605-Colossus and the Headhunters

Film Year:  1963

Genre:  Fantasy, Adventure

Director:  Guido Malatesta

Starring:  Kirk Morris, Laura Brown, Alfredo Zammi

MST Season:  6

The Movie

Colossus and the Headhunters is the second Maciste film featured on Mystery Science Theater, after Hercules Against the Moon Men (which was turned into a Hercules film hoping Herc would sell more tickets).  Despite the title dubbing him "Colossus," Maciste keeps his birth name in this picture, which sees his home island destroyed as he and his people emerge from the ocean in the middle of a war between a beautiful Queen's village and a tribe of headhunters.

Seeing Maciste is an Italian film legacy that is being influenced by the Hercules films, one might hope Colossus and the Headhunters might take some notes in amusement from the popular Herc series.  This film has sequences of swordplay, but they lack imagination and are stiff and uninspired.  Maciste uses his great strength to give bear hugs, but doesn't really do a lot in the film, truth be told.  The movie just isn't that exciting.

Italian adventure films feel like they should have more flavor than this, and Colossus just doesn't leave any sort of impression at all.  If I were to describe the movie as anything I'd say it's one of those movies you could watch, but would text on your phone the entire time and forget watched it ten minutes after it ended.

The Episode

Colossus and the Headhunters at first glance is a fairly middling episode, though that might not be giving it enough credit.  For a movie that's pretty much an honorary Hercules movie it's really not that fun and for the most part Mike and the Bots have their work cut out for them on making it something watchable.  The movie resists by being a chore, though the riffing mood is suitably goofy.  Even if a joke doesn't land, they succeed in making the air in the theater a bit less stuffy.  The jokes that do land are howlers, and while Colossus isn't a laugh riot it succeeds in being an episode that will put a smile on your face.

The host segments stay goofy as well, with a subplot devoted to Dr. Forrester sending a genetically engineered pet named Nummy Muffin Coocol Butter up to the Satellite of Love, leaving Frank heartbroken for he desires to keep Nummy as his own pet.  Personally I find the idea behind these segments to be cute, but I don't think they had the juice in them to breathe an arc into the entire episode.  This feels like it should have been the opening skit at minimum or two segments at max.  It's stretched very thin and most of the jokes are exactly the same.

I can't say a whole lot about this episode because it doesn't inspire much of a reaction from me.  The movie is a waste of an Italian fantasy, the riffing gets the job done, and the host segments are tiring.  It's a good episode to watch, though I don't revisit it that often.

Good

The DVD

This episode was brought to us by Shout Factory as a part of their Volume XXXVIII collection.  The picture had minor flaws, though the audio was good.  The only bonus feature is called "Mike, by Joel" which has Joel discuss Mike's role on the show and how he came to be his replacement.  Joel shares some neat little tidbits, such as his personal choice to take over for him was Bridget, and it's interesting to hear him talk about his successor.  This feature does strike me as a minor missed opportunity in that it might have been more interesting to have a back and forth between Joel and Mike together over their duties on hosting the show, but what we have here is solid.