The Wasp Woman (Cinematic Titanic)

Film Year:  1959

Genre:  Horror

Director:  Roger Corman

Starring:  Susan Cabot, Anthony Eisley, Michael Mark, Barboura Morris

CT Number:  3

The Movie

It's almost as if Roger Corman saw The Wolf Man and The Fly the same weekend and shouted "I got an idea!"

The Wasp Woman tells the story of a woman with a career, and since that is inherently evil she has to become the villain by the end of the picture.  Susan Cabot plays Janice Starling, the founder of a major cosmetic company.  But as she gets older and her beauty fades she risks losing being the face of her products to the younger generation.  A mad beekeeper offers a solution by injecting her with the royal jelly of a wasp, which returns her to her youthful looks.  But side effects include turning into a wasp monster that kills people (surgeon general warning pending).

In The Wasp Woman Corman mimics classic horror tales while blending with science fiction elements that were popular at the time.  The result is something middling to passable for Corman though poor by traditional standards.  The storyline is fair, though presentation is dry, presenting tongue-in-cheek ideas in a fairly serious manner.

The Wasp Woman at it's heart is just an unimpressive monster movie at a point where the genre was dying out.  It's not really all that fun nor does it do anything interesting or new.  As far as cheap drive-in fare that eventually went public domain goes, it's fine.  Hardly anything to note though.

The Riff

The Wasp Woman was fairly close to being a pulled episode of Cinematic Titanic, since Roger Corman claimed ownership of the film (which was actually in public domain) and threatened legal action.  Fortunately the dust settled and Cinematic Titanic was allowed to keep the show in print and continue live shows of it.  Cinematic Titanic would later be forced to pull Samson and the Seven Miracles of the World, with less success of putting it back in circulation.

Though to be fair The Wasp Woman is one of the weaker riffs in Cinematic Titanic's line-up, so if a riff were to be targeted I'd have preferred it be this one (but mostly none at all).  It's not that I find it particularly poor, it's just that with a film this dry it's hard to deliver.  Though I will say that a lot of good lines have a tendency to pop out during films like this, and Cinematic Titanic delivers even if not at a high hit rate.  There are points where I can laugh at just the right jab at the right time, such as a grumpy 50's pedestrian fretting because he's missing the McCarthy Hearings.  Plus Trace has the winner of a line "Out of work and talking to bugs.  Boy have I been there!"

The host segments are okay at best.  The best is Frank bringing on yet another guest, famed drummer Buddy Rich, who proceeds to be an asshole to all of the Titans.  Mary Jo also calls a board meeting, which is simple and cute, but goes nowhere.  The intro features a tad bit of dark humor as Frank points out the tragic fate of the lead actress, though it could be argued this gets the riff off to an all-to-somber start.

Much like the movie itself, this riff is fine though something that will be glossed over in the larger scheme of film riffing.  I can recommend it on the basis that it has some good comedy interwoven into a mostly bland product, but I feel this one is a lesser offering in Cinematic Titanic's line-up.

Average

The DVD

The Wasp Woman was initially released on DVD exclusively through cinematictitanic.com, though like all of the initial discs this edition is out of print.  Picture was solid, outside of a low resolution version of the film, and audio was great.  There were no bonus features.

It was re-released by Shout Factory in their Complete Collection set.  There were also no special features, though it shares a disc with the following show, Legacy of Blood.

Let's Talk Turkey (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2017
Riffers:  Bridget Nelson, Mary Jo Pehl

As if Rifftrax didn't have enough turkeys on the table...

Tired of that lame old Thanksgiving bird?  Well then, Let's Talk Turkey!  This short shows off various mouthwatering dishes that can be made with turkey in addition to traditionally roasted.  Lots of food on display, and for those in Home Ec classes or just wishing to learn a few new recipes in general, prepare to take notes.

"Man, turkey propaganda is boring!"

Of course it's short with a droning narrator, which makes paying attention for the full twenty minutes.  Luckily Bridget and Mary Jo are on our side to keep us awake.  They actually feel a bit more low key than their usual giggly selves, and sometimes their riffs are slight, but amusing. In some portions the duo play eager students trying to keep track of all the tips, and get frustrated with the short, which is always worth a laugh.

This is a solid short, though not quite a home run for the all-star team of Bridget and Mary Jo.  I laughed, though not as often as I do in some of their other shorts.  Still this one comes easily recommended.

Thumbs Up

👍

Deadly Prey (Rifftrax)

Film Year:  1987
Genre:  Action
Director:  David A. Prior
Starring:  Cameron Mitchell, Troy Donahue, Ted Prior, Suzanne Tara
Rifftrax Year:  2016
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

The Movie

Watching Deadly Prey I was reminded of a cheap low-rent Jean Claude Van Damme movie until I realized it was basically just Hard Target only done much worse.  Then I felt the need to apologize to Van Damme (just don't tell him that).  This movie sees suburban badass Mike Danton being kidnapped by a group of soldiers to be hunted and killed as a training exorcise.  Luckily Danton is a former soldier with a few Rambo type tricks up his sleeve.

One would think this type of Most Dangerous Game story would attract the attention of someone who was making hot action flicks in the 80's like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone, but Deadly Prey aims much lower than that.  It's ambitions are so low they drag through the dirt.  Instead it goes for "the important thing is that you TRIED" director/actor combo of David A. Prior and his musclebound brother Ted Prior (work in the estranged sibling Richard Prior and just maybe we'd have a real movie here).  Nothing about the movie feels as exhilarating as an action movie should.  Action sequences are basic point gun and shoot, with no flair, while the fight choreography lacks creativity.  As for onscreen charisma, Ted Prior has a Dolph Lundgren look about him, though he has none of the charm.  I guess the best way I could describe this movie is imagine a Cannon production but without the lofty production value.

But a low quality action movie is something I can live with, but Deadly Prey becomes a somewhat unpleasant and angry little movie as it approaches its conclusion.  As the bad guys become more frustrated with Prior's character, they decide to kidnap his wife and rape her...you know, because the guy wasn't pissed off enough already.  It's gratuitous and unnecessary, and I don't think the movie really understands just how horrible it's plot turn was.  We have a woman who went through something traumatic and haunting, yet when she screams "He raped me!" later on in the movie she says it with a pouty look on her face like spoiled girl who didn't get what she wanted for her birthday.  And if that wasn't enough, the movie just ends with her getting gunned down to make her husband even more unhinged.  Thanks for that movie, you're really racking up the cool points.

Though I admit for a while I at least understood what the movie wanted to be.  It's when it tries to be an edgy aggressive movie is where it becomes truly wretched.  I'm guessing the movie has something of a cult following, because somehow a sequel was made, 2013's Deadliest Prey.  I'm not sure what they see in it, unless they're big time trash lovers.  Those who want something trashy will definitely get it.

The Trax

"Wait...where are you going you idiot!  Get back up there, you're doing Special Forces wrong!"

Getting a low rent 80's action movie is a win for movie riffing from any group, and for the most part Deadly Prey leaves itself wide open.  There is so much to comment on, from the bland style of the film, to the incoherent action sequences, laughable acting, and even just the general look of everything in particular.  Deadly Prey offers itself up to Rifftrax on a silver platter.  Mike, Kevin, and Bill accept and give this goofball film a good ribbing, successfully playing up its stupidity.

Though if I were to criticize the riff in the film's most vile scenes it feels like our boys struggle to lighten the mood.  Certain scenes can be a bit of a brick wall, and Mike, Kevin, and Bill seem to be more low key in order to let them pass and get on with the more fun stupidity.  However, this isn't always the case.  As the film gets bat shit insane in it's climax they actually riff away with flair, noting the film's apparent issues with women as the female lead is mercilessly slaughtered and our seemingly insane hero closes the film out by screaming into the sky.

At times Deadly Prey has the makings of a genuinely classic riff.  Unfortunately I can't quite recommend it for everyone because sometimes the movie, as dumb as it is, is overtly harsh and uncaring about that.  The riffing for the most part strikes gold and most who watch it will definitely be howling at this one.

Good

Tic Toc Time Clock (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2012
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

A mad coach takes twelve children and turns them into a HUMAN CENTIPEDE...er...I mean clock.  Yeah, that's it.  He gives each one a number and makes them lay down on a device with deadly rotors and teaches them how to tell the time.  Or else their FINGERS go into the rotors!

Clocks may seem simple enough, though I remember being a kid and struggling to learn how a hand clock worked.  So to an extent a short on this subject is welcome, although I don't think it answers the questions I had way back when (it was that damn minute hand that got to me).  But it gets across the twelve numbers on a clock relating to a twenty-four hour day at the very least.  It's just VERY LOAD about it.

The short is colorful and fast paced.  There's definitely a lot to work with as far as riffing goes, with the loud broadness of it being front and center.  The thing that Mike, Kevin, and Bill can't seem to work past is the coach "sporting" motif that the short goes for, which supposedly gets children PUMPED to learn about clocks.  This just confuses our riffers, as they point out how contrasting the subject and the approach seem to be.  A child get's a wrong answer, to which Mike screams "DROP AND GIVE ME TWENTY!"

Tic Toc Time Clock is a breezy short with a lot of solidly funny riffing.  I'd highly recommend it on the basis that there is more laughs in these twelve minutes than I usually get in twelve hours.  CLOCK HUMOR!  Damn I'm good!

Thumbs Up

👍

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhatten (iRiffs)

Film Year:  1989

Genre:  Horror

Director:  Rob Hedden

Starring:  The Big Apple...and a little bit of Vancouver...and a boat
Riffer:  EDISRAW

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

An undisclosed amount of time after Jason is dragged to the bottom of the lake by the zombie father of a psychic girl (?!), he is awakened and boards a vessel taking a graduation class to New York City for a senior trip.  One by one he murders people, because that's his thing.  The survivors escape the ship and flee into the city to hide from the mass murderer.

Jason Takes Manhattan one is one of those entries in the series that is seemingly hated but I don't really have any hard feelings against.  It always seemed to me one of those so dumb it's funny kind of movies.  The logic in the Friday the 13th has always been sketchy, but this one throws it all out the window and embraces it's own stupidity.  As a result we get over the top deaths, a teleporting Jason, an inane story, and laughable special effects.  I think it's a hoot, to be honest.

It does fuck up the timeline a little bit, as the main character claims she was almost drowned by a little boy Jason that lived in the lake about ten to twelve years prior, though Jason should have been an adult around that point (not to mention that Jason living in the lake as a child is all different kinds of stupid), so this shouldn't have happened.  It's a movie without reason, seemingly throwing random ideas into the screenplay and never bothering with a second draft.  But I have no excuses or reason for this movie.  It's just a hollow thing to watch and maybe get drunk to.

It's the final film of the Friday the 13th films made by Paramount Pictures (except for the 2009 remake, which was a joint venture with New Line Cinema), who chose to let the franchise just die as the box office dwindled.  It feels like an interesting bookend to the 80's slasher craze to have 1980 start the Friday franchise and 1989 end it.  Of course New Line purchased the Jason character and gave him several more movies, but to an extent those feel a bit too separated from what Friday the 13th seemed to represent.  I don't particularly think this franchise is all that great, but these first eight movies are something of a legacy worth noting, whether you like them or not.

The Riff

And instantly every fear I have about purchasing an iRiff is realized with one purchase.  This is one of the worst riffing experiences I've ever sat through.

::rubs temples::inhales deeply and exhales::  Okay, so let's start with the technical details.  This is a very low tech riff.  It's recorded as EDISRAW is viewing the movie while he's speaking into a microphone.  You can easily tell this because the movie echos in the background.  There is also a low hum that accompanies the entire track.  It also doesn't record his voice very well, and even at full volume he is constantly being drowned out by the movie.  This is partially due to his delivery, but put a pin in this point because I will talk about it further below.  Furthermore, one can constantly hear him messing around with stuff during the riff, possibly moving his microphone, typing on a keyboard, and just rummaging around.  At one point I'm pretty sure I heard a soda can being opened, but I can't confirm that.

I could have lived with this if the sync worked at all.  First of all the riff gave me no indication as to where I should start the riff or the movie to sync them up.  After about three minutes of screwing around I think I had finally found where it matched up.  Then it drifted.  I spent another good amount of time resyncing until I reached a satisfying result.  Then it drifted again.  I synced again.  Drift.  After about twenty minutes of this I suddenly realized this riff was synced to the PAL version of the film, which was never mentioned at any point in the description.  So basically I spent three bucks on a riff that wasn't even well made and I couldn't even use in the first place!

It was easy to find feedback on Hor-RIFF-ic's iRiffs, with this one I couldn't find any feedback at all.  I felt there needed to be something said about it so people who look at it might know what they're buying if they choose to purchase this.  A "let the buyer beware" message if nothing else.  I was determined to finish this experience, at the expense of keeping my hand on the pause button of the riff.  Taking into the fact that the constant resyncing was souring my mood, I did my best to review the riff as objectively as possible.  While I liked the idea of certain jokes, a lot of them made me cringe, as well as the several poorly placed callbacks to Mystery Science Theater.  It's possible that if they were delivered better this riff might have been funnier, but there are a fair amount that just made me raise an eyebrow.  The jokes that do seem like they could have been funny wound up misfiring because the poor syncing of the movie gave them to me in the wrong places, not to mention the EDISRAW has a tendency to mumble.  When I can make out what he's saying, the tone of his voice misdelivers almost every joke he says.  To be completely honest, his voice is nasally and overly sarcastic, almost as if this riff was recorded by one of the Goth Kids from South Park.  This especially becomes a problem when he tries to deliver a line as a character, but he just sounds the same just in a higher pitch.  It's monotonous.

Comparing a Friday the 13th riff to other Friday the 13th riffs, the team at Hor-RIFF-ic Productions provided pitch perfect sync instructions as well as supplying a Rifftrax approach to keeping the audios lined up.  Now I can accept that not everyone has these capabilities, but to not even give clear indication of syncing the movie or which regional version of the movie I'm supposed to be working with pretty much makes this riff worthless.  They also give the audience a more professional delivery system and enthusiasm for what they're doing.  And the big kick to the junk is Hor-RIFF-ic's far superior products are for sale at iRiffs for $1.99 each.  This is 90 cents more for an inferior product.  I can at least appreciate that the person who made this tried, but this shouldn't have been a riff I paid for.  This should have been for free on YouTube.

Not Recommended

Snap Out of It! (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2009
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

Snap Out of It is the powerful tale of a teenage boy who is unhappy with the grades given to him, so he pouts about it and is sent to the principal's office.  There he is told to keep his emotions in check and to shoot for goals but keep expectations realistic.

This short is a companion piece to Act Your Age to try and keep over-emotional teenagers in check and prevent them from getting pissy.  I highly doubt it worked, though it's a swell moral.  I can't complain or talk too much about this short because it's pretty self explanatory.

The riffing is fairly on target for the most part.  There are a few dry patches, though when Mike, Kevin, and Bill get a good hit on this thing you'll throw your head back and laugh.  Jokes range on the lead's whineyness, his failing grades ("I got a 'D' in Male Sexuality!"), and the overall dated presentation of the short.  Snap Out of It is a solid belly laugh short.

Thumbs Up

👍

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (Hor-RIFF-ic Productions)

Film Year:  1985
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Danny Steinman
Starring:  Jason Voorhees ::snicker::snicker:: No seriously, he's in it.

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

Truth in advertising has always been a hot topic.  Promising a "final chapter" and then blatantly ignoring that promise the following year is probably one of the more glaring examples of lying to get butts into seats, at least in the movie biz.  It helped the previous Friday the 13th sell tickets, but here we have another one, an attempt to keep that revenue coming but try and put a fresh spin on it to at least promise "a new beginning."

And by "fresh spin" I of course mean do the exact same shit all over again.

This story picks up around a decade after the previous film.  Tommy Jarvis has grown out of being Corey Feldman (good for him!) but is now being housed in a home for troubled teenagers.  One day a hockey-masked killer starts murdering everyone around him.  Has Tommy snapped or has Jason returned from the grave?

Turns out it's neither.  And legions of people in the audience simultaneously ask for their money back.

Friday the 13th:  A New Beginning is thought of being one of the lesser Friday films, with fans citing "Derz no JASON!" as being the reason why it sucks.  It doesn't suck for that reason.  It sucks because it has the Friday the 13th title.  Jason not being in it is merely incidental.  And hell, while we're at it Jason wasn't the killer in the first movie either, so it's not really a reasonable excuse anyway.

As a social experiment I almost wish I could test Friday the 13th fans who were watching this movie for the first time and stop it before the reveal of who the killer is and poll whether or not they were enjoying the movie.  My theory is that most would say "yes."  But I'm not really a Friday fan, so I have no experience in this myself.

Is there anything else in this movie that makes it distinct enough to be singled out like that?  It's a lot broader than the previous films, with sillier and more absurd stabs at comedy.  At the same time the victims of the film are mostly innocent outcasts (a good chunk of them anyway), which makes them more sympathetic than usual, so seeing them get mowed down doesn't have the same effect as teen characters defying morality.  And then there is the reveal of the killer himself, which is absurd to say the least.  The character is given a very specific reason to be angry and psychotic, but he goes after a group of innocents while the person who wronged him gets away scott free earlier in the movie.  That said, the character is someone who was introduced earlier in the movie, which makes the reveal just barely more satisfying than Mrs. Voorhees' reveal in the first film.

A New Beginning is a bad movie, but it gets too little credit in series of films that aren't really that much better.  I can't quite get into the mindset of the average Friday the 13th fan, but from an outsider's point of view I'd dare say this movie is underrated.  But then I remember that it's bloody awful regardless.

The Riff

While I personally don't believe A New Beginning to be particularly better or worse than the previous films, I will have to admit there is something about it that just clicks with the riffing format.  Maybe it's the fact that it's broader, zanier, more cartoonish.  Because of that it offers something a bit different to work with, and maybe it's the big shot in the arm that Hor-RIFF-ic Productions needs to keep doing these Friday the 13th riffs.

The movie presents itself as a cartoon, so Gary, Erin, and Satan treat it like one.  This riff pretty much takes what's happening on screen and over-emphasizes it to humorous effect.  It's an effective approach and the gang seems very enticed by a film that brings something new to the table.  They find amusement in the film's emphasized lewdness and underline it, as if saying "Really, movie?"  They take the characters' caricature personalities and enhance them, turning them into something more memorable than they are in the film itself.  This riff is seriously a blast to watch.

After watching the first four Friday films I was concerned that maybe taking on the entire series was simply too impossible a task.  Watching this fifth film I'm glad to have been proven wrong.  Friday films can feel exactly the same, but if there is something new to discover in them then maybe just maybe the right riffing team can tap an oil well.  The team behind Hor-RIFF-ic Productions taps the oil well in Friday the 13th:  A New Beginning and laughs are aplenty, bringing about the best Friday the 13th riff yet.  It makes me rub my hands in excitement for them to tackle Part VI should that day ever come.

Classic

Clean and Neat with Harv and Marv (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2014
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

Not to be confused with the "Clean and Neat" titled short shown on Mystery Science Theater, this Clean and Neat short is another film in the Harv and Marv series, who we previously saw in a short called Tooth Truth.  This time the "beloved" animated sprites become fascinated with filth, causing and they begin to watch little boys shower.  Did that come out creepy?  They're just studying how to be clean!  That's what they tell their lawyer anyway.

This cutesy short is supposed to delight children into learning the importance of bathing, though I'm not certain that two annoying animated characters scoffing at the idea is the best way to go about it.  Harv's dislike of being anything but a human fungal infection is played up for laughs, while Marv treats the idea of bathing almost like he would if he were bi-curious.  Children are supposed to laugh at their ignorance, instead I just find myself horrified.

It's been a while since I've seen Tooth Truth, so I don't know how Clean and Neat holds up to it, but I'd have to say this is a pretty funny one.  Mike, Kevin, and Bill seem very cautiously intrigued by these Harv and Marv characters, who are tiny animated people who claim they aren't human.  The kookiness of the short is played up and pushed to further limits, as the riffers point out their creepy behavior and edge it just slightly to make it even creepier.

I'm not sure how many Harv and Marv shorts there are, though if there are any more and they can make them this funny then bring them on.

Thumbs Up

👍

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (Hor-RIFF-ic Productions)

Film Year:  1984
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Joeseph Zito
Starring:  Corey Feldman's bad haircut, a dancing Crispin Glover

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

Friday the 13th is about as unkillable as it's hockey-masked antagonist.  The series tried to give the world a grand finale not once but TWICE and neither of them stuck.  At least in the case of Jason Goes to Hell:  The Final Friday it took nine full years for them to bring back the Jason character, but with Friday the 13th:  The Final Chapter they pretty much just lied to their audience and brought a sequel out the following year.

But supposedly this was to be the final film with Jason, who was becoming something of a horror superstar.  It feels strange to me that they felt the need to give him a major sendoff after only two movies of him being the primary killer (and only one with his famous hockey mask, which I guess gained instant notoriety), but I wasn't yet born when these first four Fridays were released (I popped out of the womb later in 1984) so I probably don't have a context for how popular Jason was.  It was around Jason Takes Manhattan that I started becoming familiar with the ideas and tropes of the character (I wasn't yet allowed to watch the movies), and by then Jason was definitely a legend.

Friday the 13th:  The Final Chapter is another film that supposedly doesn't take place on a Friday the 13th.  It starts on the night after the previous film which was already the day after Part 2, which would mean it starts on Sunday the 15th, and continues into the next day which means technically this is Monday the 16th.  In yet another spot around Crystal Lake a group of teenagers rent out a house to screw around in.  However Jason escapes the morgue and hitchhikes back home to kill them all once again.

Friday fans consider this one of the best of its series.  I'm not too inclined to disagree.  It's one of the more slickly made Friday movies and it keeps the hollow fun vibe the previous film offered.  It's inane as hell though, even by Friday the 13th standards.  It introduces a character related to a victim from Part 2, who is apparently out for revenge and has been studying Jason for years...despite his relative having been killed three days prior.  Pre-Stand By Me Corey Feldman has a big climactic scene with Jason in the finale, and his plan to bring the masked killer down rivals the sweater girl from Part 2 for dumbest plan I've ever seen in a horror movie.

But it's bubblegum entertainment.  Don't think too hard about it, just chew it.  Look at the pretty girls take their tops off, watch gore effects by Tom Savini, see silent film porn, and take in that weird dance that pre-Back to the Future Crispin Glover is doing for some reason.  In all these aspects Friday the 13th:  The Final Chapter delivers more than most Friday the 13th films.

The Riff

There's something that can be said for the persistence of Hor-RIFF-ic Productions, as they continue to chug along on these Friday films.  I'd love for all of them to be riffed, so they have my full support in doing so.  Unfortunately starting off in this one it feels like they're phoning it in.  For the first few sequences this riff doesn't have a lot of laughs, and Gary, Erin, and Satan sound like they're bored.  With a film series that thrives on giving the audience more of the same, I can't really blame them.

"She died as she lived:  For no apparent reason at all."

Once we meet the main cast of horny teenagers the humor pace picks up.  They're a colorful batch of sluts and boytoys this time around, and our riffers seem to get more material out of their silly partying ways.  The steady incline peaks and levels out at about the hour mark, making the riff leave a better impression when it ends than when it started.

"Did Jason just kill someone with a jump cut?"

All of this in consideration I'd say this one is better than Part 2, but on the whole the funny quota just isn't reached for me to consider it a must see.  The people at Hor-RIFF-ic have proved that Friday the 13th can give them exactly what they need to thrive, but I hope the next time around they fine tune and polish the riff script up a bit.

Average

Parade of Aquatic Champions (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2010
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

Parade of Aquatic Champions is one of those shorts in which a narrator gushes about how wonderful people who are actually about exorcising are while the people sitting in the theater munching on popcorn and candy have to listen to it.  Here they show off competitive swimmers and divers, and we see a lot of diving, splashing, and belly flops.  Maybe a bit TOO much.

This is about average for the type of short it is.  It's a monotonous ten minutes of people swimming, which doesn't replicate the fun of actually being in the crowd.  It tries so hard though.

Initially riffed for Rifftrax Live's Christmas Shorts-Stravaganza show, this is a studio version featuring pretty much the very same riffs.  Unfortunately this short was hands down the weakest link in the Live show, but maybe away from the context of those superior shorts that surrounded it then it might impress?  No, not really.

There's not really a lot here they find inspiration with.  It's just a lot of similar footage and most of it inspires similar riffs.  There is some fun had at a swimmer named "Larry" who appears to be a woman, but that's about as different as it gets.  Overall I chucked a few times, but this just isn't a strong offering, Live or otherwise.

Thumbs Down

👎

Friday the 13th Part III (Hor-RIFF-ic Productions)

Film Year:  1982
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Steve Miner
Starring:  Shelly and his beloved hockey mask, 3D objects COMIN' RIGHT FOR US!

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

This third Friday actually takes place on a Saturday.  You see, it's the day after the last movie and Jason's still alive.  There are a group of horny teenagers staying at a farmhouse not far from Crystal Lake and this understandably pisses him off.  After using some bikers as a slaughter appetizer, Jason murders the group one by one once again, one of which gives him his trademark hockey mask.

I think if you were to ask me, outside of Freddy vs. Jason, what Friday the 13th film was my "favorite" (favorite being a relative term), I'd probably point to this one first (or the reboot film, which is arguably the least poorly made one at the very least).  Oddly enough in Friday fandom this one doesn't seem to be held in very high regard.  I can't attest to what they would prefer this movie to be because I think I've proven myself to be very, very outside of that fandom, so I can only speak for what I respond to in this movie.

But while Friday the 13th Part III is a step down in style (as much as I dog those first two films, the down and dirty look of them works for them) I'd argue that the less serious tone of "Oh what the hell, these movies don't have a story, LETZ GET NUTZ!" makes Friday III more of a fun film for me.  It has no pretensions to it.  I doesn't smugly present a half-assed twist like the first film.  While it's a hollow retread like the second, there's more effort into being made a ride.  Characters are goofier, and there is even a small attempt at developing them.  Obviously this can't happen in a Friday the 13th movie so the offenders are promptly killed.

The film was originally filmed in 3D and while I haven't seen a 3D version, I imagine it didn't play much better.  Like most 80's 3D films the pop effects look horridly fake and the picture is ugly and smeared.  At least in the meaningless 3D resurgence of the 2010's films had better picture quality.  These 80's attempts are just hard to watch.

The Riff

Hor-RIFF-ic Productions is game for redemption after the last Friday failed to make much of an impression.  Part III is a bit of a bounce back for Greg, Erin, and Satan, which has a smoother joke run in it.  The first fifteen minutes of it is probably the highlight, with some better riffing for the previous film offered and a solid intro scene where Jason stalks a bickering married couple.

Once the main cast is introduced, there's a mild decline in humor, but it stays pretty funny for the most part.  There are a few misfires, prominently I don't think the Droopy Dog voice they adopt works very well paired with the Shelly character.  They also ride on poo jokes a bit, though to be fair the film gives them multiple dirty bathroom scenes and leaves itself wide open for them.

Overall I laughed quite a bit and smiled my way through this one.  The characters give them a little more personality to work with (...some of them anyway...) which leads to solid gags involving pregnancy cravings, annoying Shelly antics, and the wackiest motorcycle gang in the history of film.  Friday III is a pretty good offering for this riffing group.

Good

Gifts from the Air (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2017
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

"Good lord!  Are flesh-eating toy soldiers real?!"

Gifts from the Air is a 1937 animated short by Columbia Pictures which was featured as a part of their Color Rhapsody series.  This tells the tale of a broken toy soldier thrown away from a toy store but picked up by a poor boy.  The boy fixes the soldier and takes him home, where the soldier calls Santa Claus in gratitude who brings presents to the boy while he sleeps.

It's not a subtle short about the joys of kindness and giving, and it's more playful than it is enjoyable.  Gifts from the Air is harmless though it's hard to have any sort of opinion on it, especially when far better animated shorts were being produced at the time by Disney, Warner Brothers, and Fleischer Studios.  In fact it came out the same year Disney changed the animation game with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which makes it even more primitive by comparison.

It's fairly well animated though.

"I'm pretty sure that's racist, but it's hard to tell how because I'm so terrified."

The short is mostly dialogue-less for the majority of it, which partially works in their favor since they can fill it with nonstop humor.  Due to the quantity over quality style of the riffing there are a lot of gags that land, even if there are a fair amount that are just meh.

Of course Mike, Kevin, and Bill zero in on what was considered "P.C." in different times, pretty much from the Native American caricature in the opening credits of the piece.  What they seem to crave the most is the chaos of the finale, which is just a bunch of toys doing trippy things.  Mike, Kevin, and Bill are horrified by what they see, but they can easily make it hilarious in doing so.

Thumbs Up

👍

Friday the 13th Part 2 (Hor-RIFF-ic Productions)

Film Year:  1981
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Steve Miner
Starring:  Jason Voorhees and a potato sack

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

Five years after the events of the original Friday the 13th Part 2 picks up at a counselor training center training horny boys and bra-less girls coincidentally around Camp Crystal Lake.  Of course this means women's clothes are coming off and victims heads are popping off.  Surely the presumed dead son of the killer from the first movie can't be responsible, can he?  Are you willing to bet a ten-plus film franchise on that?

This second round of Friday the 13th nonsense is pretty much more of the same crap that made up the first film, and yet it's somehow simultaneously both better and worse at the same time.  If I were to praise anything about this particular round it's that I love the way Jason Voorhees is portrayed as a campfire story that comes true, which gives this film an urban legend flavor that is leaps and bounds more interesting than the botched whodunit of the first film.  Because of that Jason is a more interesting antagonist than his mother, even if he's just a generic undead killer from now on.

But dragging it down is the fact that the film feels redundant.  Despite this added touch to the featured villain this film almost feels exactly the same as the previous.  Hell, for a good portion of the opening ten minutes in this eighty minute movie it just shows footage from the previous one.  It gets rambunctiously sillier as it goes on as well, leading up to a climactic scene that's almost too stupid to be believed.  The main character tricks Jason by putting on his mother's sweater so he'll think she's his mother.  I'm not sure what prompted her to do this, but it's one for the bad movie logic books that's for damn sure.

The kills get amped up and the nudity gets more graphic, so if you need that in your Friday movies then you'll get it.  This movie however barely exists at all, despite being the first film of a beloved horror icon.

The Riff

I imagine I might be accused of bias in giving a glowing review to Hor-RIFF-ic's first Friday the 13th riff.  To this I say ABSOLUTELY I was biased.  Seeing that particular film riffed was a dream come true.  Oddly enough I've never given much thought to riffing the sequels, probably preferring to think about it one film at a time.  I'm sure if you can make that first film funny you can make the others as well though.  Does Hor-RIFF-ic live up to the standards of their first release?

Ultimately they tread dangerous waters early on when they are forced to riff stock footage of the previous film.  They complain about riffing the same footage more than once and pass off the job of riffing it to their sync operator, Satan, in a fairly forced attempt to make the footage fresh.  I liked Satan's line about the "bad trip" during the canoe scene, but for the most part this sequence bombed.

The camaraderie of Gary and Erin bounce it back somewhat for the rest of the film, though the riff doesn't seem to have the same momentum as the first Friday.  The duo breaks out the bad puns quite a bit and they even seem to be in a musical mood at certain points ("Gory Days!"), though their delivery doesn't quite have much oomph to push this dry copy of the first film into being anything special.  Even when the film delivers the slaughter gauntlet climax Gary and Erin seem a tad bored by it more than anything.

Oh and there is also a surprisingly large amount of jokes about menstruation.  I don't even think Bridget and Mary Jo made this many during Naturally...a Girl.

That's not to say the riff is bad.  There are some great lines that took me by surprise, such as a girl searching for her wheelchair-bound boyfriend through a cabin, causing them to observe "Upstairs?  That's the one place you know he CAN'T be!"  There is also a chase scene between Jason and a cop halfway through the movie that probably has the best riff run of the entire track.

It's possible that if Hor-RIFF-ic stumbled with this film then it could probably be blamed on the film itself.  It's just not that inspiring, even in making fun of it.  I saw in that first movie that Gary and Erin are a swell riffing combo, though it's possible that maybe going back to this well could prove to be a mistake.  But there are still ten more Fridays in the series, and they just get goofier.  Maybe there is hope yet.

Average

Mr. Moto Takes a Walk (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2010
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

A woman takes her pet monkey to the zoo, where the titular Mr. Moto runs away and searches for all animals that start with each letter of the alphabet.  This is a crash combination of Alphabet Antics and Johnny at the Fair, where we watch a wandered off soul look at all the big things around him and he has to learn letters while he's at it.  This short is fairly standard fluff, teaching children while being cutesy about it.  There is very little value to it if you're over the age of five though.

Mike, Kevin, and Bill seem to be having fun with a short with a monkey as its main character, so of course there are poo flinging jokes inbound.  The humor gets a bit too dirty for my tastes and we're given bodily function and sexual humor quite often pretty much beginning to end.  This feels like it should be a fun short, but it lacks diversity (both in short content and riffing) and becomes one-note.

It's not a total loss, as there are several gags that gave me a good chuckle.  I feel like I should be laughing more during twelve minutes though.  Mr. Moto Takes a Walk shouldn't be very high on your must-see list of shorts to catch up on.

Thumbs Down

👎

Friday the 13th (Hor-RIFF-ic Productions)

Film Year:  1980
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Sean Cunningham
Starring:  Betsy Palmer, Kevin Bacon, Adrienne King

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

Slasher films didn't quite spring up out of nowhere, as they had been slowly evolving for decades.  There were strangler films pre-dating 1960 that are pretty much the same concept, though by Psycho these killers broke out the sharp instrument to kill the victims.  Then you get variations on the subject like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Black Christmas, leading up to the definition of the genre in Halloween.  Friday the 13th was one of the first movies to capitalize on the success of John Carpenter's slasher establishment, and cemented those foundations as tropes.

But let's be honest here, this movie just isn't very good.

Considered as a classic by many, I can't get behind this movie that well.  There are a few films in the Friday series I enjoy because their sheer stupidity pushes them into so-bad-it's-good territory, though this original is a bit of a dry meandering slog focusing on characters without personality wandering around aimlessly and getting killed one by one.  Sometimes the death toll is amusing, but the movie is largely a chore.

The "story," as it is, has a summer camp being re-opened several decades after the murder of two camp counselors forced it to shut down.  A group of new counselors come to fix the place up only to die unnoticed by the others for the majority of the film.  Is it the same killer as before?

Spoiler Alert:  Yes it is.  And if you said it's Jason Voorhees, you're as wrong as Drew Barrymore in Scream.  The killer in this movie is actually Pamela Voorhees, Jason's mother, in what has got to be one of the lamest twists in film history.  The hiding of the killer's identity in this film supposedly leads up to a big reveal of the killer's identity, which would have been much more interesting if the film presented itself as a whodunit.  They seem to be up for this by introducing a bunch of red herrings for the first half hour of the film, but instead in the end they introduce this character out of nowhere and she's just batshit bonkers.

The biggest defense of the reveal is that Mrs. Voorhees goes against the trope of the musclebound masculine murderer of the type the genre usually offers, which makes the twist work for many, but it's never been of much interest to me.  It's just a stunningly limp reveal of "Oh my god, the killer's a WOMAN?!?!?  And SHE'S OLD?!?!?!"  This reveal also only works if you ignore all the male body double shots of the killer throughout the movie.  Nah, I'm not falling for that numbskullery.  It would have been more interesting if her character were introduced earlier in the film and then was revealed to be the killer, that might have saved this twist.

Friday the 13th is pretty much proof that just because something is considered a classic doesn't always make it good.  People love this movie unconditionally, which is fine, but boy does this movie fail hard for me.

The Riff

This is my first venture into iRiff groups, which I don't have any experience with (aside from ICWXP, which is available on iRiffs but predate it as a group), so a lot of this stuff will be new to me.  I chose Hor-RIFF-ic Productions to start me off for the simple fact that they've riffed Friday the 13th, which I've been dying to see Rifftrax tackle since day one.  I've also watched video clips of them on their website, which I thought were pretty decent.  Since they've riffed the first five movies, I've decided to journey through their work on this series that has been begging for the riffing format for years.  If nothing else I've decided to venture into fan riffing on this blog to get some damn closure on this unfulfilled chapter of my life.

Hor-RIFF-ic Productions is the riffing group of Gary and Erin Slasher, a husband and wife duo of a slasher killer and a zombie who are bitter that they never hit it big in Hollywood horror films, so they've decided to make fun of them instead.  It's a simple enough idea and Gary and Erin are having fun with these characters and while they sometimes astray a bit into scenery chewing territory, I enjoy what they've created with the duo.

On the subject of the riffing, well I can definitely say this movie doesn't disappoint as a riffing target.  It's so spacious with plenty of places to fill with humor, but the question is whether or not Gary and Erin are up to the task of providing a continuous string of comedy for 90 minutes.  It's understandable to be tepid about dipping your toe into amateur productions when you have a perfectly good professional team that's delivering constant new content on the very site that these homebrews are selling their riff on.  But as nervous as I might have been at giving this riff a shot, I'm going to risk being accused of hyperbole by saying I outright loved it.

Now, for sure Hor-RIFF-ic doesn't reach the heights of Mystery Science Theater or Rifftrax.  If I were to give them constructive criticism on anything it's that their delivery is a bit too jokey and upbeat, giving the flavor of scripted and planned out as opposed to a natural delivery feel.  But in general I'd say for the most part their riffing is quite laugh-out-loud funny.  Sometimes they fall back on running gags from MST or Rifftrax (which is usually what I fear most in fan riffs), but not as often as you'd expect.  Their original material, especially for the first half of the film, is usually quite observational and well played.  And during the spacious sequences of silence sometimes they deliver quality skits when they risk running into monotonous material.  The "warnings against marijuana usage" during Kevin Bacon's death scene is pretty damn brilliant.  Though I will admit that the opening credits are a fair fail where one of these could have been used.  Instead they find themselves reading names and putting humorous slants on them.  It's not horrible, but it feels like a wasted area.

I won't lie, part of the reason I enjoyed this riff so much is because of the movie chosen.  It's just so perfect for the format and it has been frustrating to no end to see Rifftrax ignore it in favor of choice blockbusters that didn't really offer them much of anything for their comedy.  A lesser comedy team probably could have done well with this film, but Hor-RIFF-ic's repartee with it feels like something I have dreamed of for years.  Something I've always said is that the best riffs are always symbiotic experiences between the perfect movie and a crew that fluidly dances with it, which is something Hor-RIFF-ic accomplishes here.  It's possible that there is a better riff of this movie that could be made, but the fact that Hor-RIFF-ic made such an accomplishment on their very first release is an impressive feat all the same.

Note:  There are two cuts of this movie out there.  Both theatrical and unrated are available on DVD while the blu-ray is solely unrated.  Hor-RIFF-ic offers separate tracks that can sync with both.  I'm not sure what the differences are (I synced mine up with unrated) but if you have either version you should be covered.

Classic

What If We Had a Fire? (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2010
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

Read this review repeatedly in case of a fire at your house.

I mean it.

Are you ready?  Good.

This short tells of a boy who is afraid of what his family can do in case of a fire, luckily a fireman has some helpful lecturing tips for him.  He then heads home, annoys his parents into coming up with a fire plan, and now the obsessed dad wakes his family in the middle of the night screaming "FIRE!" and forces them to evacuate the house.

Fire escape routes are important, so it's always best to have a plan.  The short is fairly simple and straightforward so there is nothing too glaringly terrible about it, other than a bit of underacting and a slothful climax of a fire drill.  But pretty much all the tips are on point, and children would definitely learn something watching it.

But Mike, Kevin, and Bill are not interested in learning fire escape routes.  They're here for a laugh, and the short provides some wonderful material for them.  There's some delicious dark humor at the expense of people potentially roasting alive, as they give the characters a nature of "Every man for himself" and "If you aren't overprepared everyone you know and love will die horribly."  Even during the family's successful evacuation climax, the riffers ponder how grandma will get out.

This isn't where the riffs stop, with some great jabs at the obsessive enthusiasm for fire safety in the short.  They also delight at the indignity of the scenarios, as mom is forced to crawl on the ground during a fire drill and Bill points out "What middle-aged woman wouldn't love to be filmed at this angle?"  Fire safety has never been so hilarious!

And if you didn't learn a thing about fire safety from this review, no refunds.

Thumbs Up

👍

K06-Gamera vs. Gaos

Film Year:  1967
Genre:  Kaiju, Fantasy
Director:  Noriaki Yuasa
Starring:  Kojiro Hongo, Kichijiro Uses, Naoyuki Ape
MST Season:  KTMA

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

Yay.  More Gamera.

This week a giant bat/reptile thing is unleashed and begins eating people.  Unfortunately Gemera butts in before he can eat our new Kenny, Itchy (no Scratchy?).  Can Gamera stop the rampage of this bloodthirsty beast?

I don’t care.  Just eat me now and get it over with.

Of the three seen on the show so far, this is the most painful yet.  The first two Gamera films at least took themselves seriously.  With this one the series degrades into child pandering.  The monster scenes become self-aware to the point that all that’s missing is Gamera turning to the audience and winking.

I guess this movie is noteworthy for introducing Gamera’s most prominent foe, Gayos (Sandy Frank spells it Gaos), who would later appear in Gamera vs. Guiron, Super Monster Gamera (via stock footage), Gamera:  Guardian of the Universe, Gamera:  Revenge of Iris, and Gamera the Brave.  He’s actually the only monster Gamera has fought more than once.  I always preferred Guiron myself, though.

Note:  The version of the film seen in this KTMA episode features a lengthy barrage of the film's monster footage at the beginning and then clips from the first three Gamera movies at the very end.  This must have been VHS era instant satisfaction, so kids could get to the monster battles without sitting through any human drama.  I daresay it's the more entertaining edit of the movie.

The Episode

Anybody who attempts a series rewatch in production order will find a hurdle early.  Of course we all know KTMA's improvised style was very sparse compared to what the series would eventually become, but watching five Gamera movies in a row I something I feel is a bit of a slog, even if one did so through the third season versions of these episodes (I've tried this and barely survived).  Doing the same during KTMA is almost unfathomable, but the series clustered these movies one after another making it almost unavoidable.  It's one of the reasons why I chose to do this blog in random order rather than production order, so I can let episodes breath outside of the context of their seasons and be judged on their own merits.  Episodes like the KTMA Gamera vs. Gaos benefit from this, because it has been quite a while since I've seen a Gamera episode, so I'm not sick of the giant turtle.

The riffing in this episode is better than the previous production episode, the original Gamera, by quite a bit.  One gets the sense of knowing they screwed the pooch a tad by letting Joel do an episode by himself, so Josh is in the theater with the Servo puppet and...well, he never shuts up.  There are points where Joel begins a riff and Servo just blurts a line right over him (sometimes they even seem t be making the same joke).  There are some good lines, Josh has Joel laughing hard at several points in the theater, and I was laughing at several points as well.  The hurtful thing is that yes, this is the third Gamera movie in a row and by this point they've become monotonous.  Gamera vs. Gaos is the worst yet (and arguably the worst movie featured on the show at this point) which will bleed through the KTMA style.  I'm not sure if I should take that into consideration of the episode's quality or not.

The highlight of the host segments is Servo gets a voice change.  In a mildly amusing segment Joel tinkers with him and Servo begins talking in the voice Josh would finally adopt for the character.  Taking inspiration for radio DJ's, Josh does a deeper announcer type of voice and dubs himself "Tom Servo," a name that would stick with the bot for the rest of the series.  Josh seems to be a tad too in love with this idea because throughout the episode he ends a lot of his lines with declaration of "I'm Tom Servo!"  Other segments include phone calls (one complains about the Gamera films, and another is a boy inviting Joel and the Bots to his birthday), and a re-establishment that Crow is still frozen (Trace is still unavailable for filming).  We also get the first nod to the Mads outside of the theme song, as Joel identifies them as Dr. Clayton Forrester and Dr. Lawrence Erhardt.  We wouldn't actually see the duo in action until next week.

This is also a bit of an unofficial Christmas special for the series, as it's the last episode of the KTMA run aired before Christmas, Crow is frozen to replicate a Christmas tree, and Joel says "Merry Christmas!" at the end of the episode.  Though other than that it has nothing really to do with the holiday.  I found myself enjoying the episode overall, but I find in retrospect it was more of a segmented enjoyment.  The riffs were fair, but my attention wandered because the movie is a bit rough.  But in the end I might have to say this is a solid episode for this run of the series.

Good

"Wake Me Up Before You Decompose" (ICWXP)

Featured Short:  "Victory Gardens"

The Short

ICWXP digs up this short out of someone's compost.  Personally I can't find much info on it, and I'm not even sure "Victory Gardens" is its actual title (the title has been chopped off of the print seen in this episode).  This short sees two children toiling away on their family's victory garden during World War II.  It also gives helpful tips on establishing and maintaining one's own garden, or victory garden should World War III pop up unannounced.

The short is mostly a dry affair.  Those interested in such gardening techniques will find more to like here than most others, though I find it pretty boring.  But who knows, maybe I'll dust this short off and take its tips should I need to start a victory garden of my own.

The Episode

This episode is transitional for Incognito Cinema Warriors.  Most glaring is that they're riffing a short and not a film, we're given a new voice to Topsy (now voiced by Nick Evans), and there seems to be more emphasis on world building in the host segments, being filmed with more flair than the usual straight camera puppet show approach.  It feels to me that ICWXP is tired of being an MST3K leech and is trying to become something new by telling a story outside of the film riffing.  Other than season eight's story arc (which let's face it, was half-assed), MST was never a story show.  Rikk Wolf and the guys working on this show seem to think this could be their strong point.  The issue I'm having is that the writing outside of the theater has not been ICWXP's strong suit up to this point, so I'm struggling to feel any sort of enthusiasm for the idea.

But if I were to give credit where credit is due, the host segments of this episode are probably the strongest ICWXP's offered.  It feels like more heart is being put into them than before, and maybe that's to be expected because now they're a major part of the show.  That said, there is not much that happens in this particular episode.  It comes up with an excuse for a time jump and why we may not have seen any more "full" episodes, while concluding in a long journey to a new robot friend.

It seems it is now five years since Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory, and the titular Incognito Cinema Warriors have watched hundreds of movies before going to war with Kincaid.  During the struggle Rick was taken prisoner and given amnesia, forcing him to forget everything after the previous episode.  Cylon and Topsy save him and bring him back to the theater, where they meet a mysterious new ally hiding behind a voice synthesizer who wishes to join the fight against Kincaid.

All of this is fine.  It's not impressive storytelling, but it's serviceable to what little story ICWXP has, caters to the constraints of the production itself, and is probably more funny than it isn't.  I was amused, though not really interested.  I'm hoping now that this comedic exposition is out of the way further episodes will do it better.

As for the riffing, it's quite good.  Victory Gardens is not really a short of momentum, though they riff upon it with enough grumbling sarcasm to make it bearable.  There is some dark fun at the expense of the war setting as well as jabs at the farming obstacles.  Probably my favorite line is a fairly simple one, when we see seed packets in the dirt and they wonder aloud "Why aren't my crops growing?"  There's also a strange commercial for Alka-Seltzer, which mostly seems like an excuse to riff on fat guys.  But honestly, that commercial is asking for it.

Wake Me Up Before You Decompose is ICWXP's shortest episode at a mere 47 minutes.  I remember rumors about Rikk Wolf shopping the concept around to network television, which leads me to believe these shorter episodes brought a better concept for them fill an hour slot with, as opposed to the two-hour long episodes of the past.  Whatever the reason for pulling back on the time limit, it's leaner than every previous episode and it goes down a bit easier.  I'm not sure if it's the best episode yet, as it's hard to compare what they did then with what they're doing now, but I'd say it ranks among the better.

Good

The DVD

ICWXP continues to offer an animorphic widescreen picture with a stretched format in the theater.  All things considered it looks pretty crisp.  It's also another disc loaded with extras, starting off with a 90 second preview of the next episode which sees Rick building a new weapon of some sort.

Next up is a featurette devoted to redressing the set, as Rikk Wolf and a construction crew get hard at work creating a more elaborate set for the new direction of the show.  If you ever wondered how much work he puts into ICWXP this is a good indicator.  Also about construction is a featurette called "Johnny Cylon Gets His Legs" which is mostly just close-ups of Cylon's new body being put together.

Up next is a segment called "Rick vs. Bride of the Gorilla" in which we get a peek into Rick's head during his VR purgatory in which he's forced to watch Bride of the Gorilla again.  There are some new jokes during the six minute segment for fans to mull over.

This disc also has not one but two audio commentaries.  The first is by Rikk Wolf and Nick Evans and they discuss the new style of ICWXP and what they've done to hopefully make the show better.  The second is a solo track by Wolf which mostly covers technical details.

The disc rounds out with a music video and a silly "Zombie Walk for Hunger."