set-pieces, and the direction is more competent than skilled, and let's not dwell on the quality of the special effects on display, but I cannot bring myself to loathe this. It was fine. I've seen plenty of other people eager to pick this apart. If you want to do that then there's plenty here to pick at. But if you just want to watch something that aims to entertain, something that isn't challenging or too complicated, then this is perfectly fine. I wouldn't call it good, but it does what it sets out to do.

4/10

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