113-The Black Scorpion

Film Year:  1957
Genre:  Science Fiction, Horror
Director:  Edward Ludwig
Starring:  Richard Denning, Mara Corday, Carlos Rivas, Mario Navarro
MST Season:  1

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

Most people who think of stop-motion animation think of Ray Harryhausen (in fact, this episode incorrectly states him to be the special effects animator in this film), but without one Willis O’Brien to take him under his wing there would be no Ray Harryhaussen.  O’Brien, best known as the effects master who brought the original King Kong to life, had several more classics under his belt, such as the 1925 silent adaptation of The Lost World (which is still the best, though if you’ve seen some of the others that’s not hard) and 1949’s child-friendly Kong alternative Mighty Joe Young (which Ray Harryhausen worked on as well).  Sadly, despite being a revolutionary special effects pioneer with a career that spanned decades, O’Brien’s filmography of stop motion beasts is not as extensive as Harryhausen’s.  Probably his most noteworthy contributions outside these films were Son of Kong and The Giant Behemoth, while coming up with the stories of The Beast of Hollow Mountain and The Valley of Gwangi.  And then we have The Black Scorpion.

Not to be confused with Roger Corman’s superhero films and consecutive TV series of the same name, starring some babe in an S&M bikini, the story tells of giant scorpions (natch) freed by eruptions in Mexico, where they devour the town.  It’s up to fearsome geologists to save the day!

Stellar special effects highlight this mostly standard giant critter movie.  If one enjoys stop motion animation, this is definitely a movie you’d want in your collection.  If the movie feels humdrum, that’s probably because we’ve seen many of this type of film before, given Them! or Tarantula.  Humans serve to stand there, gawk, and/or give explanations that lead to the films climax, while groups of extras run in groups and scream while the scorpion follows them wherever they go.

Sometimes the movie’s attempt at emotional weight pushes against its momentum for fun.  Similar to Earth vs. the Spider or The Creeping Terror, the movie early on implies that a child (in this case, a baby) is orphaned by the titular monster devouring its parents, which always feels something of a killjoy for me in a movie like this.  The film itself oddly enough plays it for smiles, as the main characters find a baby in its crib without another soul in sight, and can’t seem to stop smiling at the kid.  The idea of the scene compared to the tone of the scene is bizarre.

Despite not being the best of its genre, The Black Scorpion at the very least takes its place as one of the most well made and entertaining films featured on Mystery Science Theater.  Maybe that says just enough about it.

The Episode

I’m never really enthused to say the strength of an episode is that the movie itself saves it.  For the most part, the riffing in this episode isn’t that funny.  We get off on a bad foot when the first think we see in the episode is a volcano explosion and Tom Servo says “Cops is filmed on location!”  I know what this is a reference to, but in the context of the scene itself it doesn’t make sense.  It’s a quip for the sake of a quip.  Extend this to a scene later on where we are treated to a military officer who looks like Peter Sellers, which leads to Crow doing a Dr. Strangelove impersonation that’s actually fairly amusing.  Unfortunately it’s a bit hampered by the fact that the officer looks more like Inspector Clouseau than Dr. Strangelove.  Everyone just seems that much off their game, which makes Black Scorpion as an episode not really all that funny, but amusing in that they’re watching a pretty entertaining movie.

The host segments furthermore show a bit of lackluster flavor.  The segment where Gypsy dresses as a scorpion bombs, albeit because her costume falls apart onscreen (Poopie!), but even if it had stayed together it’s more random than funny.  The host segment on Willis O’Brien comes off unfortunate after they misidentified the special effects technician in the film as Ray Harryhausen in the opener (Poopie!).  Joel’s invention in the Invention Exchange flounders, though it’s somewhat saved by the mutated appearance by the Mads.  The most amusing segment is the letter read at the end, where Crow reacts to a critical letter addressed to him,

I find myself at a bit of a conundrum.  I like watching this one because I like the movie, but the riffing and host segments are pretty sloppy in this episode.  The entire episode is a bit annoying because technically it’s not good, but the movie is the one picking up the slack and hauling Joel in the bots to the finish-line.

Average

The DVD

Pinch me, I think I’m dreaming!  The Black Scorpion came to us on DVD from Shout Factory in their Volume XXX set, making season one the first season to be released on DVD in its entirety (it has since been joined by the seasons five and seven).  Audio and video were both generally very good.

On the extras side, we are given Stinger of Death:  Making the Black Scorpion, a historian interview with C. Courtney Joyner.  He provides a lot of context to 50’s monster films, particularly Warner Bros, who brought us Them! and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and how The Black Scorpion was a continuation of it.  He praises the location cinematography and special effects work.  And regardless of how you feel about the movie in general, it’s hard to disagree with him.  Also on the disc is a trailer.