801-Revenge of the Creature

Film Year:  1955
Genre:  Science Fiction, Horror
Director:  Jack Arnold
Starring:  John Agar, Lori Nelson, Clint Eastwood in a career defining role
MST Season:  8

The Movie

Well...THIS certainly is a step up from normal fare.  In this debut episode on the Sci-Fi Channel we’re treated to...well, not a sci-fi classic but certainly a passable sequel to one.

Revenge of the Creature is the immediate sequel to Creature from the Black Lagoon which, despite the demise of the Gill Man in the previous film, sees a second expedition to the Amazon to seek out the dangerous half man/half fish.  The expedition succeeds in capturing the Gill Man and brings him to America, where he is put on display in a marine park to publicly shame him.  In true monster movie form, the Gill Man eventually escapes, stalks a beautiful blonde scientists, and kidnaps her to have his fishy way with her.

Growing up a monster movie fanatic, Creature from the Black Lagoon was a favorite of mine before I even knew of the show.  I’m not sure if I ever saw Revenge before it appeared on the show, but seeing it on MST was a delight.  While not a bad movie, Revenge is a gentle easing into the concept of cheesy movies featured on the show.  It’s plot is fairly unoriginal, and maybe it’s a bit too casual with its pacing.  That said, the premise is fun and the Gill Man is still a great monster.  It’s the least of the three Creature movies, even though at times it’s concept doesn’t seem quite as silly as that of The Creature Walks Among Us.  That third movie, however, had the novelty of going in a new direction.  Revenge goes in the expected direction.  Maybe that’s a problem, but those who want it get what they paid for.

The Episode

Switching networks for the second time, Mystery Science Theater proves itself to be a survivor...but at a cost.  Trace Beaulieu is no longer with the series, choosing to venture off in a new direction.  Still reeling from the loss of beloved Frank Conniff, losing such a show staple is devastating.  Not only is Crow left without a voice, but we lose head honcho mad scientist Dr. Clayton Forrester, whose experiments were the basis of the entire series.  Mike and Kevin Murphy’s Tom Servo help us anchor a new Crow, but on the Mads’ end we only have Pearl left, a character with seven episodes of development and isn’t entirely suited to take over the family business.

But the show must go on.  Crow gets a new voice and Pearl is somewhat re-invented to help make the continuation work.

Meet Bill Corbett, a comedian/playwright who contributed some jokes during the end of the Comedy Central run.  Bill is handed the Crow puppet and...I’m not going to lie, it’s hard to warm up to him.  In interviews Bill would joke that his early Crow “had a stroke” to excuse his poor puppeteering, but it really looks as if he was just handed the thing minutes before filming started.  He doesn’t try to imitate Trace, but it feels as if his Crow doesn’t quite have an identity yet.  He bounces around with different concepts, eventually giving us a peek at the more agitated version of the bot that he would eventually give us, but this first episode can’t help but feel like a step down after all of Trace’s glorious work with the puppet.  Having grown up with the Sci-Fi era, I’m quite fond of Bill’s Crow in the long run, just to give that some context.

We’re also introduced to the new concept of the series.  Mike, Servo, and Gypsy rematerialize centuries after last season’s finale to find Crow already aboard the Satellite of Love, apparently having developed partial amnesia (at least as far as Mike is concerned).  They find themselves in the year 2525, and apes have taken over the world, taking inspiration from the Planet of the Apes movie series.  Here we are introduced to a new Mad:  Kevin Murphy’s Professor Bobo, a mountain gorilla with great intellect that will gradually degrade as he becomes Pearl’s stooge.  Also present is Peanut, an ape character played by Michael J. Nelson.  Peanut makes little impression and is eventually written off the series in The Deadly Mantis.  They send Mike and the Bots the movie by order of “The Lawgiver,” who turns out to be Pearl, who has apparently lived another lifetime raising star baby Clayton, is revitalized five hundred years in the future, and looks younger than ever!  Pearl is a bit for aggressive and conniving in her new incarnation, much more invested in Mike’s plight even though in the past she seemed somewhat indifferent to it.

As of now, the “chase through time and space” storyline begins, even though they don’t leave Earth for another three episodes.  This “story arc” (and I use the term loosely) was conceived after the Sci-Fi Channel insisted upon the show having one, even though it’s not really a story driven series.  It’s easy to resent a network forcing notes on your favorite show, though personally I don’t mind there being a bit more stuff going on outside of the theater.  It’s clear they were half-assing it mostly, because the storyline never really goes anywhere.  Host segments in this episode are generally used to re-introduce the old characters and introduce the new ones along with the new concepts.  The Nanites make their first appearance, as they’re microscopic nanobots that have infested the ship in the crew’s absence.  Meanwhile a minor amnesia subplot is introduced for Crow, which mostly seems as if it was conceived to skirt around the fact that he’s played by a different person.

At long last we get to the riffing.  It’s easy to get off on the wrong foot with this episode since the first theater segment isn’t very good.  Bill’s awkward delivery takes some getting used to and there’s too many “Tributary to the Amazon” riffs that are just filling up dead air.  However if you bear with the episode you’ll find it picking up steam as soon as the Gill Man reaches the marine park.  As soon as Servo spouts out one of my favorite quips “Help me, I’m a fresh water creature!” we are back in business.  The episode has some workmanlike tendencies, possibly to ease Bill into the series, but it steadily gets funnier as it goes along.

For a while it seems as if the watchable movie is enough for the episode to coast on, but if you give everyone enough time to get back in the groove you’ll find this one to be quite a good episode worthy of being held with the better episodes of previous seasons.  No matter what channel it’s on, MST shines.

Good

The DVD

This landmark episode was released as a part of Volume XXV from Shout Factory.  Picture and audio were spotless.  It was also loaded with extras.

First up is an introduction by Mike Nelson, who talks less about the episode (those expecting him to rip the movie to pieces will be disappointed, as he doesn’t seem to think it’s that bad) and more about the move to the Sci-Fi Channel.  He seems very pained by the idea of having been forced a storyline for the season and thinks it hurts the host segments of this particular episode.  He also hated playing Peanut the ape (because of the long makeup process).

Next up is a documentary called Jack Arnold at Universal, which covers the films that Revenge of the Creature director Jack Arnold filmed at Universal Studios.  As expected, most of the time is devoted to his genre work, not just Revenge, but its predecessor Creature from the Black Lagoon, It Came from Outer Space, Tarantula, the Incredible Shrinking Man, and Monster on Campus.

The final feature is Life After MST3K:  Bill Corbett.  In addition to Rifftrax and the Film Crew, a lot of his post-MST work involved web series and plays.  He also talks a bit about his one sold Hollywood screenplay, which was turned into the Eddie Murphy critical and box office bomb Meet Dave.  Not too fond of that experience.