Joseph J. Lawson Writer Director VFX Supervisor

We Proceed On!

So much has happened over the last seven years!

Since leaving his position as VFX Supervisor of The Global Asylum Joe and family have moved the midwest before settling back westward on the North Coast of Oregon. Here he runs his own visual effects business providing effects for films and television shows working with his son Joseph James.

Along with numerous Christmas and Thriller films they've also done a plane crash for Street Survivors: The True Story of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash, a helicopter crash for Assault on VA-33, work on the 2022 NFL Superbowl commmercial plus various projects on Netflix, Lifetime, OWN and various other independent productions.

Often they're available to do additional shots and pick-up work including on such productions as Paramount + The Offer, the 2022 NFL Super Bowl commercial "Bring Down the House" and helping clean-up special effects shots on the 4K release of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture Director's Special Edition".

Never a dull moment, there's always something new both in the VFX realm to do or learn and spending time enjoying the Pacific Ocean or the fine dining of Astoria.

Joe also was the Visual Effects Supervisor at the Global Asylum for seven years heading the VFX department that created the visuals of SHARKNADO! and SHARKNADOs 2, 3 and 4 for the Syfy Channel.

...this is a must-see. Director Joseph J. Lawson comes across as genuinely enthusiastic, honest, intelligent, and understanding of what he's made and who he's made it for. Here's hoping Lawson makes more movies and records more commentaries.

I applaud them for letting Lawson take the director’s chair... Joe Lawson is a rising talent in genre films and I eagerly look forward to his next picture... Putting first time director (and long-time visual FX maestro) Joseph Lawson at the helm, the material was so extreme at times, so potentially offensive, it needed a gentle touch and sturdy footing to hit the right balance. Lawson excelled and oversaw the most visually ambitious and arguably most entertaining Asylum film released to date..

This is not your typical Asylum film... such are the makings of your quintessential Joe Bob Briggs worthy drive-in movie. On that dark and violent and nuttier than a fruitcake level, it certainly entertains.

Director Joseph Lawson and writer Paul Bales have somehow managed to craft a film that merges several different genres together and actually make it work. The film contains action, horror, romance, comedy and sci-fi and each compliments the film wonderfully, like a bowl of vanilla ice-cream with all the toppings.

...you'd never know it was Lawson's first time at the helm; there's a very keen sense of control over the picture, for as crazy and labyrinthine a mystery as this film is, it moves at an expert pace, doling out the goods like breadcrumbs leading to a wholly satisfying and thoroughly unexpected climax.

The director, Joseph J. Lawson, has been visual effects supervisor on a lot of their earlier productions which might explain how nicely they're used in this film. He's also a talented director with an eye for strong visuals and I hope he will direct more for the company.

Joseph Lawson and Mega Piranha screenwriter Eric Forsberg have joined forces to craft what is quite possibly The Asylum’s most respectable motion picture since Stuart Gordon’s King of the Ants nearly a decade ago..

The Asylum has out-Carnosaur'd Roger Corman with Age of Dinosaurs.

It's probably no coincidence that, just like with Nazis at the Center of the Earth, it always seems to be a Joseph Lawson-directed Asylum movie that is always raising the bar for future Asylum movies.