Sometimes I wonder how The Asylum does it. Considering that, next week, you’ll be getting a look at 11-11-11, directed by none other than Darren Lynn Bousman, it’s no less amazing to see that just five days ago, the folks at The Asylum got a copy of 11 / 11 / 11 on store shelves. And of course, the first question people will ask is, is this version worth watching?

11 /11 / 11 follows Jack and Melissa, a normal couple who head a normal family, much like any other. And considering their son’s birthday is coming up, it’s looking like a good time to be Jack and Melissa. But the closer their son’s birthday, which just happens to be the titular 11 / 11 / 11, well, he starts acting a bit weird. And not just your normal little boy about to have a birthday weird, but full blown crazy. And when Jack and Melissa discover that their son is actually the key to the apocalypse, which will happen on the little boy’s birthday, Jack and Melissa are going to have to try and stop it…without harming their son.

I give The Asylum all the credit in the word for trying, they really did do their level best to put on something that approximates a scary movie here. And in the grandest tradition of little Antichrist movies like Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen, they did really put up a halfway decent job of making the world seem like it was falling apart around our young couple. The problem here comes in the less than stellar acting job put up by the various cast on this one–frankly, Melissa spends half her time in this movie in bed and Jack is basically a giant tool, meanwhile everyone else is trying to put up a vibe of evil and / or insane and it just comes off like some kind of low-rent high school production, which is sad, because with a bit more substance on the cast’s part, they might have been able to leech something of this. But as it is, none of it seems to quite jell together.

However, the last twenty minutes or so are just preposterous and action-packed at the same time. Frankly, the last twenty minutes of 11 / 11 / 11 represents some of the most lunatic filmmaking I’ve seen in quite some time. You’ve got old women screaming in Latin, screaming Bible verses, then just plain old screaming while waving a machete over their heads.

And then from there, it gets weird.

It’s nowhere near as bad as you might think–it may not be anyone’s idea of a great movie, but it will qualify for at least watchable rank–and might make a good movie to get the crew together and make fun of over beer and pizza. A decent rental, but not too much else.

And with that less than ringing endorsement, the Screenhead Ten Scale hands 11 / 11 / 11 about a fifth of what it adds up to, giving it a six out of ten. It may not be the best thing you’ve seen lately, but it likely won’t be the worst.