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Released by: Shout! Factory
Released on: 8/16/2011
Director: Boris Petroff
Cast: John Carradine, Tor Johnson
Year: 1957
The Movie:
From director Boris Petroff (who commonly used the alias Brooke K. Peters, as he does on this film) comes 1957's The Unearthly, a cheap and clunky horror movie that sees John Carradine playing a mad scientist named Dr. Charles Conway. What's Conway up to? Well, mad scientists are always up to something and Conway's bag seems to be to fight aging - see, he's developed some sort of new gland that he is sure will help reduce again in people, he just needs to prove it. So what this means is that we know his heart is at least close to being in the right place when he, with some help from his behemoth of a man servant, Lobo (Tor Johnson), starts abducting people who seek his help under the guise of a regular doctor. Also along for the ride is the beautiful Dr. Gilchrist (Marilyn Buferd) who may be interested in Conway, but Conway is too obsessed with his work to notice.
Before you know it, these poor saps are playing human guinea pig to his bizarre experiments, locked away safely in his creepy house on the hill complete with private laboratory and a built in prison.
Fairly short at just about an hour in length, this one lets the MST3K commentators warm up a bit with two short films that play before we actually get to the horror that is The Unearthly. The first is Posture Pals, a helpful film about the benefits of sitting up straight and the second is Appreciating Our Parents, meant to encourage kids to help out more around the house. These are both horribly dated and horribly hilarious and Joel, with some help from Tom and Servo, kick it into high gear pretty much as soon as they start out.
Once we move on to The Unearthly itself, well, the foreplay is over with and it's time for the main event. There's no shortage of bad movie material throughout the film for the three to pick on, be it John Carradine's sour face or Tor Johnson's bumbling, grumbling non-acting. The props, the cast, the performances, the music - it's all easy pickings for the crew and if this doesn't wind up in the upper echelon of MST3K episodes, it's at least a better than average one. As with many of the series' best episodes, this one gets down right geeksoteric with its references, pulling in humor from Talking Heads songs to America's Funniest Home Videos to everyone's favorite malt liquor, Thunderbird! - but that's part and parcel for the show and where so much of its replay value comes from.
Note: This episode was previously released on DVD from Rhino Home Video, though that disc is long out of print.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The fullframe interlaced transfer that graces this DVD won't blow you away but it's 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 transfer is taken from an old TV master so those expecting the movie to appear here as it was originally intended will be disappointed. That said, it looks as good here as it did on TV when it first aired and pristine video quality isn't really the point here. If you've seen MST3K before, you'll know what to expect. The film is in black and white but the skits in between viewing sessions are in color and look a fair bit better than the movie itself does.
The commentary comes through nice and clear, there are no problems understanding the participants as they're 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.
There are no extras on this disc at all, just a simple static menu and chapter stops.
The Final Word:
If you've already got the Rhino issue, you don't need this one but as that disc is long out of print, it's nice to have The Unearthly available again on DVD for those who still need it, the two shorts as well. Not the best of the series, but a solid episode and one worth owning.
