806-The Undead

Film Year:  1957
Genre:  Fantasy, Horror
Director:  Roger Corman
Starring:  Pamela Duncan, Richard Garland, Allison Hayes, Val Defour, Mel Welles, Richard Devon, Billy Barty
MST Season:  8

The Movie

Roger Corman, master of the budget, returns to direct this strange fantasy film about a prostitute sent back in time by a psychic to learn about her past lives.  She finds herself in medieval times as a woman suspected of being a witch accidentally steers herself from her path of execution.  However she must right her fate in order to return history to order.

Time travel mixed with knights, witchcraft, imps, and Satan himself is nothing if not interesting.  The story isn’t bad, lacking in logic but well intentioned, but mostly gets a bit mucked up by being a Roger Corman film.  That means even if the script was whipped into shape, there wouldn’t have been any shaking the production value, which comes off as a high school play and not an actual movie.

Despite the virtues of the idea behind the movie, there’s clearly not much of an intention to be anything special here.  Actresses are cast for how their bountiful bosoms look in tight costumes while the male actors ham it up like crazy.  The Undead is a bad movie, it’s just a good bad movie, if that makes sense.  Corman enthusiasts will definitely want to check it out, and those who don’t gag on cheapies like this will definitely get their money’s worth.

The Episode

The first movie of the Sci-Fi era to NOT be made by Universal International, instead changing it up to American International for the next four flicks, The Undead is both a healthy change of pace and a bit jarring.  Watching in context of the season progression, the lower production values of this movie take some getting used to compared to what came before while the mostly monotonous movie selection of black and white genre pictures gets a bit frustrating.  The Undead plays much better as a standalone episode, in which both the film and the riffing shine a bit brighter.

The movie takes itself far less seriously than the larger productions that we have seen so far from season eight, and Mike and the bots take flight with the goofiness of everything going on.  There’s a certain attempt at flavor enhancement being done, because the movie is pretty funny on its own, while the SOL crew just bring it to the surface a bit more.  The riffing is often very funny, because the movie gives the show everything it needs to work with.  In some ways the film and series are a dream combo, and one can definitely gain a sense of love at first sight.  It’s a hooker flung back in time dealing with witches, little people in goofy costumes, and the devil!  What’s not to make fun of?

The host segments continue the story arc of Pearl and Bobo being the prisoners of the Observers, this week having the Observers test the intellect of their guinea pigs, to which Tom Servo puts up a near perfect score (“I just test well!”), which makes him even smarter than Bill Corbett’s Observer (AKA our future Brain Guy), and Servo is invited to be an Observer himself.  There’s some fun, if lengthy, host segments this time around, including a visit from the Livia the witch and a record album by the movie’s musical gravedigger.  The episode ends on probably one of the more infamous host segments of the series, a lengthy number in which Bobo makes a sandwich out of an Observer brain.  Many claim it to be one of the worst host segments of the series, calling it labored and obvious, I find myself a bit softer on it.  It’s cute, though I’ll admit not particularly funny.

Overall I’d say this is a pretty good episode with a lot to like about it.  There’re some portions that show off of just how perfect a movie and riffing can get along at times, but mostly it’s an episode that gets drowned out by episodes that are just plain better.  But it’s definitely one to see.

Good

The DVD

This episode was released on Shout Factory’s Volume XXXIV set, with great audio but slightly, but barely noticeable, video flaws.  The only special feature is a trailer for the film.