Film Year: 1958
Genre: Science Fiction, Horror
Director: Bernard L. Kowalski
Starring: Michael Emmet, Angela Greene, John Baer, Ed Nelson
MST Season: 7
Featured Short: "Once Upon a Honeymoon"
The Short
Strange, strange, STRANGE short about a housewife constantly daydreaming of kitchen appliances and telephones while her husband is forced to postpone their honeymoon until he is done writing a song. An angel pushes the plot along by sprinkling confetti all over the place.
Promotional shorts like this weren’t uncommon, but I’m not quite sure what this one is selling. Maybe the kitchen appliances or the telephones, but let’s be honest, I wouldn’t be in a buying spirit after watching this because I don’t really know what it was trying to sell me. The short feels as if it’s a bit too concerned with entertaining than selling. If you like random breaking out into song and dance, this short will have your attention.
That’s kind of a pro in this short’s favor; that it almost has the flavor of an old MGM musical short from the 1930’s, only done much, much cheaper. But it doesn’t have much of a narrative hook to engage its audience, and doesn’t effectively sell the product it’s showcasing. That unfortunately makes Once Upon a Honeymoon useless.
The Movie
Corman produced cheapie (is there any other kind?) has an astronaut crashing back down to Earth impregnated by the spawn of an alien beast (because the Alien franchise had to get its ideas from somewhere). When his comrades decide to destroy the creatures inside of him, they are thwarted by both the astronaut in question and the murderous creature from outer space that followed him.
Blood Beast has a lot of shortcomings, but to be brutally honest it’s quite a fun little movie. It has a quite competent pace, acting isn’t too bad, and the premise is goofy but interesting. Plus it’s just plain amusing watching our macho astronaut blunder around trying to save his alien lover and its babies.
The movie’s ending is fairly inept in a heavy-handed and clumsy commentary on the human condition and lack of enlightenment (or something like that). The script doesn’t have the effort put into it to genuinely make a judgment like that, and really just kind of dwindles off into a knuckleheaded direction. But it adds to the goofy fun of the piece, and it’s time well spent for B-movie lovers everywhere.
The Episode
Night of the Blood Beast was on two episodes of the show and, unlike other movies that were featured more than once, both episodes featured the exact same riffing. Why exactly they decided to make two separate host segments, I’m not sure. Maybe to make a “special” holiday episode whenever Thanksgiving comes around while keeping the episode in a regular rotation without giving it the holiday baggage. In either case, the episode is a winner because the riffing is the unquestionable star.
We start off with an exquisite short, which Mike and the bots embrace for all its oddities. After that rousing start, we’re given a goofy monster movie that has pretty much everything they could ask for and more. Probably the most noteworthy aspect in the early movie segments is our latest running gag. Now we all know that once the boys get a gag they can milk in their head it’s impossible to get them to stop. Some are good ("Big McLargeHuge!"), and some…not so (“Chief?” “McCloud!”). In this case they start off on the idea that everybody in this movie is named “Steve.” I have to admit, even though it’s clear in the movie that this isn’t the case in the movie, this bit cracks me up (“This is no ordinary Steve!”). As the film goes on they start to have fun with the concept of a man impregnated by alien spawn, playing it up with common pregnancy symptoms. Having lived with a pregnant woman for the better part of a year, I can safely say a lot of these riffs are really on target and hilarious.
Nothin’ better than a fat turkey on Thanksgiving, and that’s what Night of the Blood Beast gives us! This particular version of the episode has host segments which tie into the bumpers Best Brains Inc. made for Comedy Central for their 1995 Turkey Day Marathon, which featured Dr. Forrester inviting his mother, Pearl, over for Thanksgiving dinner but is bombarded with guests that Frank invited over before ascending into Second Banana Heaven in Samson vs. the Vampire Women. Our guests include Jack Perkins (from Fugitive Alien and the Mystery Science Theater Hour bumpers), Mr. B Natural (War of the Colossal Beast), Pitch (Santa Claus), Kitten with the Whip (Kitten with a Whip), and Michael Feinstein (Gamera vs. Guiron). With these people in set for Thanksgiving goodies, our episode starts, and this particular one is a bit more fun than the regular episode that would go into rotation later. Skits on the Satellite are sparse, as the episode mostly concentrates on Dr. Forrester, however Mike and the bots do deliver a great football based opening and a delicious Stuffing vs. Potatoes argument. The Thanksgiving in Deep 13 segments are delightful, with such a colorful cast of characters taking our minds off the loss of Frank. I was always fairly fond of a drunk Jack Perkins confused feelings toward the oddly gendered Mr. B Natural (let’s call it It’s Pat, only funny). We also get the first time Pearl references Crow as “Art,” an obscure callback to a segment in Jungle Goddess that resulted in a confused letter from a child in The Giant Gila Monster.
Whichever version you choose, Night of the Blood Beast is a winner of an episode that will never fail to make you laugh, though this Turkey Day episode is my version of preference. But the movie is the main course and it delivers a daffy dish that delights so much that you may want to watch this episode twice anyway!
Classic
The DVD
Night of the Blood Beast was released on DVD by Shout Factory in their Volume XVI set. Awesomely enough, Shout managed to squeeze both versions of the episode onto a single disc, so you can choose which one you like. Picture was slightly flawed at minor points, but the episode itself remained intact fairly well. Audio is exceptional.
Also included are the bumpers for the 1995 Turkey Day marathon that led up to the episodes debut. They certainly come in handy in giving the Turkey Day version context (plus you can add in the missing episodes for your own marathon!). These bumpers come with a brief intro by Kevin Murphy. There’s also a trailer for the movie.
Once Upon a Honeymoon was released in Rhino's Shorts Volume 3 collection, an online exclusive disc with Rhino's Essentials set.
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