MST3k Week the Fourth: "Siiiiiiiiiiign"

So we come to it at last.
25 years, 25 movies. This has been a pretty interesting spread of the proverbial good, bad, and ugly from the show's run. While it's been fun, I am looking forward to being able to take it easy on the next few writeups. But, that's getting ahead of things. With four titles left, let's bring the lion's share of this month on home:

This right here? This is about as close as they're gonna get to Wells's version.

11/23 - Riding With Death

Movie recuts - where cancelled shows and pilots that didn't get the green light can sometimes get a second life. OK, it doesn't happen often, but it hasn't stopped some people from trying over the years all the same. Which brings us to this title - which cuts together two episodes of the short-lived 1976 series Gemini Man. The series in question-VERY loosely based on H.G. Wells's The Invisible Man (to be fair, they give Wells a writing credit at least)-concerns one Sam Casey (Ben Murphy) a scientist who, in the pilot, is caught in a radioactive explosion. Now, in most cases, this would end in horrible death - either immediately or as a result of some pretty nasty tumors. Lucky for Sam, this movie's a graduate of the Stan Lee school of Radiology, so instead it just makes him invisible. Granted, said invisibility COULD kill him, but that's fixed with a radioactive watch that lets him turn it on and off at will - for 15 minutes at a time, anyway. What's a man to do with such a power? Well, apparently that's a pretty big hook into being a secret agent, cause that was the premise for this series - which ran for 12 episodes before going the way of Old Yeller.
From there, this movie was made, recutting two episodes of the show together, plus some footage from the pilot to set the story for anyone who didn't watch - which was presumably most people. The idea of cutting a TV series together into a movie isn't always bad, if you have the plot for it. Sometimes, if you have a good overarching storyline, it can be seen as a way to trim a lot of the fat the televised format resulted in, though sometimes it results in too much being trimmed in turn. The problem is, as far as I can tell in researching, there wasn't exactly an overarching story in Gemini Man. At least, not that this film's concerned with - instead, it takes two of the 'case of the week' stories to stitch together on the basis of one of their recurring characters: country singing trucker and later racer Buffalo Bill Joe Hickens (as played by country singer Jim Stafford.) They attempt to further mesh the two stories together by giving the first several added bits of voiced over dialogue making reference to the antagonist of the later storyline, but considering they never actually tie it into the first story - involving Sam being asked to truck along a new hyper-efficient fuel that's actually designed to explode so its designer could take a payoff from big oil - all it really has to buoy it to the second half is introducing Buffalo Bill. Which is a bit unfortunate, since on its own, the truck story could make a decent made for TV movie in better hands, but here it's mostly just tedious and largely forgotten once they segue into the next episode. Granted, it's still more memorable than the second storyline, in which Sam joins Bill on the racing circuit to find out a former defense worker turned saboteur (Ed Nelson.) In both cases, it seems like Sam's invisibility is the only thing he has going for him to explain why he's a spy. Most of the rest of the time, he really just seems to go with the flow of the story and follow his boss's instructions. Besides the awkward story graft, the film is Okay, if nothing spectacular. Casey's an alright lead, if a little hard to believe in the science capacity at points, and Stafford, while laying the hillbilly on a bit thick, at least appears to be more invested in his role than most of the rest of the cast. Most of the rest are really just average, with the exception of Katherine Crawford as Sam's friend/female lead Abby. While I've seen worse performances, it's hard to deny she is low-balling this one, though it DOES lead to easily one of the funniest line reads in the whole movie ("I wonder who would be going to Switzerland...and with ten million dollars...")
For as many snares as this film has in its problematic assembly, I do have to give it this much: thanks to its decision in the shared focal point between the two episodes, one could pitch this as one of the lesser known pronounced examples of emphasized bromance in television/film. I wouldn't stake money on it, I'm just saying the means are there if someone wanted to try and run with that angle.

To make this better and worse, picture Lugosi yelling "JAZZ HANDS!" as he does it.

11/24 - Bride of the Monster

Confession time - this spot was originally going to go The Killer Shrews. On thinking it over, however, I felt like just using The Violent Years wasn't really a proper representation for Ed Wood. He only really worked on some of the script, and as a result, it doesn't have quite the same distinctly weird feel that makes his films work so well. So, I made a judgment call and, thanks to the good folks in the public domain, fired up his 1955 tale of love and atomic supermen, Bride of the Monster.
OK, I also picked this cause it felt like doing a Wood movie without Bela Lugosi and Tor Johnson was a missed opportunity.
Anyway, this is the point where I'll further admit I'm really not as versed in Wood's films as I should be. I've seen the classic Plan 9 From Outer Space, naturally, but there's many of his films I've not yet seen - though I do have a copy of Glen or Glenda I'd found as a freebie I should get around to firing up. Of what little of his work I've seen, I think this might actually be my favorite. I say this with all respect to Plan 9 (such as it is) but something about this wonderful craziness just nudged it over for me. I think part of it's just the whole premise - Lugosi as an expatriate mad scientist dabbling in atomic energy who lives with his mute giant (Johnson) and keeps a giant octopus in his lake. There's something about how straight-faced the movie plays the whole idea, which feels like it got pitched as a joke, that wins me over in part. Of course, the wonderfully cheesey acting and dialogue certainly help matters as well. The one problem with Ed Wood's films is that it's always tough to pick a favorite bit of dialogue - between his writing and the cast's delivery, you're guaranteed a lot of gold to work with. Lugosi in particular has a LOT of gems in this, thanks in no small part to his delivery on the lines. One of my picks going to his assertion to one test subject that he will be "as big as a giant, with the strength of twenty men! ... Or, like all the others, DEAD!" Of course, compared to the rest of the cast, I will give him points for making an effort. But, again, that's half the charm in an Ed Wood movie. Beyond Lugosi's lab, we have our heroes, including a squabbling couple whose conflict resolution results in the kind of ultimatum that would only fly in a 50s movie (Loretta King's Janet is backed off of her threat to call off her engagement by the prospect of giving back the ring. Again, only in the 50s.) On investigating the disappearance of two men in the woods, Janet and boyfriend Dick Craig (Tony McCoy) each make their ways to the sinister lab of Dr. Vornoff and his experiments in atomic supermen: the culmination of which leads to probably one of the best/weirdest sights to come out of this entire month - Lugosi successfully trashing Tor in a fight. From here, and because of the producer's desire to include an anti-warhead message, we come to a climax in which Vornoff's efforts make for an insane, but memorable, look at the proverbial horrors of the atomic age.
Before closing, I should also mention a tidbit as far as this film's production history. For anyone not familiar with Wood lore, this movie has gained something of a spot of fame in the director's film legend for the above-mentioned octopus. Most notably the stories that he and his crew allegedly stole the prop from the John Wayne movie Wake of the Red Witch. I have to admit, it's a fascinating little story, although the alternate tale - that Wood and his crew rented the prop, and the awkward motions aren't a result of failing to steal the whole thing but rather not renting the full rig, seems a bit more plausible. Whichever the case, it certainly does explain the incredibly awkward filming of the octopus attacks within the movie, and regardless which version you subscribe to, makes a fun little story on its own.
That said, again, this is one of Wood's gems. By no means is it a good movie, but it's a bad movie that's still pretty fun to watch, especially with company.
Plus, it's in the public domain (and available for legal download with a quick Google search) so why not give it a look if you're curious? There's worse ways you could spend 70 minutes.

In this alternate history, Raul Julia lives long enough to see what Tumblr does with him.

11/25 - Overdrawn at the Memory Bank

OK, with this I take back almost everything I said about Raul Julia in Street Fighter. Yes, the movie was a mess, but 1) he's at least fun in it, and 2) it's still an overall better movie than this.
Of course, I will acknowledge that's not entirely the fault of the filmmakers. This was put together as a made-for-TV movie in 1983 with funding from New Jersey's public broadcasting, which really only stretched things just so far. This was part of what was hoped to be a longer series of science fiction works, but as you can imagine with this funding, this was the last of the run.
The low budget really only covers just so much of this film's backside, however. The biggest enemy of this movie is actually its jumbled mess of a script, which sets up a couple of interesting ideas, but never really seems to know what to do with them. Julia appears Aram Fingal (I'll give you all 30 seconds to process that name) as a lowly desk jockey in a dystopian future where his interest in 'cinemas' lands him in trouble for not doing his work. Before I continue I just want to say that I can't help but feel this movie's got all the potential for a drinking game in it. At the very least, taking a shot any time someone says 'cinemas' would be enough to develop a good buzz in the first fifteen minutes that should coast the viewer through the remaining sixty-five minutes. Anyway, to cure Fingal of his interest in 'cinemas', they send him to a psychological rehabilitation they refer to as 'doppling': essentially taking a vacation in the body of an animal. The intervention of one rather creepy child sends Fingal on a trip that leaves him trapped inside the company's main computer (where he makes the most of his time by creating a mini-universe for himself heavily patterned on the movie Casablanca) and risking potentially upending everything. All the while, a harried technician (Linda Griffiths) with an equally bizarre name (Appolonia James, for the record...yeah...) desperately tries to relocate his old body and get him back into it before he does any further damage.
For anyone who thinks this doesn't sound that confusing, trust me, the full movie is a mess. The script is heavily afflicted with the old science fiction cliche of "bury any questions under a lot of technical sounding things" which, rather than help things, make the movie even more of a confused heap. When the chairman of the sinister NoviCorp (Donald Moore, playing almost every villainous fat man you've ever seen in film here) decides to intervene, his motives are muddled as he repeatedly fluctuates between wanting to get Fingal out of the system alive to maintain his company's stock and having Fingal eliminated before he sees too much of the company's inner workings. The film has a hard time keeping its story straight on this point, though I will admit, seeing it unriffed does make it a little easier to follow than the cut MST3k did. I've heard the film was allegedly unable to complete filming, which explains some of the holes, though I haven't found anything to affirm the truth to this story. In either case, the damage is done at this point - regardless the reasons, the movie's script is a king-sized helping of techno-jargon and a narrative that feels like it has narrative elements from Total Recall and Brazil while capturing the appeal of neither (yes, I realize it predated both, but for lack of a better point of reference/comparison...)
I do want to give them some points for recording the film on video so they could work with digital effects. It results in the film looking rather cheap at times nowadays, but it was still an interesting experiment for them to work with at any rate. Just one that time didn't really do much for.

If there's a way to make this picture any more 1960s, I don't know what it is.

11/26 - Danger: Diabolik

and so, we round out this part of the month with the final movie to be featured in the show's 10-year run. This was a pretty pleasant surprise, really. After the show started with The Crawling Eye, a movie that worked as an episode almost entirely thanks to the riffing, it was nice to see them round out with a film that, even outside of the riffing, is still pretty watchable. Based on the popular Italian comic series Diabolik, this adaptation by Mario Bava concerns the titular thief in his various exploits of theft, murder, and love. True to Bava's direction, one of the biggest strengths of this movie is its visual style. Paired with cinematography by Antonio Rinaldi and a soundtrack by the legendary Ennio Morricone, this has all the makings for a pretty wild ride on paper alone. The choice of casting for the famous thief was, at least for me, one that called for some adjusting. This isn't because I think John Phillip Law is bad in the role, actually. For a character who is largely a cypher, Law does make him at least an interesting one to watch. It was more thanks to this month's viewing and having previously seen him as the villainous Kalgan in Space Mutiny. It made it REALLY weird to watch this and have that voice in the back of my head going "and here's Kalgan having sex with a woman on top of a pile of money." Actually, most of the cast in this are pretty enjoyable in their roles. The one disappointing role, though this may have been thanks to the dub I was watching of the film, was Marisa Mell as Diabolik's girlfriend, Eva Kant. I'm not sure who dubbed her role for this, but the performance in that regard is painfully flat at points. That said, learning this part almost went to Catherine Deneuve was a bit of a surprise, though it did leave me wondering what could have been if she'd gotten the part. Character actor Terry-Thomas inadvertently nets himself some extra brownie points in his role as a minister of the interior - the various odd tics and gestures he plays the role with make what could have been just a talking head into a more memorable persona.
The only area where this film really takes much of a hit is in the overall narrative, most notably in its episodic nature. The individual storylines are all pretty solid - especially in the ways that Diabolik carries out his heists (fans of Lupin III should find some fun in this aspect of the movie, though Diabolik is  bit more ruthless) but the stories really don't connect particularly well. Each feels like it could make for a solid enough story to try and build a whole movie around, but the overarching plot of the police attempts to capture Diabolik, in particular determined Inspector Ginki (Michel Piccoli) never really feels like a strong enough thread to hold the movie together. It's fitting in a strange way at least - Diabolik's parts of the film are all strong and on point while the police are the ones who can't keep themselves in one piece around him. In particular their parts relying on using the newspaper and press conferences to advance their narrative makes them feel detached from Diabolik's stories. Even with them crossing paths a couple of times during the movie, the police raid on Diabolik's lair feels like it showed up from another film considering how loosely they seem to be attached to this story.
The cohesion issues aside, this is up there with the kaiju movies and The Final Sacrifice on the more fun standalone movies from this project. It also has me curious to see if any of the original Diabolik comics have been printed in English or not. It's a mix of some great legends of 60s Italian film into a wildly psychedelic tale of gangsters, detectives, and one strange but fascinating super-thief.  It's also a great example of one of the rules I think more people need to keep in mind about MST3k - just cause you can riff on a movie doesn't make it a bad one. Even the showrunners admitted several of the films they showed were actually pretty good, and this is another great example of it. It's a pretty fun movie, but also quite riffable. It's nothing to be ashamed of on its own, depending on what you get riffed on.

Whew. That was a lot of movie sign to go through.
Have to say though, it was still very worth it.
Keep an eye out over the next few days for a few general MST3k-related writeups to take us to the end of the month!

and in the long shot anyone attached to the show should ever read these: I'd just like to say, as many have already done so - thanks. Thanks for 25 great years and counting on bringing great laughs, a fun sense of audience participation, and introducing people to some of the more wonderfully bizarre films that would otherwise have gone unnoticed (though whether you consider saving Manos from obscurity something good or bad remains to be seen.) All the best to everyone and the best of luck on your future endeavors, will be following them with optimism!

Till tomorrow, folks!

MST3k Week the Third: "Movie"

Well, that's enough from the good films for a bit! Back to the hurting!

Actually, this week's spread was pretty enjoyable as the Deep 13 offerings go. Not necessarily GREAT, but at least nothing this week that really dragged too badly.

But, I'm getting ahead of things.

"Well, I spoke with the DM about his handing out those extra sheets last week. Based on his laughter, I wouldn't bet too high on most of us making the end of this campaign."

11/16 - The Magic Sword

So, we've covered Ed Wood and Roger Corman, but surprisingly, neither takes the prize for the director whose work was most featured on the show. That prize goes to one Bert I. Gordon, director of this feature. This is also one of the more curious standouts in that it's among the list of movies that the showrunners looked back on and actually thought was pretty good- all things considered.
That said, I can still see why they featured it - the movie offers quite a bit to riff on. The ridiculously over the top, turban-wearing Basil Rathbone as the villainous Lodac alone is enough to sell the movie for riffs. Factor in things like Estelle Winwood and her two-headed assistant and Lodac's army of what appear to be coneheads and the movie just lends itself quite well to mockery.
Riffs aside though, yeah, this actually isn't as bad as some of the other movies the show has roasted alive over the years. The story is pretty boilerplate sword and sorcery, albeit with a nice little creative twist making it a spin on the St. George and the Dragon story. Amusingly, of the seven knights patterned on saints, George is the only one who fails the big requirement of 'saints usually have to be dead.' Then again, George in general is rather bland compared to most of the rest of the cast. I say this with all respect to Gary Lockwood (whom more recognize as Frank Poole in 2001: A Space Odyssey,) but really, he's just your classic lovestruck young man who goes on a quest to win over a princess (Anne Helm) in whom his interest is actually rather creepy: he's been watching her for years, she doesn't know who he is. Probably the funniest thing about the whole quest is that moment when you look back at it in all and realize just how little of the plot is actually a success because of George. If anything, his mother Sybill (Winwood) seems to be the one who really gets things done in the film: it's the magic items she bestows on George, including the other knights, that allow him to succeed. Of course, even with that in mind, he soundly burns through all of those knights to do so, but I digress.
This does up the amusement in its own weird way, at least for me. The big hero of this quest is actually the least useful member of the team - yes,  more than the turncoat, who at least helps set up Lodac's downfall later. He's the living embodiment of 'right place, right time' played to an inadvertently comedic extreme.
That odd plot loop aside, it's just a pretty light piece of fantasy, really. Even at its worst, it's only just average. But in general, it still manages to maintain a  fun atmosphere at points that leads me to see why the showrunners were pretty good about this one.
On a side note: I was surprised at one of the scenes from this that was cut from the episode. Not in terms of shocking subject matter, but more because I was genuinely surprised the showrunners passed up an incredibly riffable, if somewhat creepy moment in which Helene (Helms) is tormented by a pair of genuinely unsettling dwarves. It's the kind of moment that lends itself so well to riffing that even though I hadn't seen the episode in a while before watching this, I could tell the scene was cut, since I'd have remembered that.

In the complex world of tokusatsu social politics, this is what's known as 'You Done Walked Into the Wrong Neighborhood'

11/17 - Godzilla vs Megalon

As I've explained here in the past, Godzilla was a regular part of my childhood. Godzilla vs Megalon, in particular, is one of the first I really remember well. So I was braced for something of a nostalgia buffer on this one. The resulting film actually worked out even better than I was expecting here, for reasons I didn't fully expect. Rather, watching this one, I was struck by much the same effect I had when I first watched episodes of the old Adam West Batman TV series years after I had first seen them: they are still fun, in part now for all of the genuinely insane bits that never fully sunk in as a kid when I watched it before.
In particular, the big fight at the end of this one, which is inadvertently hilarious on several levels. Between seeing the not-quite-Ultraman hero robot Jet Jaguar get the everloving crap beaten out of him by Megalon and returning monster Gigan, with the two high-fiving afterwards, and the downright goofy gestures Godzilla makes as he runs in to the fight, and finally Godzilla and Jet Jaguar's downright thuggish behavior in dealing with Megalon after Gigan retreats (Jet Jaguar holding Megalon's arms behind his back while Godzilla does flying kicks into his chest is decidedly less than heroic behavior) there's a lot of craziness in this title fight.
Outside of the monsters, the plot on this one in general is pretty wild as Godzilla movies go. Megalon is summoned by the embittered people of Atlantis (who apparently have a hotline to the Nebula M aliens to justify bussing in Gigan) who have decided the people on the surface had their shot, and the day we rolled out nukes we crossed the line. As their monster runs rampant on us, the world relies on an inventor, a racer, and precocious little kid to save us...you know, movie logic. It's definitely not an intricate plot. More to the point, the whole thing is a giant piece of fan-service on many levels. The movie had actually started life as an entirely separate Tokusatsu piece with Jet Jaguar as the title hero (part of a bid by Toho to get a new name onto the superhero craze being kicked off by the likes of Ultraman and Mazinger Z, both of who show influence on ol' JJ) fighting Megalon. As the project went on, the higher-ups started to have doubts about where things were heading. Hoping to make the most of the project, they rewrote the works as a Godzilla movie and even worked in fan-favorite Gigan (in the way explained above...yeah...) There's a lot about the film that's pretty clearly engineered just for audience appeal. Despite that, the movie doesn't really suffer for it. In fact, the whole thing is a pretty breezy, if somewhat insane, piece of robot on giant monster action. The fan-service never really feels like it's arbitrary, so much as it feels like the people behind the movie were enjoying running with it as well, which is the kind of thing that can go a LONG way in making something watchable, if not high art.

OK, I try to keep an open mind about creative reinterpretations. But with this as a sample, I'm REALLY not so sure about this new low budget Lord of the Rings retake.

11/18 - The Final Sacrifice

Speaking of not great, but surprisingly watchable...
Before I go into this one any further, I'd like to take a moment to offer a big thanks to my friend Kurt (who you can find on Twitter) who was able to hook me up with a copy of this movie. For as popular as the MST3k episode has been, the movie itself is an absolute pain to find unriffed. Prior to his assistance, the only copy I'd come even close to finding was a VHS version selling for $300 on Amazon. Your guess is as good as mine.
Anyway, I have to admit - I enjoyed this movie more than I probably should have. There's really not a whole lot particularly good about it: it's a very low budget student film, the acting is bizarre, the plot is rambling, the characters by design are downright ridiculous, the music only adds to the oddity, and the post-production borders on non-existent at points (though hearing the birds just left in on general shots is an inadvertent nice touch in a way.) On no technical level is this a good movie. Despite that, it's still a surprisingly fun ride. Yes, Troy is one of the strangest depictions of a young man in film, and Zap Rowsdower...well...the internet has written entire figurative reams of text on the appeal and greatness of the denim-clad warrior that is Rowsdower. He's just such a bizarre choice for a hero in almost every respect: between his mullet, the copious denim, his beat-up truck, and his love of drinking and firearms, he's like the end result of a failed experiment by Canada to clone Brock Sampson. In many ways, he's arguably the strongest part of this movie. Even before the MST3k riffs adding to the fun, he's just such a strange but enjoyable hero right there. Made even better by the fact that the cult leader he's pitted against looks like a normal-sized Richard Kiel whose voice sounds like it was run through a modulator make everything he says sound imposing and threatening (in theory, anyway.) The one other standout in this being the secondary character known as Pipper. He's mainly there for some information dump, but frankly, his eery vocal resemblance Dr. Teeth of The Muppets fame is worth his being in the movie alone.
This is really one of those films that hits a strong balance of elements that it really didn't intend to. It's far from a great movie, but the weirdness all balances in just such a way that what should be a bad movie is actually a pretty fun, if nonsensical, adventure movie.
The Hell with it, I'll say it - I'd watch a series based on the adventure of Troy & Rowsdower. Like one of those low-budget 90s shows where the two would go from town to town, solving occult problems and stopping villains in ski masks.
Why? Why did this show never happen?!

Was there any doubt this would be the scene from this movie I'd screencap?

11/19 - Space Mutiny

This may be the worst thing to come out of South Africa this side of apartheid.
OK, that's a bit extreme, but this movie IS pretty bad. But it was at least the kind of bad that, like a lot the films this week, lends itself VERY well to riffing. I have to admit, this is one where I feel a little bad busting on the movie after learning some of the backstory. Most notably the fact that director David Winters wasn't actually there for much of the filming. He was called away due to a death in the family and most of the production was helmed by an assistant director. By the time he got back, the damage was done, and, to add insult to injury, there was no way he could have his name removed in favor of an Alan Smithee. He didn't even get to dig the grave, but he still had to lie in it.
And what a grave he had to lie in! Right from the get-go, this movie is off to a bad start with its now insanely dated computerized titles and soundtrack. Then, as you start recovering from that, the movie hits you head-on with special effects lifted wholesale from Battlestar Galactica. I'm not talking just explosions mind you, they lift the dogfights, complete with the ship designs, right out of the series. It's actually surprising to me that the movie never got sued for this, though I wonder if that's because the show was already dodging fire from people accusing them of ripping off Star Wars. Or, more likely, they figured the movie punished itself.
Anyway, from there we go to a story that manages to dance between making sense and being nonsensical all at once. The loose main narrative that the title comes from is straight forward enough- on a remote ship for colonization, a core group of officers plots to take over the main ship, deviate from there mission, and use this to settle into a good life at the expense of everyone else on board. Then one gets into some of the nature of how their mutiny is found out, in particular a plot involving a team of alien visitors who seem to exist solely for t&a, and that seemingly simple plot has become tangled up in some genuinely convoluted extra elements. This is even before getting into the problems with production and the wonderfully bad acting involved. Actually, the bad production values DO yield one rather amusing story: working with their low budget, the film crew tried to work around having sunlight shining into what were supposed to be space ship sets by filtering the points of sunlight with an orange glow to give things more of a 'tech' look. Post-production apparently missed the memo and color-corrected them right back to normal sunlight. Besides that, we have a memorably bizarre cast, lead up by Reb Brown (the man who would be 70s Captain America) in an apparent defiance of sleeves and sporting one of the best/worst war cries in film. Opposite him, we have John Phillip Law and James Ryan (Funny because that's the name of my dad- Editrix), each looking like somewhat slicker versions of one another to such a degree that I suspect the reason they gave the latter a cane was to further differentiate them. Though to his credit, Law DOES have the advantage of a rather entertaining maniacal cackle, but I digress on this point. Throw these into a blender with some outfits and music that are so screamingly 80s you can feel cocaine burning in your nostrils, and you have at least a teaser trailer taste of what Space Mutiny has to offer. Again, it's easy to see why, when this movie ran, the episode was a hit. It's not a good movie by any means, but it's another that lapses into 'so bad, it's good.' While the riffs are some of the best stuff (series best, according to many), some parts of this are just funny on their own. If you don't at least feel a LITTLE amused at the final showdown between Brown and Law - a high-stakes, winner-take-all duel to the death in slow moving versions of two cars akin to bowling alley polishers, then I worry for you.

"THIS ISN'T WORTH THE GUINNESS RECORD! IT ISN'T WORTH IT AT ALL!"

11/20 - The Deadly Bees

Fun Fact: this movie was the one featured in the first full MST3k episode I ever saw.
On its own merits, it's kind of an odd one. It's not as memorably bad as the likes of The Final Sacrifice or Space Mutiny, but it's not a good movie either. I give it points for arguably being the very first 'killer bee' movie, at the very least. But really, it's mostly just OK. This was the closest this week gets to a 'Just there' movie, all things considered. Though thankfully not one I've had to force myself through quite like I did with The Crawling Eye. The movie largely concerns itself with a burned out pop singer who gets sent to recuperate on an island (cause if there's one thing British horror cinema has taught us, it's that nothing bad EVER happens on remote islands.) Shortly after her arrival, people start dying from being swarmed by bees - and so suspicion comes to the man she's staying with, who just happens to be one of two people who raises bees on their property. Yeah, Agatha Christie this is not. The film actually does a relatively decent job of throwing viewers off the scent for a bit at least (a game that would have almost been more interesting had they been able to carry out their initial plan of casting Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee as the two bee keepers...no, really.) There are really only three big problems the movie has going for it. The first of these, and the less pressing, is a completely extraneous plot involving two British bureaucrats who've apparently been warned that a man is developing his own strain of killer bees. At first, this seems understandable - they want to set up the idea from the title early that someone has made lethal insects. The problem is, the bureaucrats really don't do much of anything in the overall story. They occasionally comment on what's going on, but only really become an active piece of the story at the VERY end - one of their agents arrives on the scene as the end credits are rolling. It's the kind of thing that you could mostly cut from the movie without losing anything barring the rather odd arrival of the agent at the very end. The other, and more pressing problem with the movie is the fact it has no real sense of suspense or tension. For a horror/mystery piece, that is a BIG mistake to be making, as it really makes it hard to get involved in the long, slow process being carried out. This is arguably an even bigger sin to me than the fact this movie's effects have aged terribly. That one's problematic, don't get me wrong - especially one sequence where the 'bees' are actually pretty clearly coffee grounds in water. But bad effects can, in theory, be overlooked if the story is worth it. Just ask anyone who's ever watched classic Doctor Who (and with that, I just made someone's hit list.) On the other hand, a mystery that fails to really hold up its suspense or interest may as well not exist.
That did come out harsher than I intended it to. Sorry, but I had to be blunt. The riffs make this watchable at least, but on its own, it's really not that strong.

"I don't know why I'M the bad guy here! I thought we discussed this and agreed this year's costume them was Spinal Tap."

11/21 - Cave Dwellers

We're back to the memorably bad again, with another film born out of the legacy of a better class of movie than it turned out to be. This is one of those strange cases in film where someone actually took a sequel and repackaged it as a self-contained film, albeit one that didn't try to hide the fact it was a sequel. Made to cash in on the success of Conan the Barbarian and later Conan the Destroyer, this is actually a repackaged version of the second film in the Ator quadrilogy. For the record, when I say 'doesn't try to hide the fact it was a sequel' I mean they don't just make reference to past events - they completely recap the first movie in a full montage narrated by Ator's mentor (in terms of how effective it is in bringing you up to speed...well...let's just say Crow wasn't entirely joking when he commented "Even Tolkien couldn't follow this!") As far as this narrative goes, however, the movie plays out like a giant heap of pre-history fantasy cliches, with an especial emphasis on the ones director Joe D'Amato cribbed from Conan. In the title role, Miles O'Keefe makes for an imposing presence on just build, but he never quite gets the imposing element they were trying to emulate from Schwarzenegger, nor does he get the moments of crazy either. Meanwhile, Ator's mute sidekick Thong (Chen Wong) is mostly just...there. He proves useful near the end, but for most of the film he's more like a sentient Chekhov Gun, just travelling with Ator and killing anything he misses. Of course, for being a mute plot device, he's still the better of Ator's two sidekicks. In comparison to Mila (Lisa Foster), he's like a masters class on acting. Of course, some of this may also be thanks to the fact that this movie is dubbed into English from Italian, which certainly effects the quality of some of the performances. As far as who gets it worst in the dubs, that's a tough call: both the film's antagonist Zor (David Cain Haughton) and Ator's mentor Akronas (Charles Borromel) both get some pretty memorably terrible dubbing. In the case of the former, Zor chews scenery like it's the finest bubble gum the world has ever produced, savoring every fresh jaw motion. For the latter, Akronas's dub performance reads like a parody of a parody of William Shatner, with a glut of dramatic pauses and awkward emphasis at the wrong times. Of course, these bad performances can only do just so much to hurt a story that's already pretty badly off to begin with. It starts off relatively (keyword there) focused, Ator going to save his mentor and his mentor's invention from Zor's evil plotting, but it takes a very long way around with many of its actions. Further, the setting is an absolute mess chronologically and geographically, combining cavemen, the archetypal Conan-esque swordsman, Mongol warriors and fully armored samurai to clash in environments that look strangely similar (well, disregarding some inadvertently priceless errors in filming, anyway.) It's the kind of film it's fun to beat the ever-loving Hell of, as the SoL crew proved. On its own, it's a pretty shameless ripoff, but one almost doesn't mind since it pays well enough through its own failures.

OK, there's really no need to riff Pumaman flying. He does it all for himself.

11/22 - Pumaman

Before I start, I just want to give you all this one fun fact: Donald Pleasance was once quoted as saying he considered this to be the worst movie he ever made. Considering some of the projects he had agreed to over the years, THAT should tell you something about what to expect here.
Man, there's so many things weird about this movie I almost don't know where to begin.
I should probably start with the fact we have a superhero whose origin story is the embodiment of the line "I'm not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens." No. Really, the entire Pumaman lineage is born out of aliens messing with the Aztecs ages ago, and apparently still meddling with the human race generations later. Of course, it's also their meddling that leads to the trouble here in the first place, since the whole conflict in this movie is based on their technology landing in the hands of Pleasance's Korbas. From there, we move to the current heir of the Pumaman himself. For starters, Walter George Alton reminds me eerily of a young John Saxon, who is not normally who I think of when I think superheroes. From there, we get to how he uses his powers. I do have to give the Pumaman some points, since he appears to be ahead of the curve in terms of superheroes acting like jerks in the interest of getting the job done. It seems like the Pumaman often can't resist using his powers for less than heroic ends, such as flying off with one man and threatening to drop him for information. From there, he then leaves the guy hanging elsewhere. Sure, the man is a criminal, and it gets results, but still...dick move, Pumaman. In fact, much of the Pumaman's progress comes as a result of prompting by latter day Aztec priest Vadinho (Miguel Angel Fuentes,) rather than direct volition. When Pumaman does show his own volition, the dickishness ensues.
All while set to a soundtrack the likes of which you used to hear on those hand operated film strips they used to show in elementary school way back in the day.
The whole narrative is a strange mix of a familiar superhero origin story tied with enough odd touches of its own that are headscratching in their twists. Probably one of the biggest of these being a mid-movie reveal of a completely new superpower that doesn't particularly fit the puma motif and really only seems to serve as to give the writers an out for an otherwise fairly hard to escape situation they wrote themselves into. It's hard NOT to feel like they mined the idea figuratively out of their backside. Surprisingly, I'm not sure it's the worst superhero movie I've ever seen. It's down there, but rather than raging in this case, I'm more struck with an amused disbelief at just how ridiculous the whole thing turns out to be. I imagine it wasn't meant to be, but it is. I'm still debating whether to say it quite makes the level for 'so bad it's good' but they at least are making one HELL of a good try for it, however accidental, and I will give director Alberto De Martino that much at any rate.

All in all, a pretty fun week for these.
Four more to go until the 25 mark and then we get a few days of general writeups till the end of the month. This has been a heady dose of bad film, but I have to say, still been a rather fun month so far.

Looking forward to the big finish this week!
Till then!

12 Years a Slave: ...I'm Sorry, I Can't Be Cheeky On This

Hey, I warned you guys last time. This isn't a happy one.

The more I see of his work, the more I find myself with two key thoughts regarding director Steve McQueen. On the one hand, I think he's a good director - actually, that's selling it short. I think he's a great director and give him some serious points for being among the few out there who can still tell the stories they want their way in a system where that's a regular uphill battle. There's not many directors out there that would be allowed to get away with something like, for a good example, the 17-minute single shot conversation in Hunger, but McQueen not only did it, but carried it off like a master. On the other hand, and in something of a tradeoff of his being able to tell the stories he wants to...well...damn. They're very good, but also very unpleasant to sit through at times. I commend him for this, to be perfectly honest - the willingness to tell something that won't necessarily be a feel good story, but you still think is one that needs to be told I think is admirable, but it tends to mean seeing it once is usually more than enough. Those images will stay with you whether you want them or not, which is both a good thing, and something of a drawback, depending who you ask.

Fortunately, this allowed me to brace for it somewhat on seeing his latest project, 12 Years a Slave. Based on the autobiography of the same name, the film concerns the story of one Solomon Northup (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor,) a free black man who, under the pretense of performing for a traveling show, was kidnapped and sold into slavery. As the title suggests, he lived as such for over a decade before finally being able to tell anyone who believed him and escape.

With subject matter like that, you can already see what I mean about this being a hard film to watch. Slavery is a tricky topic to address in film, largely thanks to the temptation to soften the edges for a greater audience appeal. Being one for running on his own terms, McQueen doesn't pull away at any point, and the film is a stronger piece for it. Even from the get-go, the movie makes it clear what you're in for, actually starting with a brief sequence of some of Solomon's life as a slave before flashing back to show us the man he once was and how he got there. It really helps further hammer home one of the key elements the film doesn't want you forget - despite what the culture of the time said, these were people who were taken, often against their wills, denied their lives and histories, and worked in brutal conditions. We don't linger long on Solomon's life as a free man, but we see enough of it to appreciate what he's taken away from. It's a small piece of the overall film, but still vital.

The rest of the narrative is, as I said before, a very frank look at the industry of slavery. From Solomon's kidnapping on, we're treated to the entire process by which slaves were essentially dehumanized, sold, and broken down on plantations. One of the other small pieces that really caught me here is actually shortly after Solomon's kidnapping. We see him talking with another kidnapped free man, while the third member of their group had been born into slavery. The difference in psychology they show compared to this third man is both sad and horrifying, moreso when one remembers how common practice this was back then. Once sold, we see Solomon under the care of two different masters with two different temperaments (played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Fassbender respectively.) Successfully achieving another of the trickier balances in slave film, McQueen actually handles the contrast between these two with a surprising amount nuance. Cumberbatch's Mr. Ford could have been made into the archetypal 'nice master,' with all the problems that the cliche brings with it. Instead, while the film does show him as somewhat more benevolent, it does still remind us that, benevolent or not, he IS part of the slave industry. Further, in that culture, his benevolence is treated as a sort of weakness. Even when Solomon runs afoul of one of Ford's workers (played by an appropriately weasley Paul Dano,) Ford does not protect him, and sends him to another plantation. The other plantation...well, as Ford is the benevolent, if powerless, side of slavery, Fassbender's Epps is the harsher side of the culture. This in particular is where the film's harsh edge hits hardest, most especially with a subplot involving another slave, Patsy (Lupita Nyong'o) who has been the recipient of Epps's affections - earning the ire of his jealous wife (Sarah Paulson.) Epps runs his plantation with a mindset of force and 'breaking' the slaves, and this mentality is ingrained in all the years Solomon spends on the Epps plantation. The one area where the narrative hits a bit of a setback, and this is still a fairly minor one, is with regards to Solomon's finally escaping, with the help of an abolitionist working on the plantation. It's not even that the scene is badly written or directed, it's rather the decision to cast Brad Pitt (who helped produce the movie) as the abolitionist. Much of the rest of the cast, as I will go into shortly, are well suited and blend into their parts well. Pitt, meanwhile, is really just Pitt in period costume. It doesn't ruin the movie, but it is a bit of an awkward element in an otherwise strong movie, though one the film thankfully recovers from in its finale. Said finale further dodging some potential cliches in its own way - while McQueen doesn't completely shut down the happiness that comes from Solomon's reunion with his family, he also makes it a point to remind us, both with text, and with a haunting scene as Solomon is being taken away from the plantation, that he is one of the lucky ones-The very few lucky ones. We feel some relief that he is free again, but are also reminded that slavery and the brutality on that plantation will continue, and many others will suffer even after his suffering ended.

This isn't to say McQueen is the only strong aspect of this movie. As I've mentioned some above, the cast are phenomenal with the possible exception of Pitt. In the lead role, Ejiofor has a lot to take on in this part. As far as how he did, I find myself agreeing with the other critics who have said that the next Best Actor Oscar is all but his to lose at this point. As much as McQueen's direction, much of this movie hinges on Ejiofor's performance, and luckily he can support the weight. Probably some of his strongest moments aren't even in his dialogue delivery, but in pure expression. The amount of emotion he can put into just his demeanor and face in any given scene is impressive, such as at the end of the film when he is first reunited with his family. The scene itself is fairly light on dialogue, but the rush of emotions that Ejiofor conveys rushing to him are downright heartbreaking. For a scene that is, within the overall theme of the movie, a fleeting moment of happiness, however bittersweet, he makes it shine. The other standout in the cast has to go to Fassbender, continuing his running work with McQueen, this time in yet another role that shows his versatility. This time around, he delivers a strong, but incredibly disturbing performance. Like I said above, his mentality is driven by use of force, and he embodies that well. Epps is a ruthless, brutal person, and Fassbender doesn't let up. While I'm not sure I'd call him as definite in the running for Best Supporting as Ejiofor is for Best Actor, he is certainly a strong contender. From there, much of the rest of the supporting cast hold up their parts very well. Probably one of the strongest in this regard goes to Nyong'o, who is downright heartbreaking in her role as Patsey. It's one of those roles that you don't expect to stand out at first, but as her story progresses, one can't help but be both impressed for her and feel bad for her character. In particular, the climax of her story (which I won't reveal much here) takes the prize as one of the most uncomfortable moments I've had in a theater to date. From there, Cumberbatch's turn as Ford is arguably the best work I've ever seen from him, and convinced me he is capable of range after all. Paul Giamatti, in a smaller part, still manages to stand out in his brief role as a slave trader - a mix of being both watchable in his sales pitch, and utterly despicable in just what he's selling. Also of note, and as a rather welcome surprise, the film brings back the two leads of last year's Beasts of the Southern Wild - Quvenzhané Wallis and Dwight Henry in two supporting roles. They don't have major parts, but it is a very nice surprise to see the two back again, as they're both very promising as new talent.

It's actually kind of funny in a way. For as hard as this movie is to watch - and I'm not exaggerating when I say I'd have a hard time see this again anytime soon, there is still a LOT I could say good in its favor. Its very hard subject matter to work with, and McQueen handles it deftly, providing nuance while also not softballing one of the darker periods in America's history. Pair his ambitious, unique vision with a phenomenal cast, and I don't mind saying right now this is currently my pick for the best movie I have seen this year. Granted, we're still getting into the 'big guns' time of year, but this has already set the bar very high.

Well, I managed to do one of these without resorting to cheek. I guess it CAN be done.
...OK, besides that.

Keep an eye out tomorrow, as week 3 of MST3k month continues. It's been a pretty fun month for that.
God, I feel wrong invoking 'fun' with this movie.

Till next time!

Thor: The Dark World - Marvel's Trailers May Take a While, But They ARE Worth It

Well, I promised there'd be other things besides the cheese this month, especially since November/December marks when the industry starts bringing out the big guns for award season and/or the holiday market.

With this, we come to the latest in Marvel's post-Avengers afterglow-Thor: The Dark World.

As the Marvel sequels go, this was the one I've been particularly interested in seeing, mainly because while the first Thor is entertaining, it wasn't without its problems. It had a good cast and some great character interplay,which led to some fun humor, but the plot had some serious start-stop problems due to the split between two worlds and two ultimately very different storylines (mythical power struggle and fish out of water) having to reconcile.

With the set-up now taken care of, I wanted to see how this sequel would handle things. The resulting film does about what one could hope for from a sequel. It still has some problem areas and room for growth, but it also does improve on some of the faults in the first film. So while it's got some areas that could be better, it does at least appear to be developing.

The story, loosely based on a story arc by Walter Simonson, introduces the enemies known as the Dark Elves. Part of a race that existed before the nine worlds that make up the current Marvel canon [NOTE: if this is confusing you now, I'm gonna be honest, the film's not gonna be much more of a help: Anthony Hopkins's narrated prologue is clearly set up so that if you aren't already on board from the first movie, you're not gonna have a particularly good time getting on now.] the Dark Elves' leader Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) decided things were better off before the other people came into play. So he set about trying to bring back the old darkness using an ancient power called the Aether. Odin's father got wind of it and things went south for Malekith fast. His forces were defeated, the Aether hidden, and he went into exile.

Flash forward to (for the movie) present day. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has finally sorted out the various messes caused by his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston,) and yes, this includes the events of The Avengers. With Hammertime at an end, his thoughts now drift back to Earth and his long distance love interest, Jane (Natalie Portman, actually getting to do more this time around.) Of course, he's being encouraged to let her go and focus on his own world by Odin (Anthony Hopkins,) because hey, in a plot like this, someone's gotta take that stance. Meanwhile, back on Earth, Jane has been burying herself in work since the end of the first movie. As a result of this, while investigating a phenomena that soundly turns the laws of physics into a quasi-playground (which leads to a couple of amusing gags) she winds up finding out the Aether wasn't as well hidden as Asgard had previously thought.

"Sure, it was incredibly dangerous, but it WAS a great way to sort out that whole distance problem..."

Without giving too much of the plot away, all Hell breaks loose. The Dark Elves are back and determined to stage a successful encore of their previous act, Thor and Odin lock horns over how to deal with the Aether (for reasons I won't get into in the interests of surprise) and in the midst of all this, Loki may have a part to play in the ensuing chaos as well.

As an overall plot, this has more going on for it than its predecessor did. I mean, the first was fun, but it was also a rather by the numbers story in a lot of ways, and you could tell where much of it was going from the get-go. Here, it's a bit harder to predict where things are headed, and they even manage to pull a couple of decent surprises. Not likely the kind of thing that will make you stand up in your seat in shock, but still at least showing a bit more of unpredictability this time out now that all the players have been established. While the entire backstory requires a fair amount of early infodump in order to make everything work, it at least gets the bulk of that out of the way fairly early rather than having to keep stopping and explaining every time something else comes into play.

This film also improves on the storytelling front. The transitions between Earth and Asgard have improved considerably on this outing, for one. While there are parts where the Earth sequences DO feel like they're being just somewhat played out for comedy, they don't feel as jarring as the transitions the first time out did. I actually kind of feel bad saying this, since I have a lot of respect for Branagh as a director, but Game of Thrones alum Alan Taylor feels much more comfortable playing in the world than he did. The way Asgard is depicted, in particular, is a massive upgrade - and this is from someone who actually thought the Asgard plot line was the stronger part of the first movie. Taylor's experience working on Game of Thrones was a big asset on these scenes, although it does become a little obvious at points (in an early scene where Odin is speaking with Loki, I found myself wondering who replaced the Iron Throne. The way the scene was composed and shot looked like an extra sequence from the show.)

I brought up the comedy in the Earth sequences in the last paragraph, which is something I do want to address a bit more on its own. While the change isn't as jarring this time around, it is still somewhat problematic in its own way. On the one hand, the Earth sequence DOES lead to a major plot point in the story, and helps set up the film's last act. The problem is, once Jane goes to Asgard, the Earth sequence feels like it's just spinning its wheels to get to the point where it's relevant in the story again. While there's some bits of humor to be found in Darcy (Kat Dennings) and a new intern left to their own devices, as well as Eric Selvig (a largely pantless Stellan Skarsgård) having gone somewhat off the deep end after the end of The Avengers, the sequences start to feel repetitive after a while and by the time Jane and Thor make it back to Earth, it feels like a blessing simply because it's finally moving events forward again.

"Yes, I know, he's not actually a part of this shot. Just...just shoot around him and pretend you don't see him, men."

This isn't to say the Asgard story is without its flaws either. Probably one of the biggest problems this movie suffers from is with regards to its antagonists - despite having an interesting backstory and some good starpower in Eccleston and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, their characters never really seem to actually do much beyond breaking things and brooding on their desire for revenge. After Loki's subterfuge in the first movie, and despite being higher stakes this time around, this feels like a step down. In fact, I've just spent several minutes trying to really come up with more to actually say about them as characters and coming up with nothing - that says something right there for how much of a non-entity the Dark Elves are within this movie. About the one other thing I can say for them is that I did like their aesthetic - even if it did make their first invasion of Asgard look like a version of the beginning of the movie Krull with a MUCH better budget (it's that whole sci-fantasy vs black-clad invaders motif.) If anything, there's more to be said for the conflicts that come about as a result of the Elves than anything they directly do.

There is a part of me that does wonder if this was a result of things being cut from the movie or not. I might not have otherwise said this, but after seeing the movie set up several partial plotlines involving Sif and the Warriors Three that never really go anywhere, and knowing that last minutes rewrites/edits were made, it becomes hard not to wonder if something got left on the cutting room floor.

There are three areas in particular where this film distinguishes itself well. The first of these is the casting - while Thor is lacking in the cocky stubbornness that Hemsworth had a lot of fun playing up in the first film, he still handles the transition a more matured god of thunder well. Portman, meanwhile, like I said before, actually gets a more proactive role here - which, as Marvel women go, is a rather pleasant surprise. They actually didn't forget she has a life outside of Thor and do a good job keeping that part of the character in, even while they still work with their long distance relationship. Hiddleston, meanwhile, more than makes up for the script's waste of Eccleston and Akkinuoye-Agbaje in his not-quite-antagonist role. If there was ever any doubt before this point (could there be?) that the man has fun playing Loki, this should put it out of mind. He still gets some moments to show other range beyond the gleeful mocking/trolling, and he handles those well, but it's when he gets the chance to mess with everyone that he really really shines in the role. The supporting cast all handle their parts well, Dennings and Skarsgård are both mainly there for comic relief first and exposition second, and they do the best they can to keep up the humor where they can, even if the film tends to go a little to often too that well. The Asgard cast continue to deliver well, barring one somewhat odd moment early on where Hopkins seems to zone out (given the scene, he may have felt the dialogue was a little too arbitrary. I can't speak to it for certain, but it really was a bit of a cliched sequence.) That slip remains more an anomaly in an otherwise solid cast.

I know, I know, we've all joked about this, but it bears repeating:
If the disc release for this movie doesn't include bonus footage of Hiddleston doing his best Tommy Wiseau, they will have missed a GREAT opportunity here.

The next we come to the humor. I know, I gave this film some grief for some of the comedy on the Earth parts, but that wasn't because the parts weren't funny. They were, believe me - and as a plus, they DID lead to one of the more entertaining Stan Lee cameos we've had recently. Alongside these, the film balances its dark moments to humor ratio fairly well, and even executes some jokes well enough to provide a nice breath of relief after some of the film's more bleak moments (one sequence I want to invoke here, but I will say nothing to maintain the surprise.) It speaks to how well everyone has settled into their roles, that gags like Thor, on entering an apartment, casually hanging his hangar on a coat hook feels perfectly natural. There's really no jokes in here that fall flat, and even at the very worst, they just occasionally feel like spinning of the wheels, albeit an entertaining set of wheels.

The final area where this film plays well is the action. With each new Marvel film, there seems to be an unspoken challenge to go one better on the action front, and I for one am enjoying the results. Rather than simply going bigger, the last few films have been instead skewing more creative with their fights, and this remains no exception. In particular, I was impressed with the dimension-jumping, reality-bending final showdown between Thor and Malekith at the end of this. It's a sequence that text can't really properly do justice to. I know I say this in several cases, but really, this is one that does need to be seen. It's a mix of the creativity and the fast pace it manages to keep up that helps sustain the whole thing without really letting the gimmick get lax. The fights prior to it are well done, but that finale just trumps them all.

All in all, Thor: The Dark World is a pretty satisfactory follow-up to the first movie. It isn't without its own shortcomings, but it still manages to improve quite a bit on some of the areas of the first film I felt came up light. As a result, it gives a feel that's appropriate for a middle film: it improves on some points of the original, but it also still has some things left to learn. I'm now curious to see if this trend continues to see if they can refine things in time for the third film - which, based on what we were left with here, has potential to be a great new chapter to this piece of the Marvel canon.

Now for some good news/bad news.
The good news - I've got another review lined up for Thursday...and it's a good one.
The bad news - Well, not so much bad, but this one's gonna be kind of a grim one. Very good, but I won't be watching it again for a while.

Hopefully that doesn't scare you guys off! It is a good one!

MST3k Week the Second: "Got"

With this, we're now 14 out of 25 films into this month's MST3k tribute. Where last week saw some heavy hitters on deck, this week we see two classics two parts of recurring themes on the show, and a double dose of one of the veterans of the show's movies - the great/infamous Roger Corman.

Wow, I never thought I'd hype up a spread like this. With that, let's get to it.

"Experimenting on prostitutes...this is what we've been reduced to. Mad science was much easier before lab interns got unions and insurance."

11/9 - The Undead

I promised you Corman, and Corman I shall deliver!

I'll admit that while this isn't a great movie, it was actually rather watchable. The story is interesting in its own unusual way, even if the science is downright laughable - in all fairness, it's a 50s horror film we're talking about here. Jumping on a trend of films that used reincarnation as a plot device, Corman crafts a tale of an ambitious scientist (Val Dufour) who believes hypnotism can allow one to explore their past lives. In true mad scientist fashion - again, it IS the 50s - he enlists a prostitute (Pamela Duncan) to serve as his test subject. This, in turn, allows for Corman to shift gears, going from a sort of loose sci-fi into a medieval piece on witchcraft (it turns out she had been accused and beheaded as a witch in this past life.) For a while, the past life storyline feels like it gets forgotten in favor of just running with the witchcraft narrative, which gets a bit awkward for a time. Though once they try and reconcile the two plot strands - particularly when it's realized this deep immersion/regression may lead to a scenario where Diana/Helene may inadvertently alter her fate in the past and completely rewrite her history as a result (again, 50's science) things get interesting again. While the overall concept is admittedly, somewhat cliche of time travel fiction, I give them points for at least exploring the cliche from a bit of a new angle. That said, one of the biggest problems this story suffers from when it finally reconciles its two plot strands is that it tries to be both a science piece and occult horror in the same breath. It dabbles in the idea of changing history while also playing with witches and the Devil (Richard Devon.)  This in particular comes to a head in the film's climax, where Dufor's Quintus and Satan wind up gambling on whether or not history will be altered by Helene's decision. It's tonally awkward, and an incredibly silly premise in a lot of ways, but despite that, it's still a fairly fun watch.
If nothing else, the movie is worth watching for the performance of Mel Welles as the gravedigger Smolkin. It's nothing particularly masterful, but his penchant for taking beloved songs and skewing them toward the macabre is arguably the most entertaining thing about this movie. This is even before factoring in that it inspired a rather fun MST3k sketch on top of that.

"...and with this, I remain the scavenger hunt champion!"

11/10 - The Screaming Skull

Watching this, I was reminded of a statement had recently heard from Joel Hodgson regarding the difference in quality on films they obtained for running on MST3k, vis a vis buying licenses vs the public domain. While there was the matter of cost to factor, there was one other point he made note of - when you went public domain...well, you get what you pay for. The copy of The Screaming Skull I had to work with was a good example of this principle. I had to listen to this with the audio turned up full blast in order to make sense of what was being said by certain characters.
Just a side note.
Now as far as the movie itself. As far as this week's features, this was one of the two more awkward watches. The other, you'll see when we get there. Granted, the opening where they promise a free casket to any viewer who dies of fright during the movie's climax is a bit amusing. MST3k, of course, ran with the question we all wondered about here, with the idea that someone may have tried to get a free coffin out of the deal. Unfortunately, that disclaiming is really the one thing all that memorable about this film. Part of the problem on this film, dubious sound and picture quality aside, is that it's the kind of story that one has seen told and done better other places before this. Even the disclaimer, amusing as it is, is part of a gimmick that other horror films invoked to different ways throughout the 50s and 60s in order to play up how scary they were. The actual movie itself, loosely based on a story from 1908, plays at first like any number of ghost story cliches. As it goes on, however, it more specifically starts to turn into one of the less ambitious offspring of the 1944 film Gaslight. Beyond that, the film really never generates much in the way of scares or particularly standout writing, acting, or direction. Like The Crawling Eye, it's a movie that, without the riffs, is simply there. It's not awful, but it is so lacking in much else to say for itself that you almost wish it COULD be awful just to make more of an impression for itself.

"Well, if you're gonna blame me, that's just fine. I'll just take all the booze for myself then!"

11/11 - I Accuse My Parents

This is quite possibly one of the most bizarre propaganda films I've ever come across. Backed by the US Navy, this film was made with the intent of discouraging our fighting men overseas from lying. Yeah, you read that right. The results of which...well...let's put it this way - this movie does for the art of deception what Reefer Madness did for marijuana. The sheer outlandishness with which this movie suggests young Jimmy Wilson (Robert Lowell) gets himself into legal trouble with the mob thanks to his penchant for piling the BS high and deep is half the draw of the movie. It's just how completely insane the entire idea that the movie is hinged on that makes it watchable. Even stranger is the fact that, despite the title, the actual parental blame seems to take a backseat in the overall narrative. Jimmy's parental issues are pretty pronounced in the first arc, where we see the varying degrees of neglect and alcoholism by his parents (despite which, Jimmy apparently is an otherwise model citizen) but after a while, the story becomes about Jimmy's unorthodox courtship of a singer (Mary Beth Hughes) that leads to the above mentioned work in the mob. Even with the idea that the lack of parental supervision could have lead him to this point, the fact is, Jimmy is otherwise surprisingly on the ball, albeit with a tendency to lie mostly about what his home life is really like. Using this defense almost seems to defeat the point of the matter, as it comes across as though he just lied to the judge straight-faced and got away with it.
OK, maybe I'm reading too far into this point. That aside, the movie is still quite watchable in its sheer craziness. Despite the importance the film tries to place on not lying, Jimmy falls in with the mob simply from a desire to impress his new girlfriend and make money rather than as a result of any lies on his part. Which, in a way, is part of the appeal - everything that goes on here runs on its own bizarre logic, up to and including the human personification of the moral of this story in the last act - George Lloyd as a friendly hamburger joint owner. All this and a few song numbers to boot, as crazy goes, this has a little bit of something for everyone. It's no surprise this was the movie that Hodgson has since gone on to say was one of his favorites to riff.

"All right, all right...so what's the Russian for 'uncle?'"

11/12 - The Sword and the Dragon

Here to represent the so-named Russo-Finnish quadrilogy of episodes, we have our second appearance this week by Roger Corman. Admittedly, I was hoping to find a copy of The Day the Earth Froze for this, but in lieu of that one, this is still a pretty wild second. As the third of four Finnish/Russian fantasy movies the series ran, this is the second Russian film featured, and one that fared better than the second chosen title. The first of these, repackaged as The Magic Voyage of Sinbad, had a LOT of its Russian elements stripped away. In all fairness, for the age when the film got brought over, this made some sense, though it was unfortunate. Surprisingly, by comparison, The Sword and the Dragon keeps a LOT of its Russian elements in, including many character names, such as protagonist Ilya Morometz, and leaving the song numbers in their original Russian. Of course, there is some tradeoff here: the dubbing on this is pretty bad. I don't mean as in it's badly acted or badly written - I mean the actual dub itself is AWFUL. Maybe it's a fault of the copy I had, but the audio sync was all over the road. Characters mouths would be moving before the last person had even finished speaking. It almost surpassed the cliche of the old martial arts movie dubs.
That aside, I do have to admit, the film is actually pretty fun. It certainly has its faults, most notably with how awkwardly the film's timeline is paced  - Morometz's son goes from a young boy to a grown man almost instantaneously for an example - but given this film's narrative is shot as a spanning piece of folklore, some of that makes sense. At points, the jumps actually work, simply because they have enough of a gap that you can see where one story would end and another would begin. There is still an overarcing narrative, involving an invading Tugar army, but outside of the end, that is more a background piece and so the transitions aren't as awkward prior. In all, this is the kind of film I find myself curious to try and track down in its original language at some point to see if some of the narrative transitions may be a case of 'lost in translation' on the dub. Even if they're not, still not too bad a movie to give the chance to.

Now THIS is how you play Operation!

11/13 - Squirm

So, of the films I've covered for this so far, this is the one that currently holds the distinction of having the most cut from it to run on MST3k. It wasn't even a matter of network safe content, either. Rather, for a movie that was aired along with a short, the movie used was one that actually clocks in as slightly longer than a usual MST3k episode. That said, this is a pretty bizarre entry in the entire sub-genre of horror films that can be described as "people are scared by swarms of things, right?" Now, I can't say killer worms is completely off the table as a horror premise goes, simply because to do so calls the movie Tremors into question, but even in that case, they realized making them really large helped. Here, director Jeff Lieberman tries to make normal size worms into sources of terror - with electricity to make them bloodthirsty, anyway.
...it's not gonna sound any less strange in the film itself, guys.
Further diminishing from the fear of the worms is the film's heavy reliance on stock footage of them. While the first shots of the worms flashing some pincer could be seen as disturbing, after the fifth or sixth time, the shot really loses any impact. In large crowds, the worms look considerably less impressive. Though in this case, the film's effects budget doesn't really do them any favors either.
The humans only fair somewhat better here. Most of the cast are pretty unremarkable, with Patricia Pearcy and Jean Sullivan in particular dropping the ball. In the case of the latter, the MST3k cast put it best when they responded "No one's THAT Southern!" Probably the one real standout casting-wise is something of a double-edged sword. R.A. Dow as the movie's antagonist, Roger, definitely is throwing himself fully into his role. This is in part because Dow was apparently quite an avid method actor and had even taken up residence in the town they were filming in at the time in order to really gain a feel for his part (As my proofreader points out: there's certain films that lend themselves to method acting. This is not one of them.) The other side of this being, given the nature of Roger's character, Dow comes across as INCREDIBLY creepy. In fact, the most unsettling scenes in this movie have nothing to do with the worms and everything to do with Dow's leering expression. Otherwise, much of the supporting cast were actually played by locals of the town they filmed in. An idea that's novel on paper, but at the same time...well...mileage will naturally vary. Regarding the film's lead, Don Scardino at least has managed to find himself a much better niche in the world of directing, in particular as a regular helming episodes of 30 Rock.
Hey, it's nice to know someone got out of this movie Okay.
Also, if you do watch this and REALLY want to make it weird - keep this in mind: in early production, the three leads were almost played by Martin Sheen, Kim Basinger, and Sylvester Stallone. Further, Stallone was reportedly very interested in the film.

I'm just gonna leave it on that note, cause where else can I take that?

"...on second thought, this idea sounded a lot better in my head than it does in practice."

11/14 - The Violent Years

It feels weird to say about this film, but I actually feel somewhat disappointed. I think seeing Ed Wood's name attached to this one got my hopes up for some genuinely fascinating trainwreck. Of course, he only really was attached to the script and the direction was instead handled by one William Morgan. It even started somewhat promising as Wood-style premises go: exploring the idea of a girl gang in the mid-50s. Unfortunately, it loses its momentum fast in the second half. In fact, in terms of summing up the problems of the second half, I'd like to nominate the alternate title for this movie be I Accuse Your Parents. The film starts off with a fairly exploitative air in terms of the gang situation - we follow the girls through robbing gas stations, taking people hostage, and even effectively committing rape (or at least as much as a film from the 50s can go into that.) Of course, thanks to Morgan's direction, none of this really feels as shocking as I'm sure a really effective propaganda piece would want to make it. It's just there, and even nowadays isn't really out there enough to be campy. Eventually, the film does decide to show the downsides of the gang life, but even this loses its impact, though that's partially thanks to the limitations of the era - two members are killed in an astonishingly bloodless shootout with the police. From there, the film rushes to an awkward finale that makes some unusual callbacks to the first half before lapsing into painfully overt speech that, under the pretense of being addressed at one of the gang members' parents instead is said to the audience. Following the exploitative nature of the first half, an entire speech about returning to religious values and how much better society would be for doing so winds up falling as flat as the first half did, albeit for different reasons. I will admit, I haven't actually seen the riffed version of this film yet, but I am curious to see if this is a case where the SoL crew is able to salvage this title. Unfortunately, on its own, it's really not as memorable as some of Wood's other gems.

"Welp...so long as I don't have to bother with next of kin or condolence letters, you guys just do what you want with 'em. Not like I won't be replacing them next year anyway."

11/15 - Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

...and so we end the week with this. Ow.
This is one of those films it feels weird to really unload on for two reasons:
For one, like Gamera the week before, it's a film that seems perfectly content in its, if I may be perfectly frank in this case, utterly batshit premise, which makes it hard to bust its chops for that.
For another, this is a film akin to the first opponent in a game of Punch-Out! EVERYONE has wailed on this movie - for good reason, mind you. It becomes a challenge of what can really be said for this movie that hasn't already been said?
I do genuinely wonder at the creative process that inspired this. I mean, the title alone smacks of a wild night of coke and floozies at its finest before one even gets into its execution. The actual film is just...well, I suspect more coke went into the brainstorming to make the title work for one, but that's neither here nor there.
Personally, I'm torn between whether to say this is watchable or not. I mean, there are certainly some bits that are amusing - most notably a scene when the Martians first arrive to collect Santa and freeze his elves. Santa is at first saddened by the idea that his elves may be permanently trapped. The second he learns it's only temporary, he casually shrugs it off like nothing happens, even going so far as to crack jokes when the same is done to his wife (I have to wonder if she could hear him during that. If so, he's in for an interesting return later.) Anyway, unfortunately, while there are amusing moments, there's also a lot of the film that just...is. I mean, one could get some amusement out of just the sheer ridiculousness of the premise, but the execution just makes a lot of that craziness feel bland.
It's one of those movies that really needs some manner of interactive abuse- either by the MST3k cast, or just yourself and a group of friends-to really make the most of it.

...And with that, I've breached my general rule of avoiding Christmas stuff before Thanksgiving. Given my druthers, I'd have preferred to spend it on something better, but play the ball as it lies.

In any case, keep any eye out - alongside the next part of this project, I've got two new general write-ups lined up for the week to come!