910-The Final Sacrifice

Film Year:  1990
Genre:  Adventure, Fantasy
Director:  Tjardus Greidanus
Starring:  Bruce J. Mitchell, Christian Malcolm
MST Season:  9

The Movie

This Canadian epic tells the story of a boy who dresses like Gilligan named Troy on the hunt for the truth behind the death of his dad.  In his search he becomes targeted by a group of cultists seeking to sacrifice him to raise an ancient city of power.  Troy's only hope is to seek the guidance of Canada's greatest adventurer, Zap Rowsdower, a hopeless drunk who is eternally repairing his own truck.

This "zero-budget feature" is actually that phrase taken quite literally.  Apparently it was made by film students who borrowed equipment from the school and just went out and shot the fucker, to hell with filming permits.  To be honest since finding out this little detail about the making of this film it increased my interest in the film tenfold.  It's still not a very good movie, I mean as far as civilians without proper resources shooting a movie goes this is no Evil Dead, but now I can see a passion inside of it that I had never seen before.

If I were to criticize the film's cut and run style I'd say its reach far exceeded its grasp.  The people making this movie tried to make a film with fantastical elements but no proper way of portraying that fantasy with special effects (the climactic rising city looks like a toy they just shot up close sitting on a table).  The Final Sacrifice would have maybe been a tad better had it kept itself more grounded so they can keep all of its aspects in camera and sold by the actors.  They could keep the cast, maybe even the cult angle, and just lose what mysticism it's going for and maybe it would be easier to take a film like this seriously.

Ignoring how the film came to be, the film really just comes off as some crap you might have stumbled upon at the video store, got twenty minutes into, tired of, then returned it hoping for a refund.  It's easy to admire the drive it took to make this movie, but I wish I could say the resulting movie was enjoyable enough to say "job well done."

The Episode

When Final Sacrifice debuted MSTies were heard around the world howling with laughter.  Each moment of the episode was funnier than the last.  In unison all logged in to the infancy of the world wide web to state it was not only one of the best episodes of the Sci-Fi Channel run, but one of the best episodes of the show.

When Final Sacrifice debuted on my TV my reaction was "Yeah, that was a decently funny episode, I guess.  I wonder what's on next week?"

Yeah.  I'm going to be that guy.  I'm sorry.

I've always been kind of secretly surprised by the adoration of this episode by our rabid fanbase.  There isn't a lot wrong with it, but I don't really find it one of the funniest things I've ever seen.  I'd say the episode runs a bit repetitive for me, with many places where they just repeat the name "Rowsdower" in different tones over and over again.  I get why they're obsessed with it, it's a stupid name, but hearing it over and over again doesn't really make it funnier to me.  This type of humor really drives home the style of this episode, where they just latch onto something and ride it, driving it into the ground.  A lot of these jokes start out funny, such as the grizzled old prospector jokes, Canadian ribbing, and, of all the strange things, Larry Csonka, but by the episode's end I find I'm just ready for the entire episode to be done because I've heard way too many variations of the same joke.

That's not to say I don't enjoy the episode.  I get some hearty chuckles out of its best moments.  Zap Rowsdower himself is an MST legend:  a beer-guzzling reluctant hero...or a more somber version of Mitchell.  It's really hard not to love him and there is some quality riffs on this memorable character.  The cultist get some great riffs in their direction and a lot of the nerd quips thrown at Troy are excellent.  So yeah, the riffing is pretty good.  Not great, but I assure you it does make me laugh.

Even if one isn't impressed with the riffing one must at least remember the episode for The Canada Song, which is the unquestionable highlight of the host segments.  This song starts out as an ode to the great nation up north soon turns into an aggressive bit of Canada bashing, and it's quite catchy and funny.  Outside of that, I am quite fond of Pearl's master plan of ruling the world one person at a time, where she drags people in and asks them "Can I rule you?"  There are also cute host segments devoted to Hockey Hair and Grizzled Old Prospector Syndrome.

It seems like Pod People before it, The Final Sacrifice is one I've watched maybe one too many times trying to enjoy it as much as other people seem to.  Fortunately for me I'm far more fond of Final Sacrifice than I am Pod People even if I don't consider it an all-time classic.  There are way too many episodes that make me laugh more than this, and a great deal more that provide a more memorable experience to me.  I think it's time to put The Final Sacrifice to rest in my rotation of "Maybe THIS time..." and just accept that it will always just be a good episode to me, but never a great one.

Good

The DVD

The Final Sacrifice was released by Shout Factory in their Volume XVII collection with solid audio and video.  The sole special feature was an interview with the late Bruce J. Mitchell, who gives insight to the low budget production and the cast and crew.

Unfortunately the rights to this episode lapsed and the volume is out of print.