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Released by: Shout! Factory
Released on: 3/16/2009
Director: Various
Cast: Various
Year: Various
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The Movie:
Picking up where Rhino left off, Shout! Factory unleashes another four titles from their ongoing Mystery Science Theater boxed set line. For the few out there unaware of who or what the Mystery Science Theater thing is all about, basically, it was a long running show in which a recurring cast of characters - a space castaway and his robot pals - were forced to watch bad movies while doing time on a satellite. This simple premise basically allowed Joel Hodgsen or Mike Nelson (depending on how early or recent the episode in question may be), Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett (who have recently teamed up to pick up where they left off with their Rifftrax project) to crack wise about 'bad' movies. The series was on the air from 1988 through 1999 and it still has a loyal cult following to this day while it's various participants have gone on to other, similar projects like Cinematic Titanic and the aforementioned Rifftrax downloads.
This time around, the gang takes on the following four films:
THE CRAWLING EYE:
This truly bizarre science fiction oddity takes place in the Trollenberg Mountains where groups of hikers are being murdered or driven mad by some sort of strange mysterious force that manifests as a giant cloud. With such trouble afoot, it only makes sense that a scientist named Alan Brooks would arrive on the scene with a psychic girl named Ann and her tag-along sister. They need to find out what's causing all of this insanity, and fast!
Of course, this being a fifties low budget science, there are massive floating alien eyeballs behind it all, bent on killing people and throwing the world into chaos. Will even the mighty United States Air Force be able to stop such a horrible threat?
This is a pretty erratic episode. It has its moments, but you can tell they were getting used to working off of a script (this is the first episode that used a script as opposed to the earlier improvised ones). While this would improve things down the road as the crew got used to it, here things sort of stutter and stammer along until they reach their end. Of course there are good bits here and there, but the jokes are inconsistent as are the skits that break up the commentary segments. The movie itself is a blast, it's just as dumb as it sounds and you definitely get the impression that they could have done better than they did her. Under the circumstances, it's forgivable, but this is the lesser episode of the set.
THE BEATNIKS:
This goofy little black and white film follows a singer named Eddie Crane who is discovered by a music mogul who hears him singing along to the jukebox in a diner one night. Eddie's star is about to rise, but he wants to bring along all of his beatnik pals for the ride. This seems like a fine idea at first, but once Eddie starts taking his career more seriously, his friends don't like the changes they see in him and they start causing trouble.
When Eddie starts getting romantic ideas about his manager's foxy assistant, his old pals, like Iris and Moon don't respond to kindly and before you know it, Eddie's in some pretty hot water.
A goofy, low budget picture, The Beatniks is pretty typical of the late 50s/early 60s trouble teen films that were popular in drive-ins and movie theaters around the country. All of the staples of the genre are here, from some wayward romance to some bad singing and more melodrama than you can shake a stick at. What makes the movie amusing is how the beatniks themselves are portrayed. Their hip lingo and funny ways are exploited as best they can be and the whole thing feels horribly dated. This makes for some pretty decent cannon fodder, this episode is good but not great. There's a lot of finishing characters lines here and this can be pretty funny in a random sort of way, but it never reaches the upper echelon of MST3Kdom where it all comes together. Not a bad episode by any stretch at all, but not a classic either.
THE FINAL SACRIFICE:
This is one of those episodes that fans have been waiting an eternity for. A true masterpiece of bad, low budget Canadian filmmaking, The Final Sacrifice has to be seen to be believed.
The film focuses on a young teenage boy named Troy who is the son of a late archeologist who wound up getting himself into some trouble when he created a map that leads to a mythical underground city. Troy's being chased around rural Alberta by a bunch of guys in black hoods and muscle shirts who belong to the Cult Of Zoix, lead by a sinister man known only as Satoris. It seems that Satoris and his cronies would love to get their hands on Troy's map so that they can find the lost city and use it to summon some demons.
Thankfully, Troy is not alone in his battle against evil. Help arrives in the unlikely form of a mighty mulleted man named Zap Rowsdower, a dumpy looking guy in denim who drives around in a crappy truck and mumbles a lot. Zap isn't so into helping Troy initially, but of course after some time he warms up to the little nerd and soon the pair are throwing down with Satoris and his hooded thugs with the fate or rural Alberta hanging in the balance.
The Final Sacrifice is generally considered to be one of the best episodes in the entire run, and for good reason. The jokes come quickly and are generally of very good quality. The trio playfully riffs on the film's homeland and its cinematic output but the focus here is on Rowsdower, and really, how can it not be? Horribly cast but generally giving it his all, actor Bruce J. Mitchell, who hasn't really done much else, earned himself a place in the bad movie hall of fame with his sweaty and at times very creepy performance in this picture. This is one of those episodes where it all clicks - the jokes work really well alongside the feature, which provides ample opportunity to crack wise and basically just hands the commentators a loaded gun and says 'shoot me.' This is pretty much the perfect MST3K episode, just as good as Manos, if not better.
BLOOD WATERS OF DR. Z
Last but not least, this crappy Floridian remake of a certain Universal monster classic follows the titular Doctor Z. as he shows his disdain for his fellow scientists by unleashing his secret formula which turns regular guys like you and me into horrible, mutant fishmen. The good doctor kidnaps a few pretty ladies and kills off a few colleagues and ultimately makes a pretty feeble attempt to take over the world, but government intervention at just the right time stops him before he can really get much further than his dingy, swampy home.
This movie is screwy enough that the crew has no problem coming up with plenty of good material for this episode. Everything is fair game, from the dopey guy stumbling around in the rubber suit to the most non-threatening mad scientist to ever grace the silver screen. The skits are also pretty good, funnier than usual, but the riffing here is almost always on. This was probably an easy one for the guys to tackle, as the subject matter is just that dumb, but they do a fine job of it and it ends this seventeenth collection on a high note.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The fullframe interlaced transfers that grace all four films in this set won't blow you away but they're watchable enough particularly when taken in the intended context. You will see the MST3K silhouettes in front of the screen so purists take note, and the transfers are taken from often times edited down old TV masters so those expecting the movies to appear here as they were originally intended will be disappointed. That said, they look as good here as they did on TV when they first aired and pristine video quality isn't really the point here. Are the transfers great? Nope, but they don't need to be.
The commentary comes through nice and clear, there are no problems understanding the participants and they've balanced nicely against the audio from the movie itself. As far as the quality of that part is concerned, it's on par with the transfer. It's not great, in fact, there are times where it sounds quite shrill. It gets the job done, I suppose, but it's nothing impressive.
Extras are spread across the four discs in the set. The Beatniks' primary extra is a bit called Crow Vs. Crow which is a thirty five minute interview that Trace Bealieu and Bill Corbett did at Dragon Con 2009 in Atlanta Georgia. They talk about working with the puppets on the show, working on the Crow character and certain challenges that arose during the series. Some question and answer bits with audience members rounds out the segment. Also included on this disc are an original theatrical trailer for the film, and a few minutes worth of bumpers for the MST Hour.
On The Crawling Eye disc we get a six and a half minute interview with Joel Hodgeson who talks about putting this episode together, how it showed a new direction in the series and foreshadowed where it was heading. He looks back on it and gives us his thoughts on what worked and what didn't, and it's fairly interesting stuff. The original theatrical trailer for The Crawling Eye is also included.
The Final Sacrifice, amazingly enough, includes a ten minute interview with Zap Rowsdower himself, Bruce J. Mitchell. A fairly jovial guy who doesn't differ in appearance all that much from his cinematic persona, Mitchell talks about his experiences working on the film, how he came to be cast, what it was like dealing with constant budget problems and how he feels about the film in hindsight. Surprisingly, he admits in the interview that he's never seen the MST3K version of the movie, though he is familiar with it.
The Blood Waters Of Dr. Z contains an original theatrical trailer for the film (a nice touch) as well as a couple of television promo spots for the episode and a small still gallery of original lobby cards used to promote the film when it played theatrically. It's keen to see the guys doing the MST3K sets catering to cult movie buffs by including little bonus bits like trailers and still galleries when they can. It's a small thing maybe, but it's a nice touch.
Each of the four discs contains a nifty animated menu and chapter selection. Inside the packaging along with the discs (packed in slimline cases) you'll find some neat mini posters.
The Final Word:
Say what you will about the other three entries - what matters here is the long awaited inclusion of Final Sacrifice, which is absolutely one of the best episodes of the entire series' run. The extras aren't quite as plentiful as they have been in the past but there are still some nice supplemental goodies here and this collection has got a fair bit more hits than misses, making it easy to recommend.