Plot
Short: A mad scientist plans on using his latest inventions - a giant robot and a newly discovered formula that can place people in a state of suspended animation - to become rich and/or rule the world, but his wife and a scientist who once worked with him plan to stop him by informing the government of his inventions. Undeterred, the mad scientist fakes his death and starts planning his means of covering his lie up.
Film: An arrogant pilot and his friend fly their plane to the continent of Africa to search for a crashed plane that carried the female heiress of a rich mogul, hoping to obtain a reward in exchange for her whereabouts. Upon landing near the site of a crashed plane, they are taken captive by a local tribe, where they discover that the heiress is alive and is considered a goddess by the tribesmen.
Movie Review
Another season, another serial short series. This time, instead of dull action of Commando Cody's Radar Men from the Moon, we get The Phantom Creeps, starring Bela Lugosi in yet another typecast role. Bela plays a mad scientist (big surprise) who wishes to use his inventions to (what else?) take over the world. Or is it get rich by selling his evil inventions to evil governments? I'm not exactly clear on his motivation, but then again, with writing this obtuse, neither is this serial short.
Because this serial is as generic as they come, many of the same tired cliches and tropes are employed here. We have the giant robot that's slow and lumbering and yet is expected to be a deadly threat on a battlefield (see also: The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy). We have Bela Lugosi hamming it up with his thick accent as a mad scientist with no clear motivation except vague sinister intention (see also: The Corpse Vanishes*). We get poorly defined protagonists who offer no screen presence and are utterly forgettable (see also: The Mad Monster). In addition, this serial episode ends on a cliffhanger that I swear is identical to two - count 'em, two - cliffhangers in Radar Men from the Moon. This serial isn't just generic, it's downright lazy.
*Is it just me, or does Bela like doing projects with the naming scheme "The [NOUN] [PRESENT TENSE VERB]"?
About the only thing worth talking about in this serial are the mad scientist's inventions, if only to highlight how ridiculous they are. The first one shown is a giant metal robot which, as mentioned, is meant to be a destructive weapon in great numbers in a war zone but moves so laughably slowly that the enemy would die from laughter before the mechanical thing got anywhere near them. The goofy-looking head only makes it look less threatening. The second invention is even more silly, and it's a spider-like creature that is "attracted" to a small disk that looks like a communion wafer. Upon reaching the wafer, the spider explodes and...I can't believe I'm writing this...and causes any living thing it touches to be placed in suspended animation. If that doesn't sound patently absurd, I don't know what is. But hey, this serial is running with this idea, so let's see where they take it in the next episode, where the heroes escape the plane crash with parachutes, I'm sure.
And now for the feature film, Jungle Goddess, the movie that does one thing and one thing well, and that's stereotypes. A preposterous artifact of the late 1940s, this film should be studied if only to show that yes, people once held these views without irony or shame (if, of course, a better print than the one that Best Brains have is found, preferably one that doesn't look like the sun is burning everything to a white crisp). From women to Africans to whites, no stereotype is left unturned in this piece of schlock.
The story itself is paper-thin: an arrogant pilot convinces his partner (a pre-Superman George Reeves) to help him search for a plane carrying the daughter of a Dutch millionaire that crashed before World War II. Upon finding the plane in the jungles of Africa, they are captured by a primitive tribe and find that the heiress is now worshiped as a god by the tribe. The arrogant pilot is to be put to death for killing a tribesman with his gun (of course), but the jungle goddess wishes to return home, so she hatches a plan to escape with the two pilots. Sexism and racism ensue.
Let's look at the racism first. Naturally, the movie takes place in Africa. Just...Africa. No need to name a country, since Africa is one big country, right? And of course the tribe is a typical Hollywood African tribe, where non-white actors dress in silly costumes and yell vaguely African dialects like savages. It would be comical if people back then didn't take these portrayals seriously. And I haven't even mentioned the tribesmen obviously seeing a white woman as a goddess (because white is better than black!), or the doting servant woman who's as thick as a brick, or the evil witchdoctor who wishes to control the tribe himself. Why should I bother mentioning these things, when they're pretty much par for the course!
The "white devils," or the male pilots, don't fare much better. Their racism is a lot more subtler than the exaggerated portrayal of the African tribesmen, though their actions make it clear that they see themselves as superior. The most hilarious example of their bigotry is when they discover that the land near the tribe possesses a radioactive element that is worth a lot of money. What is the purpose of this plot device? Nothing except that the white men can be rich when they return back to civilization and tell everyone about this untapped reservoir. Apparently, that ranch in Colorado is more important than the livelihood of the tribesmen.
Finally, the women portrayed in this flick are the typical weak, pathetic creatures that early cinema likes to indulge in. Funnily enough, there are only two women in the entire movie: the goddess and her servant. The latter is a stereotypical ignorant black girl who needs her white master to be someone important. The former is a girl who is meant to look tough (she's the goddess of a tribe with a witchdoctor who hates her, after all) but is so weak she ends up twisting her ankle upon leaving the village with the two pilots. Sexism at its best. Geez...
Normally I would by now point out something worthwhile about the film, but honestly there is nothing at all decent in this movie. The characters are flat, the story is barely there, and the stereotypes are too obnoxious to ignore. It's not as bad as The Mad Monster, but it is still a wretched piece of cinema that, outside of curiosity on how low Hollywood's standards sunk, deserves to be dead and buried.
MST3K Review
I liked this episode, for some reason. Many of the riffs weren't as good as some past episode, but many other riffs were gut-bustingly funny. At the least, I laughed out loud more times during Jungle Goddess than I did during The Sidehackers. Even the accompanying short got some laughs out of me, primarily thanks to Joel and the bots' overdone Bela Lugosi impersonations. I'm not sure how long it will take for those impressions to grow old, but at least for this episode, they did their job.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
S02E02 - The Sidehackers
Plot
A member of a sidehacker racing team becomes familiar with a traveling biker entertainment gang when the gang's leader needs his bike fixed. The hot-tempered gang leader tries to convince the sidehacker to join his group, but to no effect. When the sidehacker later on turns down the advances of the gang leader's girlfriend, a horrible lie leads to the sidehacker's idyllic life being shattered and seeking revenge against the ones who had destroyed everything.
Movie Review
What kind of film were they trying to make here? That was the question that ran through my mind as The Sidehackers unfolded, mostly in the latter half of the film. The movie's title would indicate that this is some kind of sports film, but the movie itself says otherwise. Of course, if the film itself is good, then that would excuse that kind of disconnect between title and film, but the overall result presented here is not something to be proud of.
As mentioned above, one would think Sidehackers was a film about the eponymous sport of motorcycles with side carts (the so-called "sidehacks"). But the sport plays very little of a role in the story, if any. In fact, its only use is to pad the movie's run time, and boy, does it pad. The sidehacking races just go on and on and on with absolutely no relation to the narrative other than a flimsy reason to tie the protagonist and antagonist together. And the sidehacker bike's appearance at film's end also serves no purpose other than to remind the viewers that the movie is named after a niche sport.
Outside of these races, the movie is a generic biker film that tries to one up other biker films with unsettling brutality. Said brutality is, of course, the deaths of the two main females, particularly the girlfriend of the film's protagonist. In a set of scenes that are jarring compared to the rest of the film, the hero's girlfriend is viciously raped (no nudity, but little is held back) and strung up on the ceiling after she is killed. The villain's own girlfriend, who is abused throughout the film, ends up getting choked by the villain during a fit of madness. To say this film is misogynistic is putting it lightly.
And let's not forget about the characters themselves, who inhabit a set of personalities that try to have depth but end up over the top. The prime example of this is the movie's villain, JC, who chews enough scenery to make a whole new film; if not for the rape scene, he would make this movie hilarious. The hero tries to hard to be a gruff hard-ass with a soft spot in his heart, and the two girlfriends, despite their polarizing characters, still end up portrayed as attachments to their male counterparts. The only truly annoying character is one that appears near film's end and who burns his hideousness into the audience's minds with his terrible joke-telling. Everyone else in the movie doesn't have anything interesting to truly distinguish them.
In short, the film fails at being a sports film and fails at being a good film in general. Outside of the sidehacking, the generic biker narrative is completely uninteresting beyond an unnecessary rape sequence. Some people might choose to elevate it a little because of its interesting decision to go with a nihilistic ending, but that only makes a terrible film a miserable one.
MST3K Review
With the "season shock" between seasons one and two finished, now I can judge MST3K's episodes on their own merits, and while The Sidehackers does offer some good riffs, it isn't one of the strongest episodes in the series. This episode actually became infamous because before this film, Best Brains would never watch a movie before writing their riffs; they always wrote their jokes while watching a movie for the first time. The brutal rape scene in Sidehackers convinced them to change that policy and watch a movie in its entirety before committing to using it in the show. The movie's nihilism streak, coupled with the rape scenes that they had to excise, likely contributed to the riffing's overall subdued feeling.
On a positive note, I did enjoy the one riff done by Cambot, the bot only seen in the show's opening. The parody on the EPSN sports tracker was brilliant.
A member of a sidehacker racing team becomes familiar with a traveling biker entertainment gang when the gang's leader needs his bike fixed. The hot-tempered gang leader tries to convince the sidehacker to join his group, but to no effect. When the sidehacker later on turns down the advances of the gang leader's girlfriend, a horrible lie leads to the sidehacker's idyllic life being shattered and seeking revenge against the ones who had destroyed everything.
Movie Review
What kind of film were they trying to make here? That was the question that ran through my mind as The Sidehackers unfolded, mostly in the latter half of the film. The movie's title would indicate that this is some kind of sports film, but the movie itself says otherwise. Of course, if the film itself is good, then that would excuse that kind of disconnect between title and film, but the overall result presented here is not something to be proud of.
As mentioned above, one would think Sidehackers was a film about the eponymous sport of motorcycles with side carts (the so-called "sidehacks"). But the sport plays very little of a role in the story, if any. In fact, its only use is to pad the movie's run time, and boy, does it pad. The sidehacking races just go on and on and on with absolutely no relation to the narrative other than a flimsy reason to tie the protagonist and antagonist together. And the sidehacker bike's appearance at film's end also serves no purpose other than to remind the viewers that the movie is named after a niche sport.
Outside of these races, the movie is a generic biker film that tries to one up other biker films with unsettling brutality. Said brutality is, of course, the deaths of the two main females, particularly the girlfriend of the film's protagonist. In a set of scenes that are jarring compared to the rest of the film, the hero's girlfriend is viciously raped (no nudity, but little is held back) and strung up on the ceiling after she is killed. The villain's own girlfriend, who is abused throughout the film, ends up getting choked by the villain during a fit of madness. To say this film is misogynistic is putting it lightly.
And let's not forget about the characters themselves, who inhabit a set of personalities that try to have depth but end up over the top. The prime example of this is the movie's villain, JC, who chews enough scenery to make a whole new film; if not for the rape scene, he would make this movie hilarious. The hero tries to hard to be a gruff hard-ass with a soft spot in his heart, and the two girlfriends, despite their polarizing characters, still end up portrayed as attachments to their male counterparts. The only truly annoying character is one that appears near film's end and who burns his hideousness into the audience's minds with his terrible joke-telling. Everyone else in the movie doesn't have anything interesting to truly distinguish them.
In short, the film fails at being a sports film and fails at being a good film in general. Outside of the sidehacking, the generic biker narrative is completely uninteresting beyond an unnecessary rape sequence. Some people might choose to elevate it a little because of its interesting decision to go with a nihilistic ending, but that only makes a terrible film a miserable one.
MST3K Review
With the "season shock" between seasons one and two finished, now I can judge MST3K's episodes on their own merits, and while The Sidehackers does offer some good riffs, it isn't one of the strongest episodes in the series. This episode actually became infamous because before this film, Best Brains would never watch a movie before writing their riffs; they always wrote their jokes while watching a movie for the first time. The brutal rape scene in Sidehackers convinced them to change that policy and watch a movie in its entirety before committing to using it in the show. The movie's nihilism streak, coupled with the rape scenes that they had to excise, likely contributed to the riffing's overall subdued feeling.
On a positive note, I did enjoy the one riff done by Cambot, the bot only seen in the show's opening. The parody on the EPSN sports tracker was brilliant.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
S02E01 - Rocketship X-M
Plot
A group of astronauts board the Rocketship X-M for the Earth's first manned voyage to the moon. On the way, disaster strikes as the engines malfunction, forcing the crew to reconfigure their fuel balances. Their on-the-fly calculations accidentally end up sending the hapless astronauts to an entirely different place than they had intended, leading to them discovering a horrific past for one of the solar system's planets.
Movie Review
This movie is boring. That word pretty much can sum up the entire film, but since I'd like to make a bit more effort than that, I shall. Still, one cannot deny that most of this film is filled with tedium that would make Project Moonbase proud. Even with the recognizable and entertaining Lloyd Bridges starring, Rocketship X-M fails to tell an engaging story, from beginning to its patently absurd ending.
Likely the biggest contributor to the story's failings is that there isn't much of a story to begin with. In what seems to be a recurring problem with movies on this show, the story is a paper-thin premise stretched well beyond its ability to tell an engaging narrative. Hence, the first half of the film, if not more, fills each scene with padded exposition and faux drama that end up doing nothing to move the story forward. Almost two-thirds of the movie deal with the crew talking to reporters on the ground, the ship taking off, the rocketship breaking down, the crew reconfiguring its fuel, and putting the recalibrated fuel into effect, something that could've been done in a much smaller time frame.
The second half of the film (or is it the final third?) is where the story goes from padded to ridiculous. In an attempt to slap an anti-nuclear war message onto the film, the astronauts miss landing on the moon and instead find themselves on Mars, where they witness an advanced civilization that has become "primitive" due to nuclear war. The idea of a rocketship "missing" the moon and somehow finding themselves on Mars, as well as the heavy-handed moral, is absurd enough that it detracts from the movie's finale, in which the remainder of the ship crash and die upon returning to Earth. The silly final speech by the mission chief doesn't help matters, either.
If there is one positive I can give this film, however, it is its marked attempt at realism. Shot several years before the first moon landing, Rocketship X-M nevertheless does a decent job at portraying space travel. Sure, not all attempts succeed; for example, meteors flying past the rocket make whooshing sounds in airless space, the crew treats its liftoff in the same manner of trying to catch a departing bus, and there's no way to defend the absurdity of the rocket somehow missing the moon and finding Mars. However, the film does deserve some credit for trying to portray varying degrees of gravity, and though the fuel reconfiguration scene is painfully dull, it does show the usefulness of actual scientists.
Unfortunately, the latter scene also demonstrates that familiar monster in films of this era: sexism. One female scientist is part of the crew, and when she and the chief male scientist attempt to recalculate the fuel, the male scientist overrides her calculations. When she objects then apologizes, the male says nonchalantly, "For what, for momentarily being a woman?" This sexism rears its head once again when the woman relays her fears about the fuel mixture, and the male quips about her "woman's intuition." But, in an interesting twist, the sexism is averted when the woman proves to be correct in her fears, although this aversion is far more subtle than the actual display of sexism.
Additionally, the characters are nothing to write home about. Lloyd Bridges seems to be the only one who attempts to give his character anything resembling a personality, and he still ends up being more annoying (though not as annoying as the Texas astronaut whose whole character is predictably defined by his home state). The female scientist does try to be more than the passing love interest, though the film gives her nothing to work with, and the head astronaut/chauvinist is too predictable to be anything more than a given set of tropes. All other characters offer nothing memorable over the course of the film.
Perhaps the final nail in the coffin of Rocketship X-M is this piece of trivia regarding its production: in an effort to beat the delayed picture Destination Moon to theaters, X-M was made over a span of a grand total of 18 days. While it's certainly impressive that they managed to get some semblance of a movie out of those near three weeks, the results are still nothing to crow about and make it an interesting but unmemorable artifact of cinema.
MST3K Review
Wow. Just, wow.
First of all, let's talk about the MST3K show itself. I don't discuss the host segments that occur between the movie because, quite frankly, they're not my cup of tea. I know a lot of people see these host segments as part of the show's charm, and I did see a lot of great segments back in season one. However, for me, the main attraction is and has always been the feature film and its riffs, and that is where I judge an episode's strength. The host segments, if anything, are a bonus for me.
With that said, the show has certainly upgraded from the previous season to season two. A cleaner look, more polished segments, and the introduction (and loss) of a couple characters. One newcomer here is Frank Conniff, who plays TV's Frank and Dr. Forrester's newest assistant. Why? Because Josh Weinstein (Dr. Erhardt) has left the show. And that also means Tom Servo, voiced by Josh, gets a new voice...and it's the familiar (to me) Kevin Murphy. By now I've gotten used to Trace Beaulieu voicing Crow instead of Bill Corbett, but I could never really get used to Josh as Servo. He did nothing wrong - in fact it did the best he ever could - but for some reason Tom's voice was always the most jarring, though this might've had to do with the fact that his jokes often fell flat the most. Kevin, on the other hand, is a much more vibrant voice for Tom, and though this has much to do with my familiarity with Kevin's voice, it is clear to see that he is an improvement over Josh.
And now for the jokes...wow. After watching the relative looseness of the first season, the first episode of season two was like night and day. Gone is the lighthearted and almost sloppy feeling that plagued many season one episodes; replacing it is a rehearsed performance by Joel and the bots that flows much more smoothly. And while Rocketship X-M is not exactly a classic episode in the show, it is a gem compared to season one and contained some strong riffs that really benefited from the more planned performances.
In many ways, this was the perfect means of re-introducing us to MST3K and its new overall look and feel, as well as make us look forward to the next episode in the series.
A group of astronauts board the Rocketship X-M for the Earth's first manned voyage to the moon. On the way, disaster strikes as the engines malfunction, forcing the crew to reconfigure their fuel balances. Their on-the-fly calculations accidentally end up sending the hapless astronauts to an entirely different place than they had intended, leading to them discovering a horrific past for one of the solar system's planets.
Movie Review
This movie is boring. That word pretty much can sum up the entire film, but since I'd like to make a bit more effort than that, I shall. Still, one cannot deny that most of this film is filled with tedium that would make Project Moonbase proud. Even with the recognizable and entertaining Lloyd Bridges starring, Rocketship X-M fails to tell an engaging story, from beginning to its patently absurd ending.
Likely the biggest contributor to the story's failings is that there isn't much of a story to begin with. In what seems to be a recurring problem with movies on this show, the story is a paper-thin premise stretched well beyond its ability to tell an engaging narrative. Hence, the first half of the film, if not more, fills each scene with padded exposition and faux drama that end up doing nothing to move the story forward. Almost two-thirds of the movie deal with the crew talking to reporters on the ground, the ship taking off, the rocketship breaking down, the crew reconfiguring its fuel, and putting the recalibrated fuel into effect, something that could've been done in a much smaller time frame.
The second half of the film (or is it the final third?) is where the story goes from padded to ridiculous. In an attempt to slap an anti-nuclear war message onto the film, the astronauts miss landing on the moon and instead find themselves on Mars, where they witness an advanced civilization that has become "primitive" due to nuclear war. The idea of a rocketship "missing" the moon and somehow finding themselves on Mars, as well as the heavy-handed moral, is absurd enough that it detracts from the movie's finale, in which the remainder of the ship crash and die upon returning to Earth. The silly final speech by the mission chief doesn't help matters, either.
If there is one positive I can give this film, however, it is its marked attempt at realism. Shot several years before the first moon landing, Rocketship X-M nevertheless does a decent job at portraying space travel. Sure, not all attempts succeed; for example, meteors flying past the rocket make whooshing sounds in airless space, the crew treats its liftoff in the same manner of trying to catch a departing bus, and there's no way to defend the absurdity of the rocket somehow missing the moon and finding Mars. However, the film does deserve some credit for trying to portray varying degrees of gravity, and though the fuel reconfiguration scene is painfully dull, it does show the usefulness of actual scientists.
Unfortunately, the latter scene also demonstrates that familiar monster in films of this era: sexism. One female scientist is part of the crew, and when she and the chief male scientist attempt to recalculate the fuel, the male scientist overrides her calculations. When she objects then apologizes, the male says nonchalantly, "For what, for momentarily being a woman?" This sexism rears its head once again when the woman relays her fears about the fuel mixture, and the male quips about her "woman's intuition." But, in an interesting twist, the sexism is averted when the woman proves to be correct in her fears, although this aversion is far more subtle than the actual display of sexism.
Additionally, the characters are nothing to write home about. Lloyd Bridges seems to be the only one who attempts to give his character anything resembling a personality, and he still ends up being more annoying (though not as annoying as the Texas astronaut whose whole character is predictably defined by his home state). The female scientist does try to be more than the passing love interest, though the film gives her nothing to work with, and the head astronaut/chauvinist is too predictable to be anything more than a given set of tropes. All other characters offer nothing memorable over the course of the film.
Perhaps the final nail in the coffin of Rocketship X-M is this piece of trivia regarding its production: in an effort to beat the delayed picture Destination Moon to theaters, X-M was made over a span of a grand total of 18 days. While it's certainly impressive that they managed to get some semblance of a movie out of those near three weeks, the results are still nothing to crow about and make it an interesting but unmemorable artifact of cinema.
MST3K Review
Wow. Just, wow.
First of all, let's talk about the MST3K show itself. I don't discuss the host segments that occur between the movie because, quite frankly, they're not my cup of tea. I know a lot of people see these host segments as part of the show's charm, and I did see a lot of great segments back in season one. However, for me, the main attraction is and has always been the feature film and its riffs, and that is where I judge an episode's strength. The host segments, if anything, are a bonus for me.
With that said, the show has certainly upgraded from the previous season to season two. A cleaner look, more polished segments, and the introduction (and loss) of a couple characters. One newcomer here is Frank Conniff, who plays TV's Frank and Dr. Forrester's newest assistant. Why? Because Josh Weinstein (Dr. Erhardt) has left the show. And that also means Tom Servo, voiced by Josh, gets a new voice...and it's the familiar (to me) Kevin Murphy. By now I've gotten used to Trace Beaulieu voicing Crow instead of Bill Corbett, but I could never really get used to Josh as Servo. He did nothing wrong - in fact it did the best he ever could - but for some reason Tom's voice was always the most jarring, though this might've had to do with the fact that his jokes often fell flat the most. Kevin, on the other hand, is a much more vibrant voice for Tom, and though this has much to do with my familiarity with Kevin's voice, it is clear to see that he is an improvement over Josh.
And now for the jokes...wow. After watching the relative looseness of the first season, the first episode of season two was like night and day. Gone is the lighthearted and almost sloppy feeling that plagued many season one episodes; replacing it is a rehearsed performance by Joel and the bots that flows much more smoothly. And while Rocketship X-M is not exactly a classic episode in the show, it is a gem compared to season one and contained some strong riffs that really benefited from the more planned performances.
In many ways, this was the perfect means of re-introducing us to MST3K and its new overall look and feel, as well as make us look forward to the next episode in the series.
Monday, May 31, 2010
S01E13 - The Black Scorpion
Plot
After an earthquake in Mexico creates a volcano practically overnight, a pair of geologists are sent in to investigate the newly formed volcanic area. Almost immediately they discover that peculiar occurrences are happening in and around the nearby towns, and it's only much later when they discover that giant prehistoric scorpions have been unleashed by the volcano.
Movie Review
This is a monster movie, in the same vein as The Slime People and The Crawling Eye. Unlike those movies, The Black Scorpion is a monster movie of the "giant animal" variety, taking a well-known creature of Earth and upgrading the size to gigantic proportions. It is also thoroughly generic, and despite some incredible special effects, the film fails at being interesting or well-written.
Let's get the most important bit out of the way first: the giant scorpions (plural, unlike what's indicated in the film title) look amazing, which is understandable considering their stop-motion effects were overseen by Wills O'Brien, who was responsible for the legendary effects in the original King Kong. Close-ups of the scorpions' faces do look a little silly with their pseudo-human eyes, but all other shots of the creatures feature stunning stop-motion animation. If there is any major flaw, it's that several shots of the scorpions only show a scorpion silhouette with no detail, thanks to the movie running of funds for the composite process.
And it seems that the small budget could explain a lot of what went wrong with this flick. The story borrows a lot of ideas from the giant monster movie Them!, which featured giant ants (Black Scorpion even reuses the high-pitched squeal of the Them! ants). Some of the other giant monsters in the movie are actually reused models from King Kong. Characters appear and disappear with no resolution or warning. It's as if the producers studied the template on how to make a giant monster flick but half-assed it along the way, ending up with pieces of the final film that don't gel together, like poorly made jigsaw pieces.
Let's look at an example of what I mean. One character introduced in the first half of the movie is a young boy called Juanito. He tries to be cute but is irritating and serves no purpose whatsoever in the film outside of being an annoyance, but he ends up in several scenes just the same because he's the monster movie kid. After he nearly kills the film's hero geologists by stowing away on their exhibition into the scorpions' nest, Juanito is never seen again. A similar occurrence happens with the film's love interest, who is present solely to be a love interest. Oh, sure, the film tries to reason with the audience that she's useful because she's a local rancher with knowledge of the land, but said knowledge is put to no use at all in the film. She also fails in the one task given to her, and that's watching Juanito. Her part is so disposable that she isn't even made a damsel in distress at any time in the film, which, while welcome, gives her practically nothing interesting to do.
Outside of woefully underdeveloped and irregularly used characters and some fault story editing, Black Scorpion is not that terrible of a film. The acting is actually decent for a film of this caliber, and as previously mentioned, the special effects are exceptional outside of some miscues due to budget cuts. Beyond that, the film's biggest pitfall is that it's criminally bland outside of any scene involving the giant scorpions, more so than other films of this type.
If anything, this film must be studied by stop-animation buffs for its incredible scorpion models. Outside of that, trying to find an interesting narrative joining the scorpion scenes together is an exercise in tedium.
MST3K Review
The first season ends not with a bang nor a whimper, but something squarely in the middle. By now Joel and the bots seem to have gotten used to the routine of riffing movies for a national audience and sounded very comfortable with their jokes (the silhouetted wienie roast over the volcano lava was brilliant). The jokes themselves were amusing, though few true gems were present in the riffing this time around, likely because the movie didn't give them much material to work with. Still, there's no reason to expect that the fine folks of MST3K won't take what they've learned in these first 13 episodes and improve upon the formula for the next season.
After an earthquake in Mexico creates a volcano practically overnight, a pair of geologists are sent in to investigate the newly formed volcanic area. Almost immediately they discover that peculiar occurrences are happening in and around the nearby towns, and it's only much later when they discover that giant prehistoric scorpions have been unleashed by the volcano.
Movie Review
This is a monster movie, in the same vein as The Slime People and The Crawling Eye. Unlike those movies, The Black Scorpion is a monster movie of the "giant animal" variety, taking a well-known creature of Earth and upgrading the size to gigantic proportions. It is also thoroughly generic, and despite some incredible special effects, the film fails at being interesting or well-written.
Let's get the most important bit out of the way first: the giant scorpions (plural, unlike what's indicated in the film title) look amazing, which is understandable considering their stop-motion effects were overseen by Wills O'Brien, who was responsible for the legendary effects in the original King Kong. Close-ups of the scorpions' faces do look a little silly with their pseudo-human eyes, but all other shots of the creatures feature stunning stop-motion animation. If there is any major flaw, it's that several shots of the scorpions only show a scorpion silhouette with no detail, thanks to the movie running of funds for the composite process.
And it seems that the small budget could explain a lot of what went wrong with this flick. The story borrows a lot of ideas from the giant monster movie Them!, which featured giant ants (Black Scorpion even reuses the high-pitched squeal of the Them! ants). Some of the other giant monsters in the movie are actually reused models from King Kong. Characters appear and disappear with no resolution or warning. It's as if the producers studied the template on how to make a giant monster flick but half-assed it along the way, ending up with pieces of the final film that don't gel together, like poorly made jigsaw pieces.
Let's look at an example of what I mean. One character introduced in the first half of the movie is a young boy called Juanito. He tries to be cute but is irritating and serves no purpose whatsoever in the film outside of being an annoyance, but he ends up in several scenes just the same because he's the monster movie kid. After he nearly kills the film's hero geologists by stowing away on their exhibition into the scorpions' nest, Juanito is never seen again. A similar occurrence happens with the film's love interest, who is present solely to be a love interest. Oh, sure, the film tries to reason with the audience that she's useful because she's a local rancher with knowledge of the land, but said knowledge is put to no use at all in the film. She also fails in the one task given to her, and that's watching Juanito. Her part is so disposable that she isn't even made a damsel in distress at any time in the film, which, while welcome, gives her practically nothing interesting to do.
Outside of woefully underdeveloped and irregularly used characters and some fault story editing, Black Scorpion is not that terrible of a film. The acting is actually decent for a film of this caliber, and as previously mentioned, the special effects are exceptional outside of some miscues due to budget cuts. Beyond that, the film's biggest pitfall is that it's criminally bland outside of any scene involving the giant scorpions, more so than other films of this type.
If anything, this film must be studied by stop-animation buffs for its incredible scorpion models. Outside of that, trying to find an interesting narrative joining the scorpion scenes together is an exercise in tedium.
MST3K Review
The first season ends not with a bang nor a whimper, but something squarely in the middle. By now Joel and the bots seem to have gotten used to the routine of riffing movies for a national audience and sounded very comfortable with their jokes (the silhouetted wienie roast over the volcano lava was brilliant). The jokes themselves were amusing, though few true gems were present in the riffing this time around, likely because the movie didn't give them much material to work with. Still, there's no reason to expect that the fine folks of MST3K won't take what they've learned in these first 13 episodes and improve upon the formula for the next season.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
S01E12 - Untamed Youth
Plot
Two young women are hitchhiking their way to California when they are picked up as vagrants by the local police. Rather than serve jail time, they choose to work on a cotton farm as cotton pickers along with other young men and women serving time. But they quickly learn that the cotton farm's owner intends to abuse his position of authority as much as he can and has darker ideas in store for his indentured labor.
Movie Review
The first movie of season one that isn't a sci-fi or fantasy flick, Untamed Youth is a camp teen exploitation flick that knows exactly what it wants to show off, and both of them belong to Mamie Van Doren. While it doesn't descend to the depths of film atrocity that previous MST3K offerings have, this film is a piece of cinematic shlock whose only thing of worth is its trainwreck factor.
The plot setup is an intriguing one, admittedly: a corrupt cotton farm owner and his partner, a complicit female judge, use the court system to send juveniles to work at the farm for mere pittances to serve out their sentences, resulting in cheap labor. The two protagonists, a couple of female traveling performers, end up getting booked for vagrancy and sent to this farm, where they have to endure all kinds of terrible circumstances from tiring cotton-picking to cramped living quarters, from being threatened with sexual assault by the owner to eating dog food. Though not the most sophisticated of setups, some decent writing could've made it an entertaining story.
But that's the problem we have here: a lack of good writing, as well as other things. A lot of the same tropes that have befallen other bad films befall this film, including: characters who are nothing more than caricatures, from the sinister cotton farm owner to the air-headed sexy female lead; cringe-worthy dialogue that screams of movie suits trying to make their film sound "hip"; plot contrivances that show a lack of quality control; and a shoe-horned love story between one of the female leads and the handsome male protagonist. It's all right if a movie doesn't wish to redefine movies as we know it, but is it asking too much to take a risk somewhere and not base the plot of others that came before it?
The big draw of this film is, of course, Mamie Van Doren, a Hollywood sex symbol whose most prized assets (both of them) are on full display in this film (or at least as much as a Hollywood film could get away with in those days). A big indication of her being the main draw has to do with the fact that she sings in several songs throughout the film, which wouldn't be so bad if the songs she sings weren't so atrocious. Though Ms. Van Doren does have a reasonable singing voice, she should fire her songwriters, as they wrote some of the most pap-laced pieces of garbage ever committed to audio. What really irks me about these songs is that they often try to sound sexual (by 1950s standards), but end up sounding juvenile. What's worse, the script calls for the actors watching Van Doren sing to cry out, as if happily "shocked" to hear such crass innuendo. It doesn't work. Oh, god, it doesn't work.
But Ms. Van Doren should be happy that of all the songs she sings in this film, she doesn't sing the worst one. No, that honor goes to Eddie Cochran, who croons the song "Cottonpicker". Unlike the other songs, which are sung at dances in the film, "Cottonpicker" is sung in the middle of a cotton field, suggesting this movie is some kind of musical when it clearly isn't. And the song itself has no chorus, just verses, but each verse repeats one line three times. It's annoying, it's lazy, and it's just awful.
Beyond these reasons, the movie also suffers from several tone shifts. Untamed Youth mostly plays itself as a lighthearted pseudo-rebellion flick interspersed with terrible music, but then it tries to get serious with scenes of near sexual assault, a pregnant woman's death, and cross-country slavery. These moments destroy much of the film's overall camp value and jars noticeably with the more light-toned segments.
In all, the only reason to watch this flick is to witness Ms. Van Doren's gorgeous self parading around the film in various states of sensual dress, although those who value atrocious musical pieces will find plenty to love here as well.
MST3K Review
Some have said that this episode is perhaps the best episode of MST3K's first season, thanks to really good riffing and a watchable film (in one sense). While I don't agree that the film is entirely watchable, I do agree that Joel and the bots' riffing in this episode is particularly strong, definitely on par at the least with some of the stronger episodes from this season. By now I've also started to become used to them talking over some of the dialogue, although they didn't do it so flagrantly in this episode. The big exception, of course, is when Joel calls Gypsy into the theater to make cotton for Tom Servo while a meaningless conversation goes on in the film. This is the kind of dialogue that deserves to be talked over, and the improved timing of the jokes suggest that Joel and the bots realize this as well.
Two young women are hitchhiking their way to California when they are picked up as vagrants by the local police. Rather than serve jail time, they choose to work on a cotton farm as cotton pickers along with other young men and women serving time. But they quickly learn that the cotton farm's owner intends to abuse his position of authority as much as he can and has darker ideas in store for his indentured labor.
Movie Review
The first movie of season one that isn't a sci-fi or fantasy flick, Untamed Youth is a camp teen exploitation flick that knows exactly what it wants to show off, and both of them belong to Mamie Van Doren. While it doesn't descend to the depths of film atrocity that previous MST3K offerings have, this film is a piece of cinematic shlock whose only thing of worth is its trainwreck factor.
The plot setup is an intriguing one, admittedly: a corrupt cotton farm owner and his partner, a complicit female judge, use the court system to send juveniles to work at the farm for mere pittances to serve out their sentences, resulting in cheap labor. The two protagonists, a couple of female traveling performers, end up getting booked for vagrancy and sent to this farm, where they have to endure all kinds of terrible circumstances from tiring cotton-picking to cramped living quarters, from being threatened with sexual assault by the owner to eating dog food. Though not the most sophisticated of setups, some decent writing could've made it an entertaining story.
But that's the problem we have here: a lack of good writing, as well as other things. A lot of the same tropes that have befallen other bad films befall this film, including: characters who are nothing more than caricatures, from the sinister cotton farm owner to the air-headed sexy female lead; cringe-worthy dialogue that screams of movie suits trying to make their film sound "hip"; plot contrivances that show a lack of quality control; and a shoe-horned love story between one of the female leads and the handsome male protagonist. It's all right if a movie doesn't wish to redefine movies as we know it, but is it asking too much to take a risk somewhere and not base the plot of others that came before it?
The big draw of this film is, of course, Mamie Van Doren, a Hollywood sex symbol whose most prized assets (both of them) are on full display in this film (or at least as much as a Hollywood film could get away with in those days). A big indication of her being the main draw has to do with the fact that she sings in several songs throughout the film, which wouldn't be so bad if the songs she sings weren't so atrocious. Though Ms. Van Doren does have a reasonable singing voice, she should fire her songwriters, as they wrote some of the most pap-laced pieces of garbage ever committed to audio. What really irks me about these songs is that they often try to sound sexual (by 1950s standards), but end up sounding juvenile. What's worse, the script calls for the actors watching Van Doren sing to cry out, as if happily "shocked" to hear such crass innuendo. It doesn't work. Oh, god, it doesn't work.
But Ms. Van Doren should be happy that of all the songs she sings in this film, she doesn't sing the worst one. No, that honor goes to Eddie Cochran, who croons the song "Cottonpicker". Unlike the other songs, which are sung at dances in the film, "Cottonpicker" is sung in the middle of a cotton field, suggesting this movie is some kind of musical when it clearly isn't. And the song itself has no chorus, just verses, but each verse repeats one line three times. It's annoying, it's lazy, and it's just awful.
Beyond these reasons, the movie also suffers from several tone shifts. Untamed Youth mostly plays itself as a lighthearted pseudo-rebellion flick interspersed with terrible music, but then it tries to get serious with scenes of near sexual assault, a pregnant woman's death, and cross-country slavery. These moments destroy much of the film's overall camp value and jars noticeably with the more light-toned segments.
In all, the only reason to watch this flick is to witness Ms. Van Doren's gorgeous self parading around the film in various states of sensual dress, although those who value atrocious musical pieces will find plenty to love here as well.
MST3K Review
Some have said that this episode is perhaps the best episode of MST3K's first season, thanks to really good riffing and a watchable film (in one sense). While I don't agree that the film is entirely watchable, I do agree that Joel and the bots' riffing in this episode is particularly strong, definitely on par at the least with some of the stronger episodes from this season. By now I've also started to become used to them talking over some of the dialogue, although they didn't do it so flagrantly in this episode. The big exception, of course, is when Joel calls Gypsy into the theater to make cotton for Tom Servo while a meaningless conversation goes on in the film. This is the kind of dialogue that deserves to be talked over, and the improved timing of the jokes suggest that Joel and the bots realize this as well.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
S01E11 - Moon Zero Two
Plot
Once a revered hero who became the first man to fly to Mars, a space pilot now spends his days salvaging broken satellites around the moon. But a local millionaire sees him as a means of retrieving an asteroid made entirely out of sapphires without the legal authorities catching on. At the same time, a woman arrives on the moon looking for her brother, who is mining on the moon's far side. These two seemingly unrelated narratives will collide as a strange mystery begins to unravel.
Movie Review
This movie reminds me a little of Women of the Prehistoric Planet, in that with some better writing and a lot of polish, this film could've been salvaged as a decent flick. Instead, the movie falls under the weight of its own ambitions and dissolves into the dustbin of history. But while Prehistoric Planet had a bit of charm to it, Moon Zero Two squanders any goodwill with one of the most annoying and arrogant protagonists I can recall.
The film's main hero, Bill Kemp, is smug - there is no other word to properly describe him. Okay, maybe there are, but smug describes him best. He is cynical, sneering, sarcastic, and snide, and he apparently has a chip on his shoulder the size of the moon itself. Every sentence out of his mouth is either a supposedly witty rejoinder or filled with contempt. Even as circumstances change from ho-hum to dangerous, he keeps his angry and smug persona without much inflection. Obviously he is trying to sound brave and easy-going, but instead he comes across as completely unlikable. His smugness permeates through the rest of the film, as many of the other characters seem to try and mimic his witticisms but fail. Perhaps this is all because of the film's British origin, but even the most English of films isn't usually this pompous and easy to hate.
The rest of the characters aren't as unlikable as Kemp, but they are one-note caricatures and forgettable. Meanwhile, the plot is actually quite interesting, mixing the genres of mystery and action into an intriguing concoction. Unfortunately, the execution of said plot doesn't always reach its potential and much of the movie is boring as a result. If the script had been just a little bit more tightly written, this film could've been something unique in the filming landscape.
One area that Moon Zero Two definitely has a leg-up on Prehistoric Planet is the special effects. Unlike the latter film's horrendously cheap-looking set pieces, this film's set-pieces and effects are incredible, which should be expected considering some of the SFX people had previously worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey. And considering Moon Zero Two was released not too long after the first manned moon landing, the amount of realism in this movie is admirable. From the low gravity moon walks to the zero-g space walks, there is a lot of detail to be admired here.
One can't say the same for the film's opening, though. Similar to the Pink Panther films, Moon Zero Two employs a cartoon music video for the opening credits. But whereas the Pink Panther had Henry Mancini's classic score, this film uses a hideous choir-esque tune that detracts from the film's overall serious tone. And the cartoon itself is also bizarre, as it suggests the film is some kind of commentary on an international space race rather than a mystery-drama film. Also, speaking of the score, the film makers made an odd choice to use upbeat jazz tunes for the background music. Admittedly the use of music in place of sound effects (since there is no sound in space) is rather clever, but the blaring trumpets and generic beats can be grating at times.
Overall, Moon Zero Two is not a terrible film, but it is not a good one, either. Its biggest flaw, a thoroughly obnoxious protagonist, is too much for the rest of the film to overcome, and the remaining, smaller errors add up against the film's favor. Some better planning could've made this film a classic, but instead it crashed like the sapphire asteroid in the movie's climax.
MST3K Review
Compared to the previous episode, Joel and the bots were a lot more interested in this film and subsequently the riffing here was more enjoyable. Even so, it didn't reach the level of some of Season One's best episodes, though there were some standout riffs here and there. Perhaps if the riffing could've learned the same lesson the movie should've learned - better tightening of some things - this episode could've been a classic, but as it stands, it's a good but not great episode.
Once a revered hero who became the first man to fly to Mars, a space pilot now spends his days salvaging broken satellites around the moon. But a local millionaire sees him as a means of retrieving an asteroid made entirely out of sapphires without the legal authorities catching on. At the same time, a woman arrives on the moon looking for her brother, who is mining on the moon's far side. These two seemingly unrelated narratives will collide as a strange mystery begins to unravel.
Movie Review
This movie reminds me a little of Women of the Prehistoric Planet, in that with some better writing and a lot of polish, this film could've been salvaged as a decent flick. Instead, the movie falls under the weight of its own ambitions and dissolves into the dustbin of history. But while Prehistoric Planet had a bit of charm to it, Moon Zero Two squanders any goodwill with one of the most annoying and arrogant protagonists I can recall.
The film's main hero, Bill Kemp, is smug - there is no other word to properly describe him. Okay, maybe there are, but smug describes him best. He is cynical, sneering, sarcastic, and snide, and he apparently has a chip on his shoulder the size of the moon itself. Every sentence out of his mouth is either a supposedly witty rejoinder or filled with contempt. Even as circumstances change from ho-hum to dangerous, he keeps his angry and smug persona without much inflection. Obviously he is trying to sound brave and easy-going, but instead he comes across as completely unlikable. His smugness permeates through the rest of the film, as many of the other characters seem to try and mimic his witticisms but fail. Perhaps this is all because of the film's British origin, but even the most English of films isn't usually this pompous and easy to hate.
The rest of the characters aren't as unlikable as Kemp, but they are one-note caricatures and forgettable. Meanwhile, the plot is actually quite interesting, mixing the genres of mystery and action into an intriguing concoction. Unfortunately, the execution of said plot doesn't always reach its potential and much of the movie is boring as a result. If the script had been just a little bit more tightly written, this film could've been something unique in the filming landscape.
One area that Moon Zero Two definitely has a leg-up on Prehistoric Planet is the special effects. Unlike the latter film's horrendously cheap-looking set pieces, this film's set-pieces and effects are incredible, which should be expected considering some of the SFX people had previously worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey. And considering Moon Zero Two was released not too long after the first manned moon landing, the amount of realism in this movie is admirable. From the low gravity moon walks to the zero-g space walks, there is a lot of detail to be admired here.
One can't say the same for the film's opening, though. Similar to the Pink Panther films, Moon Zero Two employs a cartoon music video for the opening credits. But whereas the Pink Panther had Henry Mancini's classic score, this film uses a hideous choir-esque tune that detracts from the film's overall serious tone. And the cartoon itself is also bizarre, as it suggests the film is some kind of commentary on an international space race rather than a mystery-drama film. Also, speaking of the score, the film makers made an odd choice to use upbeat jazz tunes for the background music. Admittedly the use of music in place of sound effects (since there is no sound in space) is rather clever, but the blaring trumpets and generic beats can be grating at times.
Overall, Moon Zero Two is not a terrible film, but it is not a good one, either. Its biggest flaw, a thoroughly obnoxious protagonist, is too much for the rest of the film to overcome, and the remaining, smaller errors add up against the film's favor. Some better planning could've made this film a classic, but instead it crashed like the sapphire asteroid in the movie's climax.
MST3K Review
Compared to the previous episode, Joel and the bots were a lot more interested in this film and subsequently the riffing here was more enjoyable. Even so, it didn't reach the level of some of Season One's best episodes, though there were some standout riffs here and there. Perhaps if the riffing could've learned the same lesson the movie should've learned - better tightening of some things - this episode could've been a classic, but as it stands, it's a good but not great episode.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
S01E10 - Robot Holocaust
Plot
Short: Commando Cody...does something?
Film: The world has been plunged into an apocalyptic wasteland after a terrible war with machines poisoned the atmosphere. The remaining humans live in sheltered areas and serve the leader of the robots, the Dark One, by supplying his power lest their breathable air get cut off. But there are those who have found ways of not being affected by the poisonous atmosphere, and these brave souls will lead a small band to the Dark One's power station to destroy him once and for all.
Movie Review
As much as I would love (hah!) to review Commando Cody's latest serial episode, it seems that the creators of MST3K finally got sick Mr. Pre-Rocketeer and decided they were no longer going to show any more episodes of Rader Men from the Moon. To rub it in, this episode airs only part of serial episode nine before abruptly cutting off (which the Mad Scientists claim is due to the film breaking). And so ends the exploits of Commando Cody with an inglorious halt to his generic serial. Though admittedly there is a small part of me that would've liked to have seen the remaining episodes, this part is overwhelmed by the joy of no longer witnessing more hammy fist fights and inane dialogue.
So that leaves us with the feature film itself, an absolutely delightful artifact of the 80s entitled Robot Holocaust. This is the type of B-movie that I love to watch without Joel/Mike and the bots and drink in its terribleness, the type of movie that should be watched with friends for the proper experience. But what makes a film like this different from all the other terrible films that are shown the Satellite of Love?
It's the small things, really. It's the terrible acting that's somehow even worse than the schlock you'd see in a creature feature from the 1960s. It's the full color that "vibrantly" displays the lack of budget, as opposed to black-and-white films that can obscure things a bit more easily. It's the realization that even though film-making technology has improved leaps and bounds since their humble beginnings, there are still crackpots in the 80s that think they can make a film. It's the fact that in the 80s, there are a more films that others can (and will) rip-off. For more on this subject, see also: Gymkata, R.O.T.O.R., and Deadly Prey.
And so it is with all of these factors that we have Robot Holocaust, a blatant rip-off of countless sword-and-sorcery and post-apocalyptic flicks like Mad Max and Conan the Barbarian. The lack of originality permeates every facet of this film, from the characters to the dialogue to the plot. Then there's the lack of effort, which can be seen in the scriptwriting, the costumes, the plot holes (and forgotten plot devices) and even the locations. This film is just bad, but it's entertainingly so.
There is so much to say about this film. How about first the plot, or the strung together scenes that barely make a plot? From what the internet tells me, this film was written and directed by Tim Kincaid, who was a prolific porn director. If this is true, then the reason for why the plot is so poorly written makes complete sense. Mr. Kincaid doesn't know how to tell a story at all if Robot Holocaust is any indication. Several big examples can be throughout the film, including:
- The main hero can use telepathy, but it never comes into play outside of a worthless exposition sequence.
- The hero says he comes from a rebel society that has amassed an army to defeat the Dark One, but he heads out to defeat the Dark One with only a few new recruits; the army is never mentioned again.
- The hero also says he is looking for a friend at the Power Station, where the Dark One resides; naturally, this friend is never referenced again.
- It's made clear that only the main hero and heroine can survive in the poisonous atmosphere, and yet several ordinary humans follow them through the poisonous atmosphere without any damage.
- One of the Dark One's minions, a robot called Torque, is sent out again and again to stop the small group from reaching the Power Station. But Torque never even does anything to the group - like the shotgun that is pumped a dozen times before being shot in Masters of the Universe, Torque has to be told over and over again to stop the group before actually meets them.
This is but a small sampling of the film's continuity errors, and they are made worse through atrociously cliched dialogue spoken by some of the worst acting imaginable. The heroes deserve no quarter for their over-the-top performances, but special mention must be made of Valaria, the Dark One's human servant. Fans of season 9 of MST3K will have images of Werewolf's Natalie flash before their minds upon hearing Valaria's indecipherable accent as her actress chews the scenery over and over again with her performance. But the most "memorable" performance outside of Valaria's comes from Klyton, a blatant C3PO knockoff whose voice has an annoying echo effect and is hands down the most annoying character in the film.
And what of the special effects? Since this film obviously lacked a budget, the robot costumes are laughable. Torque, the strongest robot in service to the Dark one, looks like a human-crustacean hybrid than a machine. The other robots (all three of them, seemingly) and Klyton look like poorly pasted together pieces of cardboard. The monsters that populate the deadly wasteland, from mutants to killer worms to a giant spider, all look like puppets or bad makeup. And it's difficult to have a post-apocalyptic wasteland when the heroes are walking through what looks like Central Park with the New York City skyline in the background.
And how about the soundtrack, which is a droning synthesizer that is all too common in films of this pedigree? You can always spot an 80s piece of tripe when incomprehensible synthesizer notes blare over the action as the composer tries to emulate the classic Terminator score and only succeeds in finding a decent rhythm button on his Casio keyboard.
I could go on and on about this hilarious piece of cinema dreck - about how characters die and no one cares, about the plot holes too numerous to list - but this is not the place for that. All that needs to be said is that Robot Holocaust is a masterpiece of 80s wretchedness and has to be watched by cinephiles who eat this garbage up, like me.
MST3K Review
This movie is so hilariously bad that Joel and the bots may not even be needed to mock it - the film basically mocks itself. But they do mock it, and I'm sad to say that the riffing is not up to par compared to previous episodes. Oh, there are definitely moments - there are always moments with this show - but Joel, Tom, and Crow sound hesitant in their jokes in this episode, as if they are unsure about what exactly to mock. Undoubtedly there is a goldmine of material to riff here, but they barely scrape the surface and leave a lot of potential material hanging. It seems that the still-noticeable laid back riffing format of the earlier seasons doesn't work as well for a movie like this, a movie that deserves the rapid-fire jokes that are found more readily in later seasons.
Short: Commando Cody...does something?
Film: The world has been plunged into an apocalyptic wasteland after a terrible war with machines poisoned the atmosphere. The remaining humans live in sheltered areas and serve the leader of the robots, the Dark One, by supplying his power lest their breathable air get cut off. But there are those who have found ways of not being affected by the poisonous atmosphere, and these brave souls will lead a small band to the Dark One's power station to destroy him once and for all.
Movie Review
As much as I would love (hah!) to review Commando Cody's latest serial episode, it seems that the creators of MST3K finally got sick Mr. Pre-Rocketeer and decided they were no longer going to show any more episodes of Rader Men from the Moon. To rub it in, this episode airs only part of serial episode nine before abruptly cutting off (which the Mad Scientists claim is due to the film breaking). And so ends the exploits of Commando Cody with an inglorious halt to his generic serial. Though admittedly there is a small part of me that would've liked to have seen the remaining episodes, this part is overwhelmed by the joy of no longer witnessing more hammy fist fights and inane dialogue.
So that leaves us with the feature film itself, an absolutely delightful artifact of the 80s entitled Robot Holocaust. This is the type of B-movie that I love to watch without Joel/Mike and the bots and drink in its terribleness, the type of movie that should be watched with friends for the proper experience. But what makes a film like this different from all the other terrible films that are shown the Satellite of Love?
It's the small things, really. It's the terrible acting that's somehow even worse than the schlock you'd see in a creature feature from the 1960s. It's the full color that "vibrantly" displays the lack of budget, as opposed to black-and-white films that can obscure things a bit more easily. It's the realization that even though film-making technology has improved leaps and bounds since their humble beginnings, there are still crackpots in the 80s that think they can make a film. It's the fact that in the 80s, there are a more films that others can (and will) rip-off. For more on this subject, see also: Gymkata, R.O.T.O.R., and Deadly Prey.
And so it is with all of these factors that we have Robot Holocaust, a blatant rip-off of countless sword-and-sorcery and post-apocalyptic flicks like Mad Max and Conan the Barbarian. The lack of originality permeates every facet of this film, from the characters to the dialogue to the plot. Then there's the lack of effort, which can be seen in the scriptwriting, the costumes, the plot holes (and forgotten plot devices) and even the locations. This film is just bad, but it's entertainingly so.
There is so much to say about this film. How about first the plot, or the strung together scenes that barely make a plot? From what the internet tells me, this film was written and directed by Tim Kincaid, who was a prolific porn director. If this is true, then the reason for why the plot is so poorly written makes complete sense. Mr. Kincaid doesn't know how to tell a story at all if Robot Holocaust is any indication. Several big examples can be throughout the film, including:
- The main hero can use telepathy, but it never comes into play outside of a worthless exposition sequence.
- The hero says he comes from a rebel society that has amassed an army to defeat the Dark One, but he heads out to defeat the Dark One with only a few new recruits; the army is never mentioned again.
- The hero also says he is looking for a friend at the Power Station, where the Dark One resides; naturally, this friend is never referenced again.
- It's made clear that only the main hero and heroine can survive in the poisonous atmosphere, and yet several ordinary humans follow them through the poisonous atmosphere without any damage.
- One of the Dark One's minions, a robot called Torque, is sent out again and again to stop the small group from reaching the Power Station. But Torque never even does anything to the group - like the shotgun that is pumped a dozen times before being shot in Masters of the Universe, Torque has to be told over and over again to stop the group before actually meets them.
This is but a small sampling of the film's continuity errors, and they are made worse through atrociously cliched dialogue spoken by some of the worst acting imaginable. The heroes deserve no quarter for their over-the-top performances, but special mention must be made of Valaria, the Dark One's human servant. Fans of season 9 of MST3K will have images of Werewolf's Natalie flash before their minds upon hearing Valaria's indecipherable accent as her actress chews the scenery over and over again with her performance. But the most "memorable" performance outside of Valaria's comes from Klyton, a blatant C3PO knockoff whose voice has an annoying echo effect and is hands down the most annoying character in the film.
And what of the special effects? Since this film obviously lacked a budget, the robot costumes are laughable. Torque, the strongest robot in service to the Dark one, looks like a human-crustacean hybrid than a machine. The other robots (all three of them, seemingly) and Klyton look like poorly pasted together pieces of cardboard. The monsters that populate the deadly wasteland, from mutants to killer worms to a giant spider, all look like puppets or bad makeup. And it's difficult to have a post-apocalyptic wasteland when the heroes are walking through what looks like Central Park with the New York City skyline in the background.
And how about the soundtrack, which is a droning synthesizer that is all too common in films of this pedigree? You can always spot an 80s piece of tripe when incomprehensible synthesizer notes blare over the action as the composer tries to emulate the classic Terminator score and only succeeds in finding a decent rhythm button on his Casio keyboard.
I could go on and on about this hilarious piece of cinema dreck - about how characters die and no one cares, about the plot holes too numerous to list - but this is not the place for that. All that needs to be said is that Robot Holocaust is a masterpiece of 80s wretchedness and has to be watched by cinephiles who eat this garbage up, like me.
MST3K Review
This movie is so hilariously bad that Joel and the bots may not even be needed to mock it - the film basically mocks itself. But they do mock it, and I'm sad to say that the riffing is not up to par compared to previous episodes. Oh, there are definitely moments - there are always moments with this show - but Joel, Tom, and Crow sound hesitant in their jokes in this episode, as if they are unsure about what exactly to mock. Undoubtedly there is a goldmine of material to riff here, but they barely scrape the surface and leave a lot of potential material hanging. It seems that the still-noticeable laid back riffing format of the earlier seasons doesn't work as well for a movie like this, a movie that deserves the rapid-fire jokes that are found more readily in later seasons.
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