K09-Phase IV

Film Year:  1974
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Saul Bass
Starring:  Michael Murphy, Nigel Davenport, Lynne Frederick, and a whole lot o' ants
MST Season:  KTMA

The Movie

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this movie.  It has a pretty respectable score on IMDB, and when a movie featured on the show doesn’t automatically have five thousand nerds voting it a 1 because it was given the MST treatment, that’s an achievement to be sure.

As the movie starts I’m treated to an overlong continuous sequence of ants performing sign language.  I…just…don’t have the words.  It continues on into a prologue that is long, overdone, and boring, and I find my expectations coming into place.  This movie was going to suck.

Here we see super intelligent ants attempt to take over the world.  Mankind attempts to stop them by standing around and doing nothing but going “bwah?”  On one hand, the special effects are well realized, but it’s all effectively ruined by presenting its subject in a rather boring manner.  I mean, they called their killer ant movie “Phase IV,” for crying out loud.  That was your big interesting title to get people to see this movie?  That’s like titling Jaws “Project Swim.”

As an enjoyer of killer critter movies, I do kind of get what the film was going for.  I do wish they had remained somewhat grounded in their ambitions and ideas, though.  It also would have been better if it had an ending that didn’t feel like a crap cop-out.

The Episode

Servo’s observation:  “This isn’t a Gamera movie!  Their mouths are moving with the words!”

And might I say it’s nice to see the boys match wits with something that isn’t a giant turtle.  It’s liberating to be sure, though the contrasting lack of goofiness makes it seem a bit blah in the aftermath.  What can be said for Phase IV is that while the movie is boring, the flavor of the series it’s being featured on makes it endurable.  Like adding spice to a dish, if you will.  They are especially jokey during the ant attack scenes (“It was an ant, I swear!”), and laughs are not rare.

The host segments are more playful than hilarious, more or less just to belabor a concept, though a funny one.  My favorite is the opener which takes quite a while to build up a gag about $40,000 the Mads need to bring Joel back to Earth.  The payoff makes it worthwhile.

It’s a pretty solid smile episode.  Not the best episode of the season, but one worth watching.

Good