911-Devil Fish

Film Year:  1984
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Lamberto Bava
Starring:  The ORIGINAL Sharktopus, Michael Sopkiw, Gianni Garko, William Berger
MST Season:  9

The Movie

If you thought Roger Corman was this first to unleash the Sharktopus on an unsuspecting audience, this little Italian number beat him to the punch by a few decades.  This is a story of a group of Italian scientists off the coast of "Florida" who seek a creature that is feasting upon humans out in the ocean.  They discover it to be a mutant hybrid of a shark and an octopus created by the government, and now they must destroy it.

Initially titled Shark:  Red in the Ocean in its native land of Italy, and originally released as Monster Shark here in the States, Devil Fish was released in the wake of the first three Jaws movies sparking the "nature hates us and/or finds us delicious" genre.  It makes an attempt to one-up the ultimate shark movie by giving the eating machine tentacles, which are all the better to pull you into the mouth with.  The look of the titular "Devil Fish" is a little goofy, but one can't argue that if you were facing it head on you'd probably shit your pants.

Devil Fish has a fairly lackluster pace, as a lot of the film's runtime is devoted to watching people drink beer on a boat.  The dialogue scenes fail to leave an impact due to the dub on the film, of which everybody voicing these characters sound bored.  When our Devil Fish finally does appear it's mostly in snippets and close-ups, with very little on-screen action.  Unfortunately Devil Fish isn't very exciting, but it's not the worst of its type.  It's just a fairly ugly and kinda dull monster movie.

The Episode

I have an interesting reaction to this episode.  I think objectively it's fair, not bad but nothing really special.  Yet, I watch it a lot more than episodes I think more highly of.  I can look through my collection looking for an episode to ease the tension that's built up through the day, pass up some genuine greats that I adore but just am not in the mood for, but find my eyes stopping on Devil Fish more often than not and say "Okay, it's a Devil Fish night, I guess."  It's kind of a comfort food episode, which isn't very demanding, has a decent amount of chuckles, and just kind of relaxes me.  It might be because I was raised on Jaws movies growing up, making this episode feel very homey to me.

In judging the riffing, there are a good amount of laugh out loud moments spread throughout.  There are some great potshots about the editing ("You know, just because you CAN edit doesn't mean you SHOULD."), which is admittedly a cheap blow since the cut of the movie they're watching is presented the way it is because it's edited for television.  Doesn't stop it from being funny though.  There are some great shots at the dubbing and the thinly veiled Italian production trying to pass itself as America.  Our main characters are portrayed as a bunch of beer guzzlers and the main actress's lack of body fat and muscle mass gets quite a few shots.  That said, while laughs can be had the episode tends to trail off with some uninspired material that just feels a tad reckless at times.  It effectively dilutes what could be a better riff if the lackluster portions applied themselves more.

Adding to the unevenness are the host segments, which have some decent chuckles but are mostly pretty weak.  The best one is a fairly funny one in which Pearl and Bobo turn Mike and the Bots into Italian stereotypes.  There is also a cute opener which sees Mike losing his wallet and blowing it out of proportion.  However, there are a pair of segments in which Mike and the Bots insult dolphins and electricians, resulting in them to become attacked by the advanced dolphin race, which really don't do anything for me.  On Castle Forrester we find Pearl scamming a couple into thinking the castle is a cruise ship.  I'm not entirely sure how that works, but sure, whatever.

This is a fascinating case of "Could be better..." but I find myself embracing the product as is nonetheless.  It's hard to equate that into my rating system, but I find myself being honest and saying this is just an average episode.  It hits the spot when I need it to though.

Average

The DVD

Shout Factory released Devil Fish on their Volume XIX set.  Audio and video were quite good, and the centerpiece of the extras is MST3K:  Origins & Beyond at CONvergence '09.  There has been quite a bit of con footage released on these DVD sets, but I personally think this one is my favorite.  It has Joel, Frank, and Mary Jo in attendance, as they mostly talk about the early years of the show and how they got involved.  But it's the little moments that I enjoy the most in this footage, where they send a group of interns on a Dairy Queen run and they eat the ice cream on stage, all the while the interplay between the trio just shines as brightly as ever.

Also featured is a theatrical trailer for the film, which is in such low resolution that they shrunk it down and it only takes up a fifth of the screen.