701-Night of the Blood Beast

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.  Since I’ve already reviewed the Turkey Day version, this review is devoted to the regular episode.  Forgive me for recycling portions of it, but I feel I’ve said my piece about the theater segments, and there’s not much of a need to reword it.

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.

In this version of the episode we’re given a rather standard set of host segments.  The big deal of this group is Pearl moving in with Dr. Forrester, making her the new Mad after the departure of TV’s Frank last season.  The dynamic is much different as instead of being oppressive Dr. F is suddenly submissive to the one person who he will yield to.  It’s not an entirely uninteresting change of pace, but it’s more enjoyable in small spread apart doses.  Pearl’s cameo in Bloodlust was outstanding because it stood alone, but making her harassment of our beloved villain a permanent staple in the series going forward?  I find myself thankful the seventh season was abbreviated due to this, even though it’s a bit rough knowing Dr. Forrester will leave the series on this note as well.  Even still, I love Pearl, though largely because of the character she evolved into once she took over.  The rest of the host segments are just movie related fillers, with a musical based on phones and Crow claiming he’s pregnant with the Blood Beast’s child.  There’s not a lot there to take in, though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t laugh.

Whichever version you choose, Night of the Blood Beast is a winner of an episode that will never fail to make you laugh, though the 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.