The Giant Spider Invasion (Rifftrax Live)

Film Year:  1975
Genre:  Science Fiction, Horror
Director:  Bill Rebane
Starring:  Alan Hale Jr., Barbara Hale, Steve Brodie, Robert Easton, Leslie Parrish, Bill Williams, Christiane Schmidtmer
Rifftrax Year:  2019
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett
Short Featured:  "Adventures in Telezonia"

The Short

From the guy who made those puppets from The Sound of Music comes this short instructing us on how to properly use a telephone.  A boy has lost his dog, but a little puppet imp appears to help him use the telephone to call people to help find them.  He takes the boy to a very elaborate telephone heaven where more creepy imps, each with their own spooky personality trait, show various ways the telephone can be used.

Kid's today with their smartphone apps and Pokemon Go don't know what it was like when a telephone was used as an actual telephone and not much else (except maybe a paperweight).  We also needed ugly puppets to teach us how to use them properly, because the turn crank was hard to use for some reason.  But back in the day there were a lot of fancy tricks you could do with a phone, like connecting a party line or...dialing the operator, I guess.  This short also helps us learn those techniques.

Was this educational?  Sure, I guess.  We don't really use these types of phones anymore, so it was probably more useful at the time.  But did we really need the nightmare fuel in those puppets?  I mean, yeah, I guess kids like puppets, but holy crap those things are as haunting as those ghosts in The Grudge.  I don't think I'm going to be sleeping at all tonight.

The Movie

Was I particularly hard on the special effects in Earth vs. the Spider?  If I was, then I take every word back.  Earth vs. the Spider is Avatar compared to Giant Spider Invasion.  I mean, holy crap.  Bert I. Gordon at least knew that a real spider blown-up to a large size on the big screen might have some semblance to realism, whereas Bill Rebane (the original director of the classic Monster A-Go Go) makes his large spider a mostly immobile plush toy with the largest pipe-cleaner legs you'll ever see.  I know suspension of disbelief is a thing, but if you're able to employ it on this movie, congratulations, because you have a much grander imagination than I have.

At least they had the decency to use real spiders for the small ones.  Though it might have been more amusing if they had consistency and just pulled along little rubber ones on strings.

Giant Spider Invasion sees meteors from space (or another dimension...in space) landing in a redneck's yard in Wisconsin.  In the fragments, he finds crystals which he believes are diamonds.  He spends his spare time collecting as many as he can and cheating on his wife, but, unknown to them, space spiders also hitched a ride on those meteors, and they're growing...and hungry.

Giant Spider Invasion also stars Gilligan's Island's Alan Hale Jr. as the laid back town sheriff, which helps this movie go down easier.  Hale is easily the least rage-inducing character in the movie, which is due to the man's gosh darn lovable nature.  Almost everyone else in this movie is trash, and I'm happy to see shoddy spider creatures devour them.  Even the two scientist characters, who are trying to save the day, range from dull to shrill ("BeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeN!") and don't really encourage me to root for the spider.

Alan Hale has a line in this movie that has always bugged me a bit, where he compares the giant spider to the movie Jaws and says "This spider makes that shark look like a goldfish!"  It's not uncommon for a bad movie to throw shade at a good one to try and trick the audience into thinking it's the better film, and say what you will about the "fake shark" in Jaws, but comparing that plush spider to the thing is just a slap in the face.

The Live Show

Inherently I'm probably going to be harder on re-riffs of movies that were featured on Mystery Science Theater, because these are riffs that I grew up with and I hold dearly to my heart.  Seeing the movies live with an audience is cool and all, but I'm always going to question if there is something new to add to the experience other than just overlaid laughter and applause.  This is especially rough when Mike, Kevin, and Bill decide to choose a movie from the Sci-Fi era, where I've already seen this troop take on these films.  If it is a movie from the Joel era (ala Manos or Santa Claus Conquers the Martians), I'll give them something of a pass because I'd be curious to hear if a different group can come up with a different commentary.

On the surface, riffing Giant Spider Invasion kind of intrigues me, because seeing this movie in a theater with an audience sounds fun to me.  But I also have a bit of an uneasiness that the whole affair is going to go for cheap nostalgia laughs.  This is the episode with the "PACKERS!" running gag, which worked well in the MST episode because it aired hot off the Super Bowl.  Is the reason Giant Spider Invasion is being riffed in front of a studio audience to merely get pandering cheers at a "PACKERS!" callback?  When Kevin marches out onstage wearing a Packers jersey, it seems the answer is an absolute "yes."

To my surprise, they don't cry out "PACKERS!" nearly as much as I expected them to, and the run gag amount is far less than the MST episode.  I'm pretty impressed with their restraint here, and glad they only pulled it out for a punctuation of cheers rather than a safety net.  The rest of the riff, however, doesn't differentiate itself too much from the episode it's inspired from.  Like Space Mutiny's Live show, a lot of the riffs run very similar to the original episode, except not as strong.  I mostly gave Space Mutiny a pass because it settled into a breezy groove and maintained itself as being fun to watch, even if it didn't live up to the classic predecessor.  Spider Invasion I feel I need to be a bit harder on.  While some of the best riffs got big laughs from me, a lot of the rehashed material bored me a little bit, as I reflected more on what I enjoyed in the original episode.  There are really only so many variations of riffs on how stained and unappealing Robert Easton is that can keep my attention especially when I had my fill the first time around.  Even scenes that weren't in the MST version, including one featuring Easton propositioning his young sister-in-law (which made me vomit a little) just amount to a few more riffs of how disgusting these characters are.

I also feel I need to note that a few points during the performance it felt the timing of the riffs were a little off.  Sometimes it felt like the riff came in too early, and I also felt a couple of times where the riffers themselves may have realized it and stretched it to make it work better with the scene.  Maybe their time stamps were off?  Or maybe I'm just crazy and am noticing things that aren't there.

One glistening diamond featured in this show is the short, Adventures in Telezonia, which is so disturbing and weird that it probably would have been funny without riffing.  It's such a rich environment of marionette characters with bizarre character quirks, such as a mumbling, angry fellow and a pig-man that "hogs" the line.  It's a proper short that jazzes up the energy in the room for the feature.  And indeed, the room stays jazzed, even when the riff is a bit flat.  It's never not fun to be in that audience, which is something the Live show coasts on.

But even if the main feature doesn't quite measure up, one good thing happened tonight, as Mike, Kevin, and Bill invite a young couple onstage at the end of the show, in which the man gets down on his knee and proposes to his girlfriend.  Luckily she said "yes," because if she said "Oh good lord, no, I've been having an affair with Robert Easton." it might have ended this whole night on a sour note.

Average

314-Mighty Jack

Film Year:  1967
Genre:  Spy, Adventure, Science Fiction
Director:  Kazuho Mitsuta
Starring:  MIGHTY JACK vs. Q

The Movie

MIGHTY JACK!  A Real Japanese Hero!  Mighty Jack is there!

Maybe it’s just me but Mighty Jack always reminded me of GI Joe crossed with Atragon.  Mighty Jack is a super organization designed to do battle with terrorists Q, just like the Joes and Cobra.  Only with a giant battleship sub, like the good old Gotengo from Atragon (and the steroid version from Godzilla:  Final Wars).

With that mindset, Mighty Jack is mildly amusing in its incoherency.  Unfortunately that has all to do with the Sandy Frank edit of the TV series that was imported, in which the first and last episodes are used, stitched together, and leave the viewer behind in transition.  But to be fair, the show didn’t really look that interesting anyway, so who wants the episodes that came between?

Special effects are by the great Eiji Tsuburaya, creator of Godzilla and Ultraman.  Mighty Jack was a television series by his very own Tsuburaya Productions (much like Time of the Apes and Fugitive Alien), which at the very least means we have some dynamic miniature work to look at.  Mighty Jack might not be one of Tsuburaya’s greatest achievements but at least he gives it some energy.

The Episode

Most of the films in Sandy Frank's catalog are ideal for the series, though Mighty Jack is a bit trickier for them.  The film is talkier than their average Japanese cheesefest, and the film almost demands its audience's attention.  Watched through a layer of film riffing, the experience is too much targeting the audience member from every direction as both the movie and the riffers are at war for our attention span.  I feel a little tired while watching this episode because of that, though I don't think it's a poor episode by any stretch.  I get some good chuckles from a lot of the riffs, and the movie is moderate toku fare, which is up my alley.  So when I give up on following the movie or listening to the riffs, I'm usually pleased with the episode.

"I was just watching Mighty Jack and thinking 'This would make a great movie!'"

I find that the host segments are amusing, though a bit on the light side.  "Slow the Plot Down" is a fun song, and the opening disaster segment is wild.  A lot of the mid-segments are fluff pieces, though the episode does some fun stuff with an aquarium to make the set look flooded in the third segment.  The Invention Exchange has the Mads play with today's spy theme with Formal Flippers, while Joel's Ear-Shaped Earmuffs are a fairly single laugh gag done well enough.

I like this episode, though I can't really debate with anybody who thinks it's a lesser one.  It's a rather non-impressionable experience, as it mostly feels like just another episode of the series.  That might be enough for most to feel that this falls under the "average" category, but the enjoyment that I do get from the episode is pushing me to be more forgiving of it.  Mighty Jack is solid fun, even if there are wackier corners of Japanese cinema to explore on the series.

Good

The DVD

Mighty Jack came to the rescue in Shout Factory's Volume XXII set, with solid audio and video, as well as a few bonuses to spice things up.

First we have a little interview with Japanese film historian August Ragone, author of Eiji Tsuburaya:  Master of Monsters, talking about this series from Tsuburaya's production house.  He talks about it's inception as a spy/flying battleship movie that was adapted into a weekly television series, and how it was later revamped into the much wackier and child-friendly Fight Mighty Jack later on.  August is pretty fond of the series, and loves to describe it's crazy sequel show, so this is worth a look.

Up next is The Menus of MST3K, which is an interview with DVD menu designers Robert Guillory and Dave Long.  Guillory discusses how he started work at Rhino and how he thought it would be fun to have menus where the Bots interacted with the movie, and how in the switch to Shout Factory he asked Long for assistance, who tried to veer them more toward sketches.  It's interesting to hear about this thought process, though this concept petered out in latter sets in favor of new puppet menus.  I'd be curious to hear about what the thought process was in changing over to those, since I felt it was for the worse.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXXVII DVD Retrospective

Release Date:  July 26, 2016

Buy it here!

Episodes Featured:
The Human Duplicators
Escape 2000
The Horror of Party Beach
Invasion of the Neptune Men

Also Featuring:
MST3K Little Golden Statue Preview Special
Academy of Robot's Choice Preview Special

The sun's getting low, and less episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 have not seen home video than ever before.  We knew we'd get to day where it would be slim pickings, and Volume XXXVII sees us shifting away from Joel episodes, as The Human Duplicators is currently the last episode of the series from his era to grace DVD (rumor has it that as of this writing there is one more set on the horizon, thanks to some titles being freed up, but we'll see if it goes anywhere).  It's been a long, intensive run, but let's applaud the man, who takes his final DVD bow on this set.

The rest of the episodes are from later in the series, and to be honest, Human Duplicators is overwhelmed by them.  Duplicators isn't a poor episode, but the Mike-era stuff on this set is just some stellar material.  Escape 2000 and Horror of Party Beach are wildly fun episodes that you can burst out for a get-together or a party, and while Invasion of the Neptune Men has it's detractors, it's personally one of my favorite episodes of the series.  That makes Neptune Men my top choice of the set, but if you're one of those who thinks the movie is too hard to watch (I just don't get you, bruh), then pass that honor along to Party Beach.

For a limited time, this set was available on Shout Factory's website with a bonus disc with two more of MST's half hour specials, this time centered on the Oscars.  One of these specials is a bit better than the other, but it's great to have these things in the collection!

Average Rating (out of 4):  3

There are some similar video issues with Horror of Party Beach and Neptune Men, but the episodes overall are still watchable.  Human Duplicators and Escape 2000 have rock solid video transfers though.  Audio for all four episodes is swell.

On the special features end, Mary Jo Pehl provides some pretty good intros for the episodes she worked on:  Escape 2000, Horror of Party Beach, and Invasion of the Neptune Men.  She provides some fun insight and context to the filming of the episodes, while discussing the films a little bit.  Fans of the movies themselves will be happy with the bonuses offered, as we have a pair of making of features for Escape 2000 and Horror of Party Beach, titled Leave the Bronx and Return to Party Beach, respectively.  Also there is an interview with Japanese film buff August Ragone called August on Neptune, where he discusses Invasion of the Neptune Men in great detail.  Also featured are MST Hour wraps for Human Duplicators, but unfortunately they're incomplete and the first segment of episode two has been cut out.  Concluding the disc are trailers for Escape 2000 (under the title Escape from the Bronx), Horror of Party Beach, and Invasion of the Neptune Men.

Unsurprisingly, the box art is Shout Factory's stock cover of the theater seats looking up at a starry backdrop, with the show logo in the upper left corner, and the roman numerals "XXXVII" painted in the center in yellow paint.  Like always, the real artistic treat is on the inside, with four new individual episode art inserts by Steve Vance.  The Human Duplicators depicts Crow as Kolos with Servo in a duplicating chamber and a clone of Servo in another.  Escape 2000 has Servo wearing bad 80's hair as Trash, hiding behind a corner from Officer Crow who is trying to evacuate the Bronx with his flame thrower.  Horror of Party Beach depicts Crow as a bikini babe and Servo as one of the Del Aires as one of the monsters looms behind them.  Invasion of the Neptune Men has Servo as a Neptune Man on top of the picture and Crow as Space Chief at the bottom, who are separated by the title logo.  The Awards disc is housed separately from the set, in a slim case.  It simply has the theater seats looking up at a starry backdrop, while the series logo sits in the upper left hand corner with a theater ticket stating "MST3K Fancy Hollywood Awards Preview Specials" is in the center.

Inside of the cases, we get simple, stock disc art of the episode title logo against a starry backdrop.  The menus keep with the puppet theme that the Shout sets have been sporting lately.  I'm not a huge fan of any of these, though the Party Beach one did get a laugh out of me.  The Human Duplicators features a trio of Crow heads as the Intergalactic Council instructing Kolos on his mission.  The Escape 2000 one just has Trash riding on his motorcycle away from officers with flamethrowers.  The Horror of Party Beach menu features Servo jamming with the Del Aires, Crow dancing with Tina on a beach before a monster jumps in, terrorizes them for a few seconds, and then dances with them.  Neptune Men features a pretty cool set that has the kids from the movie running away from the Neptune Men before Space Chief saves the day.  The Awards disc is just the theaters seats looking at a starry backdrop while the Love Theme plays.

I think this is a pretty solid set, with a trio of hysterical Mike episodes and a Joel episode, while middling, that has some decent laughs in it.  It's a pretty great roundup of what few episodes Shout Factory has left, and I think Neptune Men is pants-wettingly hilarious.  Some disagree with me on that, but those people are wrong.  Must own volume, methinks!

Academy of Robot's Choice Awards Special (MST3K Special)

Vice President Al Gore has contacted the Satellite of Love and ordered them to cover a batch of 1997's Academy Award nominated films, to which Mike and the Bots willingly comply.  Released near the beginning of the show's ninth season, the Academy of Robot's Choice Awards Preview Special thankfully takes more cues from the Blockbuster Review special from the previous season and less from the Little Gold Statue Preview Special from season six (actually featuring riffed film clips is a step in the right direction).  In its own way, it's just as good as the Blockbuster Review, with a wider film selection, though some of the riffing isn't as strong.

But these award worthy films we're taking a look at include:

Mrs. Brown

Nominated for Best Actress (Judi Dench) and Best Make-Up, yet it lost both awards to As Good as It Gets and Men in Black, respectively.  I personally haven't seen it, though it looks pretty good.  The riffing in this segment mostly takes the straight drama of the scene, between Billy Connolly and Judi Dench, and makes it a bit cruder and childish.  It's pretty funny.

The Wings of a Dove

Another film I haven't seen, The Wings of a Dove was nominated for Best Actress (Helena Bonham Carter, "former drummer for Led Zeppelin"), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Costume Design.  It lost all four categories to As Good as It Gets, L.A. Confidential, and the last two to the awards hog that was Titanic.  The scene depicted has Helena Bonham Carter in a heavy necking scene with Linus Roache, which gets the predictable "not as sexy as you'd think" riffing that turns the steaminess into something awkward.

Good Will Hunting

Aha!  A film I HAVE seen!  Albeit a very long time ago, though I remember enjoying it.  Good Will Hunting won Best Supporting Actor for Robin Williams and Best Original Screenplay for writer/stars Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.  It was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor (Matt Damon), Best Supporting Actress (Minnie Driver), Best Original Song ("Miss Misery") and Best Editing.  It lost Picture, Song, and Editing to Titanic (of course), Actor to As Good as It Gets, and Supporting Actress to L.A. Confidential.  There are a pair of clips to this film, one is a inspirational speech by Robin Williams to Matt Damon, which doesn't inspire a lot.  The other is a fast food date between Damon and Minnie Driver, which inspires Joe Don Baker style burping and shoveling food into one's face riffs.  The intro goes on a little long, where Mike throws out absurd parody title comparisons to this movie.

As Good as It Gets

I've seen this one too!  Also a very long time ago, but I also liked it at the time.  This one won Best Actor for Jack Nicholson and Best Actress for Helen Hunt.  It was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Greg Kinnear), Best Original Screenplay, Best Score for a Musical or Comedy, and Best Editing.  It lost Picture and Editing to Titanic (you're going to be seeing this a lot), Supporting Actor and Screenplay to Good Will Hunting, and Score to The Full Monty.  The scene shown has Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, and Greg Kinnear loading up into a car, and it's mostly a bunch of movie star riffs being hurled their way.  It's not great, but Crow has a great reaction to the censoring of the word 'fag' to describe Kinnear's character, to which he responds "Whoa!  Why'd they bleep out 'Former guy from Talk Soup?'"

Amistad

This is one I watched for the first time a few years ago, and liked it quite a bit.  It was nominated for Supporting Actor (Anthony Hopkins), Best Dramatic Score, Best Cinematography, and Best Costume Design.  It lost Supporting Actor to Good Will Hunting and the other three to (guess who?) Titanic.  They mostly just do descriptive riffs over a series of soundless clips.

Titanic (eventually riffed in full by Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett at Rifftrax)

Well, you knew we'd get to this one eventually, didn't you?

At that point the highest grossing film of all time (since then topped by Avatar, also directed by James Cameron, and Avengers:  Endgame, not directed by James Cameron), Titanic won the awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Dramatic Score, Best Song ("My Heart Will Go On"), Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Sound, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Editing, and Best Visual Effects.  The few awards it lost were Best Actress (Kate Winslet), Best Supporting Actress (Gloria Stuart), and Best Make-Up, which it lost to As Good as It Gets, L.A. Confidential, and Men in Black, respectively (yes, Men in Black beat Titanic, REJOICE!).

Personally, I think Titanic is a pretty good movie, though I don't love it (it's no A Night to Remember, that's for damn sure), though the resentful backlash it received is pretty undeserving.  The movie is fine, and a lot of people love it.  Let them love it.

The undeniable centerpiece of the special, a whopping four clips from this movie are featured here.  The first has Bill Paxton asking Gloria Stuart "Are you ready to go back to Titanic?," which is an invite for some glorious doddering old lady jokes.  Next is Titanic setting sail, which features rich observational commentary.  Third, we have Billy Zane giving Kate Winslet the Heart of the Ocean, in which Zane's smarmy narcissism is the primary target.  Finally, we have commoner dance party with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, which gets some great jabs at choreography and music.  Riffing is pretty strong throughout these segments, because you can tell this was the movie they really made this TV special for.

Servo's line "I'm gonna sink this bitch!" was also used in the Rifftrax version of this movie.

L.A. Confidential

This is another movie I haven't seen, but it won Best Supporting Actress for Kim Basinger and Best Adapted Screenplay.  It was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Dramatic Score, Best Sound, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, and Best Film Editing.  It lost all of these awards to Titanic (knocked this movie down like bowling pins).  The clip featured is a sexual tension clip between Kim Basinger and Russell Crowe, which of course targets hormones, but also the sets to great effect.

Starship Troopers (eventually riffed by Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett at Rifftrax)

This is Mike and the Bots pick for Best Picture winner, despite it not being nominated.  Having watched this movie many, many times, I agree.  I love this movie.  The film was only nominated for Best Visual Effects, but lost to Titanic (lol).  The clips are just soldiers getting ready to combat alien bugs.  They riff on a light show from an alien's rump, as well as the fact the aliens are bugs in general.

Small clips of movies Mike and the Bots didn't get a chance to see

Jackie Brown

I saw this, a long time ago.  Didn't care for it, but I'm very lukewarm to Tarantino films in general.  The film was nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Robert Forster), but lost to Good Will Hunting.

There are no real riffs of these brief clips.

Boogie Nights

Haven't seen it.  Was nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Burt Reynolds), Best Supporting Actress (Julianne Moore), and Best Original Screenplay, but lost Supporting Actor and Screenplay to Good Will Hunting and Supporting Actress to L.A. Confidential.

The riffing is mostly a slow realization that the movie is about porn.

Deconstructing Harry

Haven't seen it (don't care for Woody Allen in general).  Was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, lost to Good Will Hunting.

The small clip has Woody Allen propositioning a hooker, which sparks reaction riffs, including the gem "Must have got Woody's home movies by mistake!"

The Academy of Robot's Choice Awards Preview Special is a good little thirty minute breeze with some solid laughs at the expense of movies that are far better than we're used to seeing.  Since a lot of these films are deadly self-serious, it makes for some solid comedy at their expense.

The anticipated segment is Titanic, and predictably it's the highlight.  But the special peaks with it, making the final third of the special feel muted.  Titanic probably should have been saved for last, but if the worst thing I can say about this is that the pacing of it is uneven, I'll still consider it a success.

MST3K Little Gold Statue Preview Special (MST3K Special)

"Welcome to the MST3K Little Gold Statue Preview Special!  The show where we tell you what to think and you accept it at face value, with no backtalk!"

What's this?  An Mystery Science Theater episode that's only a half hour long?  What madness is this?

Why it's an award show special, of course!  The MST3K Little Gold Statue Preview Special was a late sixth season surprise, airing in between Angels' Revenge and The Amazing Transparent Man.  Mystery Science Theater 3000 was getting close to being out the door on Comedy Central, so there wouldn't be another one like it on the channel (the closest thing we had at that point was a making of documentary called This is MST3K).  It did however inspire a few half-hour goodies on the Sci-Fi Channel, including a similar Acadamy of Robot's Choice Awards Special and a pair of Blockbuster Reviews.  I liked the back and forth between artfilms and empty Hollywood schlock these two half-hour special concepts provided, but I don't think they quite refined them enough to a point where they had a satisfactory formula with them.

This first special, is hosted by Crow and Tom Servo.  And why should we care what they have to say?  Well, in their own words...

"Folks, you haven't seen the any of the thousands of films nominated for Oscars this year, and yet, you need to have opinions..."

"So use ours!"

This is a parody of critic specials that would provide an overview a year's nominees for the Academy Awards and then give their opinions and select their own picks.  Crow and Servo then go through the categories and list at least one nominee, very rarely looking at more than one, and selecting it as their definitive choice for the year, usually with some backhanded comment.  They often rush through the clips a little too fast, and the jokes barely present themselves, but there are a few chuckles.

The categories looked at are

Best Make-Up

The only nominee they look at is the Kenneth Branagh's Gothic horror tale Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.  The basic joke of this one is that the film was obviously nominated for the make-up on Robert DeNiro's monster character, though the clip they show is a mundane clip of Kenneth Branagh and Helena Bonham Carter.

The eventual winner of this category was Ed Wood (why oh why wouldn't MST have selected this movie?  IT'S ED WOOD, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!).

Best Actress

There are several nominees interspersed throughout the special.  They take a look at Miranda Richardson (Tom & Viv), Winona Ryder (Little Women), and Jessica Lange (Blue Sky).  Crow has a great line about Tom & Viv being the love story of Tom Bosley and Vivian Vance, but Lange gets the spiciest clip of the line-up.

Lange was the eventual winner in this category.

Best Director

They humorously judge this category by which director is the dreamiest, dismissing Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump) and Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction) for not being attractive enough.  They eventually come to the conclusion that Robert Redford should win for Quiz Show, because he's so dreamy.

Zemeckis was the eventual winner.

Best Costumes

They preview two very distinct costume choices, the French period drama Queen Margot and the transgender comedy The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.  The contrast between the two clips is pretty much the joke here, though they seem taken with both of them.

Priscilla won this category.

Best Song

They take a look at two nominees, the first being "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" from The Lion King, which is just a springboard for Elton John jokes.  The second is a discussion of the song "Look What Love Has Done to Me" from Junior, though when they cut to a clip from it all they get is a clip of Emma Thompson describing a womanly body functions to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"Can You Feel the Love Tonight" was the song that took home the trophy.

Best Screenplay

First they take a look at a clip from the film Red, which is certainly not the Bruce Willis action film, but rather the Polish film that concluded the Three Colours trilogy.  Servo has a great comment on this one:  "You see, this is one of those important films, which means it's boring, you see it in a theater full of people with B.O., and you pretend that you get it."  They then show a clip from the pre-overhyped nerd god Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson film Heavenly Creatures, which makes them both weep.

Pulp Fiction eventually won the award.

Best Actor

They only have a brief clip of John Travolta being interviewed for Pulp Fiction here.  It's mostly just a springboard to talk about Pulp Fiction as a Best Picture nominee.

The eventual winner in this category was Tom Hanks for Forrest Gump.

Best Picture

They talk about the nominees interspersed throughout the special, commenting upon a sex partner conversation in Four Weddings and a Funeral, fawning over Robert Redford directing Quiz Show again, say surprisingly little about Forrest Gump, and comment on Uma Thurman's potty mouth in Pulp Fiction.  They also accidentally drop in Hoop Dreams in this category, even though it was only nominated for editing.  They neglect to mention The Shawshank Redemption at all, which leads up to a pretty funny stinger for this special, as after the end credits they rush back on camera to mention the film.

Forrest Gump was the eventual winner.

The special has a few bonus bits, one with a phone call with "corespondent" Gypsy, who doesn't know why they're calling.  Also they tease an appearance by Ed Asner, who is just Mike with a shirt sticker that says "Ed Asner."  They're moderately amusing.

And that's really how I can describe the whole special, "moderately amusing."  There's an idea here, but you can tell they don't really know what to do with it yet, and in the end we get this little special that tries to do too much with what little time it has.  It completely misses the fact that MST's chief appeal is movie riffing and shows clips with only after the fact comment and it has very little bite to it.  Meanwhile, the clips it does show move through the special way too fast and the comments amount to little because they need to rush to the next clip.  If they had more room to breathe and do more creative sketches, this might have worked better, but instead it's just a quick oddity that barely exists.

819-Invasion of the Neptune Men

Film Year:  1961
Genre:  Science Fiction, Superhero, Fantasy
Director:  Koji Ohta
Starring:  Sonny Chiba, a bunch of kids in short-shorts, and SUPPOSITORY MAN!
MST Season:  8

The Movie

Often considered one of the worst, most painful films ever featured on Mystery Science Theater, Invasion of the Neptune Men is a Japanese import with an inane story, no plot, and endless cycles of repeating footage.  MSTies across the globe reeled in pain from being overwhelmed by this film.

And I'm here to tell you that you're all a bunch of pussies.  This movie is a breeze.

The film is not all that dissimilar to Prince of Space, as it features an alien race invading the world and a superhero in a goofy costume appearing out of nowhere to save us.  The Neptune Men differ from the chicken men of Krankor in that they are a faceless enemy, dressed in jumpsuits and giant bullet-shaped helmets.  Our hero, Space Chief, differs from Prince of Space in that he...um...uh...isn't a boot black, I guess.

Actually, come to think of it, Space Chief is largely a non-entity in the movie.  He comes to the rescue several times, but we have little sense of who he is and what his purpose is.  For the most part, humanity itself does a lot of the counter Neptune maneuvers in the film, while Space Chief backs them up by blowing up spaceships when they need him to.  His human alter ego is a scientist, but we have little context to display the connection between the two characters other than they're played by the same actor.  That actor in question is martial arts legend Sonny Chiba, who went on to have quite the badass career.  Genre fans will know him from movies like Street Fighter (not the video game movie, a different one) while more pompous cinephiles will recognize him as the swordmaker from Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill films.  People like me who watch The Last Drive-In will know him from Wolf Guy:  Enraged Lycanthrope.

The film is plotless and meandering, and it really just lumbers slowly to a conclusion that it never really builds strongly toward.  Part of this may be the fault of the American re-edit, which looped and added footage to make the the film lengthier, though they only succeeded in making it look more pointless.

And yet, I feel no pain while watching this movie.  I feel moderate amusement, actually.  Perhaps growing up on Godzilla and Power Rangers has numbed me to Japanese weirdness, but I can think of better things to do with my time than to berate a Japanese kids film from the early 60's.  I can't hate doofus bubblegum entertainment like this, no matter how dumb it gets.

The Episode

The big question is that after having sat through Prince of Space, do we really need to sit through Invasion of the Neptune Men also?

Yes.  Yes, we do.

Prince of Space is my favorite episode of the show, so I can enter an episode that features a similar movie, only done worse, with a bit of skepticism.  I find myself prepared to say "Honey, I know Prince of Space, and you, my friend, are no Prince of Space."  But the riffing on Neptune Men is less playful and a bit angrier.  Maybe having already sat through a movie like this has irritated Mike and the Bots, but they're definitely in one of the most aggressive moods ever featured on the series.  Because of that, Neptune Men is just different enough an experience to Prince of Space to make it worthwhile, and since I find this approach almost as funny, Neptune Men is actually my second favorite episode of the series (bite me, haters).

There is a bit of a cultural war in the theater this week, as a lot of their frustrations are taken on Japan in general.  It's not unusual for the gang to attribute exaggerated cultural divide jokes in this riff, sometimes bordering on stereotype (I don't believe it's mean or offensive stereotype, but I'm from Idaho, so I'm probably not the best judge of that).  The riffs on the stiff Neptune Men portrayals are always a gas for me, as the silver space men are usually doing something worth commenting on while they're onscreen.  There is a fairly solid running gag on the lead Neptune Man, who has a disc on the top of his head, as Mike and the Bots project him as having lost his "record" and is constantly asking if anybody knows where it is.  It's simple and a little dumb, but I dig it.

There is also a portion of the riff where they are faced with repeating footage and they decide to turn to sketch comedy.  As the footage loops, Mike and the Bots become more weary, angrier, and start to lash out more.  Mike and Crow become sick of the whole ordeal and decide to leave the theater, leaving Servo by himself.  They also use this opportunity to expand the lore of the show by explaining that to keep Mike in the theater to watch the movie, the Mads actually cut off the oxygen to the rest of the ship.  Yet, Mike leaves anyway, because he's just that sick of this movie.  Crow is never in any real danger, though he returns with Mike after Mike decides breathing is more important than not sitting through Neptune Men.

This isn't even mentioning what may be the funniest scene ever featured on Mystery Science Theater, where Mike and the Bots are making their way through the endless battle footage at the end, when suddenly a building with a picture of Adolph Hitler plastered on the side appears and blows up.  I have no context for what this building is supposed to represent, but in the supplemental features on the DVD, all the normal explanations for it (being from another movie, being actual war footage, ect) have been debunked, which means this was an actual model built for the film.  But whatever it is, and wherever it came from, Mike and the Bots' reactions to it are priceless.

This episode also has one of my favorite host segments (maybe a contender for my very favorite), which is an Abbott and Costello inspired bit in which Mike tries to explain "Noh Theater" to the Bots, only for confusion to erupt.  Backing it up are some other winners, like a visit from Krankor (which features a pretty good use of the Crow puppet as both he and Krankor are both played by Bill), Crow reading out a suggestion box for Japan, and a war between the Nanites and Mike's Eyelash Mites.  The Mads segments are a bit less satisfactory, as we're still in Roman Times, and Pearl and Observer try to regroup with Bobo, who believe himself to be a warrior called "Mad Goth."  It's okay, though not great.

If you ask me, the biggest thing going against Neptune Men is that it aired too close to Prince of Space.  The movies are too similar for their own good, though the riffing styles of the two episodes make them distinct enough to feel like separate experiences.  Personally, I find the two episodes to be a stellar one-two punch of Japanese weirdness, and they encompass exactly what I love about this show.

Classic

The DVD

The Neptune Men invaded our home media on Shout Factory's Volume XXXVII set, with good audio and but flawed video.  There are several tape hits spread sparingly throughout the episode, though the picture often sees horizontal black lines stretching to the right of the screen throughout.  It's not overly bothersome, but it's not a good transfer at all.

The episode comes with an introduction by Mary Jo Pehl, who discusses various on-screen aspects of the episode:  such as how prolific Japanese toku films are, the Roman times/Mad Goth skits, the Nanite/Eyelash Mite war, and the visit from Krankor.  There are a few tidbits, but mostly she just describes what happens in the episode itself.

More interesting, I feel, is August on Neptune, as Shout invites Japanese cinema expert August Ragone to discuss the early days of Toei Studios and what led to the creation of films like Prince of Space and Invasion of the Neptune Men.  He discusses a little bit of Sonny Chiba and other crewmembers of note, while dismissing the rumors that the destruction scenes were both actual destruction scenes and/or borrowed from the film World War III Breaks Out (even though small shots of each are in the film, but are minor).  He claims the majority of effects were created for this film (including the Hitler Building, which he doesn't provide an excuse for).  Also of note is the lengthy sequence of repeating footage that wear Mike and the Bots down in this film, which August points out was an addition for the English market, because the distributor didn't think it was long enough.

Concluding the disc is a trailer for the film, which has me a little curious about the original cut to this movie.

1108-The Loves of Hercules

Film Year:  1960
Genre:  Fantasy, Adventure, Action
Director:  Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia
Starring:  Jayne Mansfield, Mickey Hargitay, Masimo Serato, Rene Dary
MST Season:  11

The Movie

The fourth in the Italian series of Hercules films released between 1958 and 1965, The Loves of Hercules finds Herc's wife murdered by an invading army.  To temper the rage of Hercules and hopefully prevent retaliation, chief minister Licos kills the king responsible for the invasion.  The king's daughter, Deianira, is crowned the new ruler and Hercules instantly forgets his dead wife and falls in love with her, but she is betrothed to another.  Licos, however, has her to-be-husband murdered and intends to marry Deianira himself, framing Hercules for the crime.  In hopes to clear his name, Hercules goes on a journey that leads him into battle with the Hydra and eventually in the clutches of Amazonian queen Hippolyta, who casts a spell to keep Hercules all to herself (then turn him into a tree).

For those playing at home with Hercules continuity (if there is such a thing), The Loves of Hercules was the film released just before Hercules and the Captive Women, while coming out after both Steve Reeves films.  A film called "Revenge of Hercules" came out in Italy between Hercules Unchained and this film, but that Hercules character was rebranded in the US and it was released as Goliath and the Dragon.  Similarly, Hercules Against the Moon Men is a rebranded Maciste movie, and isn't a true Hercules movie.

What makes this stand out over other Hercules flicks?  The sultry and epicly bosomed Jayne Mansfield, who had enough sway to not only get top billing over the title character, but also insisted her then-husband, Mickey Hargitay, play the role.  The former Playboy Playmate looks super good in the costumes, as well as the wigs they put on her head, so if you watch films like these for some gorgeous dames, you'll get at least one womanly form that will keep your attention.  Hubby Herc Hargitay is fine, but definitely no Steve Reeves.  He's a softer Hercules than we've seen before, probably playing off the fact that the movie is meant to be more romantic than previous films, but a Hercules that isn't smarmy and full of confidence and swagger doesn't feel like a true Hercules.

Plus he doesn't have the beard.  Italian Herc without a beard just feels wrong.

As a Herculean adventure, I enjoyed Loves for the most part.  The idea of Hercules falling in love so soon after his wife's murder takes me aback, but I guess the alpha male gotta alpha male.  Some grieving might have been appropriate.  No?  Okay, fine, you go ahead and get some, Herc.

The rest of the movie is standard Hercules stumbles from adventure to adventure stuff,  first fighting a giant, rubber, damn near immobile Hydra...that only has three heads and doesn't grow two more after losing one (how is it a Hydra again?).  His seduction by Hippolyta brings memories of Herc being prisoner by nymphs in Hercules Unchained, but the trial is mercifully shorter.  It all comes to a climax in a spectacle fueled battle finale, like a good Herc movie should.  Loves of Hercules is a standard Hercules adventure, and that's good enough for me.

The Episode

This episode gives me the ol' warm and fuzzies, because Hercules episodes, while not often classic material, were always solid comfort food viewing for me.  I love those Italian adventure movies featuring buff dudes in skirts lifting Styrofoam rocks and kicking butt, and the riffs just make them that much more enjoyable to me.  We haven't really tapped movies like this since Colossus and the Headhunters in season six nor a Hercules movie at all since season five, so The Loves of Hercules is a welcome sight to me.

True to most Hercules episodes, the riffing doesn't make for a demigod worthy episode, but the flavor of the film and the tone of the riff are so jovial together that it's a wondrously pleasant watch from start to finish.  Our meatheaded Hercules is the primary target, and the quips come steady and with spirit.  However, Jonah and the Bots have a weird obsession with his nipples.  Tiny nipple jokes are abundant and are driven into the ground, and I found myself wishing they'd find something else to work with in select scenes.  They do have fun with the less-than-convincing Hydra puppet, in which Hercules has a grand fight with where he hops and rolls around pretending to dodge and fight the thing.  They also have some great jabs at the men turning into trees toward the end.

This episode has the honor of introducing M. Waverly to the Satellite of Love.  Servo, Crow, and Gypsy don't take too kindly to Jonah creating a bot of his own, so things don't end well for the little guy, but he survives and is alive and well in the next season.  Most of the other segments aren't all that memorable, as they mostly feature Jonah and the Bots lounging around, sometimes just watching Wings.  The catapult sketch is a meh sequence of "I get it, I guess," while the ending where Jonah, the Bots, Kinga, and Max all continue the ending choir vocals from the film is cute, but not much of a segment in itself.  The Invention Exchange are a pair of visual gags that never get the chance to become visual gags, as we never see the Fried Turkey Dunk Tank actually dunk nor the Mexican Jumping Bean Beanbag Chair actually jump.

Overall, The Loves of Hercules really hits the spot for me in ways that other relaunch episodes didn't aspire to.  Seeing Hercules back is like welcoming an old friend back into my home and catching up, and I wouldn't mind seeing more Herc flicks on the show.  I mean, for fuck's sake, there are plenty of them!  We might as well just shoot straight through them!

Good

The DVD and Blu-Ray

The Loves of Hercules was released on both DVD and blu-ray via Shout Factory's Season 11 box set, of which I own the #WeBroughtBackMST3K Collector's Edition blu-ray which was available to Kickstarter backers.  Audio and video are both pristine,and while there are no bonus features on the disc, it shares disc space with the previous episode, The Land That Time Forgot.

Blood Rage (The Last Drive-In)

Onscreen Title:  "Slasher"
Film Year:  1987
Genre:  Horror
Director:  John Grissmer
Starring:  Louise Lasser, Mark Soper, Julie Gordon, Jayne Bentzen

The Movie

Originally titled A Nightmare in Shadow Woods, Blood Rage begins when woman takes her twin sons, Terry and Todd, to the drive-in with her new boyfriend.  Secretly, the twin boys sneak out and watch a couple have sex in a neighboring car, when Terry takes an ax and kills the man, while the woman escapes into the woods in the buff.  Terry accuses Todd of the crime, resulting in the institutionalization of the innocent child.  Years later, Todd escapes from the asylum, which Terry uses as an excuse to go on a bigger rampage, intending to kill his mother's fiance and any fornicating teen he stumbles upon.

Watching Blood Rage I found myself feeling that it was made by people who seemed to have an appreciation for the slasher genre and realized that there were cliches in it, but they didn't really seemed to know why those cliches worked.  Blood Rage has a lot of gore, nudity, sex, and a psychotic killer, but there's a childish nature to it.  It's somewhat indulgent in that they wanted to group all these aspects in every corner of their movie, and it hardly ever seems to want to pull the brakes on itself, even when it feels like it should because it's losing a grip on its coherence.  I can rag on a movie like Friday the 13th pretty hard for being poorly constructed, but the people making those movies were at least smart enough to not just throw everything at the viewer at all times (except maybe Jason X).

The movie is so simplistic and eager to please.  It has people being dismembered left and right, getting disrobed in an instant to have sexual intercourse, and just enough story to give the killer a clearly insane motivation to do what he's doing.  It doesn't really do any of this all that well, but you can sense that it's heart is in the right place.  The gore looks gloriously phony, and the movie goes out of its way to make it as hyperbolic as possible.  The sexual content isn't really all that titillating or sensual, but rather showing skin for the sake of showing skin.  And it's a lot of skin.  The performances range from wooden to scenery chewing with no in between, and with a lot of this dialogue the movie can make you laugh with simple line reads like "I want you to make love to me." and "Put on a sweater, it's cold outside."

Oh and my personal favorite moment, after the main "final girl" is trying to flirt with who she thinks is Terry but discovers it's his (presumed insane) brother Todd, she says in an almost comically hurried tone "I'GOTTA'GO BYE!"  I laughed for days.

I'm tempted to think this movie is trying to be funny, maybe a parody, but there is something genuine about the way it's put together that makes me second guess that.  It feels like it was put together by a child, one who has this idea of what the craftsmanship of a horror movie should be and then tried to make one by their rudimentary understanding of the format.  There is no weight to the movie, despite having a potentially psychological premise at its disposal.  It never explores a theme that it could potentially have, it just exists for kills and boobies.

If you want kills and boobies, Blood Rage is worth your time.  It's also good for a laugh.  Whether that laugh is intentional might be a tricky question to answer.

The Drive-In

The Dinners of Death have reached their final dinner, and it's what Joe Bob dubs the only Thanksgiving themed horror film in existence.  But, Darcy has used her time in this marathon to prove Joe Bob wrong, and he gracefully admits defeat.  But Joe Bob does close out with a slasher flick on Thanksgiving night, and it's a pretty interesting one.  Our host claims that people claim it to be a rediscovered gem that was called "awesome and amazing," then asks if there was any film that was rediscovered that wasn't considered so.  Not to prove him wrong twice in one night, but my mind immediately bounces to The Dead Talk Back.  I don't think there was anybody praising that one when it was dusted off.

Joe Bob spends a lot of time trying to figure out the logistics of the movie, and even spends one segment recapping the movie so far, each additional sentence more insane than the last.  I wish I could put my hand on his shoulder and tell him "Don't bother trying," but I appreciate the effort.  Joe Bob also spends a bit of time analyzing Louise Lassier, star of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, who he says made her career built on nervous breakdowns (and even got that series cancelled by having a nervous breakdown).  He points out that her performance in the film doesn't come alive until she begins to have a nervous breakdown.  He doesn't really spend much time on anybody else, because very few had careers before or after this movie.  He also spends a lot of time dissecting the concept of oversexed 80's women in slasher movies, probably because there is little else to talk about in this movie.

Joe Bob concludes this episode with an interesting theory that the movie is secretly about pedophilia and incest, claiming the Lassier's mother character was having sex with her son Terry, which would explain why Terry targets teenagers having sex and why he can't stand the idea of his mother having a boyfriend.  I don't think this was ever spelled out in the movie, but it's an angle that's interesting to think about in retrospect.  I highly doubt the filmmakers really had that much on their minds while making this movie though, which would probably be giving them too much credit.

Blood Rage concludes Joe Bob's Dinners of Death with a film that is far less popular than the three that proceeded it, and in my opinion that made this episode a little more interesting.  Seeing films that I've never heard of is why I watch shows like these, and that makes Blood Rage a potential highlight.  But Joe Bob saved his juiciest film info for his openers then got a bit sparser as he went on, so the best Joe Bob sections were saved for his earlier films.  Which episodes were the bigger successes in this marathon depends on what you want out of a Last Drive-In episode, though this marathon was worth watching as a whole.

One last note worth tackling:  In this episode, Joe Bob opens with what I think is an important tangent as to why streaming marathons like this live are important:  community.  He argues that a collective experience in this increasingly more instant gratification streaming world is something that is dying but should still try to be maintained.  As someone who has joined the live Tweet storms of the other Drive-In Mutants on social media, I can agree with him 100%.  Bringing the fans together is a one-of-a-kind experience that can never be replaced.  I feel like Shudder has been handling The Last Drive-In in a way that Netflix fumbled with the new Mystery Science Theater, which they just drop all at once.  Everyone watches those episodes in a rush and/or at their leisure, but the experience of everyone watching a new episode at the same time, then discussing it as a group is gone.  Thank you, Shudder, for doing this right.  I'm sure Netflix doesn't care what with it's huge success and all, but it probably should start to look at this picture in a three-dimensional way.

Joe Bob's Rating

⭐⭐1/2

Dead or Alive (The Last Drive-In)

Film Year:  1999
Genre:  Action
Director:  Takashi Miike
Starring:  Riki Takeuchi, Show Aikawa, Renji Ishibashi

The Movie

Well...I guess I have to write something about this movie now...

I mostly sat through Dead or Alive in a stupor, trying to make heads or tails of it (Joe Bob tried to warn me, why didn't I listen?), so if my details aren't up to speed, I apologize.  This movie was something.  Dead or Alive (not to be confused with the video game series) is about a war between the Triads and the Yakuza on Japanese turf, while a detective attempts to bring them both down.

There's a lot of crazy shit that happens in between, though trying to refresh my memory with what is and what isn't relevant proves to be a challenge.  Looking up synopses for the film is fruitless, because it seems like most who write them scale it down to bare basics because the film has a habit of tangents into wackiness and violence.  But if I were to ever find a detailed outline of this movie, I can't promise that my eyes wouldn't glaze over while reading it as much as they did while watching it.  Most of what I can definitively state is that I watched a bunch of people get gunned down, Asian strippers straddling poles, a hooker get drowned in a wading pool full of poo (no, seriously), a dude tearing his own arm off then pulling a rocket launcher out of his ass, and some total DragonBall bullshit in that climax.

When the movie tries to have a story, it can be interesting if a little meandering.  The story feels sturdy, though I didn't feel the drama was particularly strong.  It seemed like it was relying too much on its style to sell itself, which can be a blessing for some viewers, though a bit tiresome for others.  The movie does offer a few shock turns and expectation-defying sequences that either are Tarantino-inspired or have inspired Tarantino (or maybe a little bit of both).  By the end the point becomes clear to me that Dead or Alive is purely a style and skill over substance movie.

Dead or Alive was directed by Takashi Miike, a popular Japanese director that I have limited knowledge of.  I've seen his film Audition, which is more coherent than this movie, but just as fucked up.  Other than that, I've heard titles linked with his name, but I know little about them.  If Dead or Alive and Audition are an example of a surreal and extremist style that I should expect, I'm not sure I want to go down that road.

I'm not entirely sure how you can follow up a movie that ends with (spoiler alert I guess) Japan blowing up in a way that would make Godzilla jealous, but for some reason there are two sequels to this movie.  Apparently they do little more than share a title with it, and have no connection to the storyline, though Takashi Miike returns to direct and they also star Riki Takeuchi and Show Aikawa.  Dare I even try?

The Drive-In

Joe Bob is going Japanese, I really think so!  Dead or Alive is a bit of a curveball in this Dinners of Death marathon, which has been dominated by a pair of cannibal films up until this point, but now we're faced with a borderline nonsensical, subtitled Japanese gang film.  The big "dinner of death" selling point comes as the film transitions into the third act, where a dinner scene turns into a full massacre, with the majority of guests riddled with bullets.

Like myself, Joe Bob doesn't understand this movie, but at the very least he seems fascinated by it, which is good for us because that means talking points, particularly about the director and its stars (Joe Bob would like to make clear he's hetero, but if he batted for the other team...Riki Takeuchi).  However, he doesn't seem to have as much info on this film as he did for his previous two films, so we see much less of Joe Bob during this film.  When he does appear, he's usually questioning something in the film and asking "What the hell was that?"

The drowning in feces scene by itself really gets under Joe Bob's skin, which is understandable, though he questions why a man's impotence would lead to such a thing.  This leads to the big guest bit on the episode, a phone call with Felissa Rose from Sleepaway Camp, now the show's "Mangled Dick Expert," to ask if that justifies killing a woman with her own shit.  This is the first of many guest spots for Felissa (unless she guested in any of the episodes that were pulled from the first marathon that I never got to), and as far as I'm concerned, she is welcome for any Last Drive-In episode.

Some of my favorite moments in the episode came out of tangents Joe Bob makes that have nothing to do with the movie.  His discussion of how blackface is common in Asian cosplay made me laugh because of its cultural divide in what is deemed offensive.  I liked how Joe Bob uses Godzilla as a benchmark in normal Japanese cinema, then rants about the difference between American monsters and Japanese monsters (Joe Bob claims nobody cares about King Kong in Japan, this is actually false.  Kong's popularity helped inspire Godzilla, but I'm certain Joe Bob is joking, so I'll allow it).  The episode concludes with a continuation of an argument from the previous episode, where Darcy tries to convince Joe Bob that ThanksKilling is a Thanksgiving themed horror movie.  Joe Bob argues that ThanksKilling is actually a short film, since it doesn't hit 80 minutes, though Darcy looks up the consideration for feature film length, which go down all the way to 40 minutes.  While what Darcy states is actually a very old established guildline, technically it's still correct to this day, so Darcy wins.

Dead or Alive features some pretty good Joe Bob reactions and trivia, though I was left a little exhausted by the movie.  I found myself waiting for Joe Bob more and more often, and while I usually have that feeling about wanting more Joe Bob, sometimes the best Joe Bob experiences are when you're also invested in the movie he's showing.  Dead or Alive didn't quite do that for me, though it's perfectly weird and interesting enough to share with this audience.

Joe Bob's Rating
⭐⭐⭐

The Hills Have Eyes (The Last Drive-In)

Film Year:  1977
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Wes Craven
Starring:  Michael Berryman, Dee Wallace, Susan Lanier, Robert Houston, Martin Speer, Russ Grieve, John Steadman, Virginia Vincent

The Movie

One of the earliest films of legendary Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream director Wes Craven, The Hills Have Eyes is the story of a family on a road trip in the middle of the desert.  They soon become the target of a hidden family of inbred cannibals who prey on travelers who run through their neck of the woods.

Personally, I'm not too familiar with the work of Wes Craven.  I've definitely seen Nightmare on Elm Street, though I'm not as enamored with it as most are (reasons of that should be saved for another day, methinks).  I do quite like the cheekiness of the four Scream films he directed and watched at the very least the first three many, many times when I was a teenager (the fourth not nearly as much, but that came out when I was much older).  I think my favorite movie I've seen from him is Red Eye, but I've only seen it once though quite enjoyed it.  Other than that, I mostly found myself more familiar with his more recent, lamer work like Cursed and My Soul to Take, while the films that are designated some of his classics I just never got around to.  The earliest Craven film I've watched is Swamp Thing, which I watched because I like Swamp Thing rather than it being a Wes Craven movie.

So...what took me so long to watch The Hills Have Eyes?  To be honest, it's because I hated the remake.  It was such a vicious and angry little movie that I really got nothing other than a bad mood out of it.  It's been hailed as one of those remakes that is "better" than the original, like The Thing and The Fly (for the record, I intensely disagree that the remakes of these two films are better than the originals, to be honest), so if that were the case, I had no desire to really sit through the original.

Since I haven't watched the 2006 film since it came out, I can't do a very thorough comparison between the two.  I felt less dirty watching Wes Craven's film, though.  I feel the rougher, low budget filmmaking style made for a more interesting movie to me in general, though.  The rougher aspect suits the story, and it feels at home.  It feels like the only proper way to deliver a movie like this.  I ponder whether that's what bothered me when I watched the updated film, that it was too slick a version of a disgusting story, and because of that it came off like a movie that felt like it hated its own audience and wanted to make them suffer.  But I understand that feeling might only be exclusive to me, since a lot of people really like that movie and don't suffer while watching it.  I find it interesting that the aspects that most cite as the reason the original is harder to watch than the remake (the cheap pr are really what makes it more watchable to me.

I'm not going to praise the movie too hard, though, because it's still a flick that I didn't really get into that much.  I think the idea is interesting, though it feels like it tries to twist itself too much into shock value rather than telling a story.  To be fair, the shock value is properly shocking, as the film doesn't shy away from the idea of rape, cooking babies, and even killing puppies.  It's a movie about the ugly, primal nature of survival, and boy does it get ugly.  How you respond to that ugliness is determined by the viewer.

But personally I'm going to go against the grain again and say the original is a better film than the remake, much like my opinions of The Thing and The Fly.  I didn't really enjoy either version, but there was more that piqued my curiosity about the presentation of the original film.

The Drive-In

Our Thanksgiving marathon continues with yet another cannibal movie, which Joe Bob gleefully cites as being directly inspired by our previous cannibal movie, Texas Chain Saw Massacre.  He delights in pointing out the various similarities between the two films, and even points out that props form Texas Chain Saw were reused here as well.  He also goes over the origins of the story, which was loosely based on the Scottish folktale of Sawney Bean, the legendary head of an inbred cannibal clan from the 16th century.

Joe Bob isn't shy on talking about Wes Craven either, who struggled to get a second film made because he didn't want to be a horror director.  You mean the guy who directed Music of the Heart didn't want to direct horror movies his entire life?  Who'd have thought?  But as we all know, horror sells, and horror is cheap, so The Hills Have Eyes was born.  He also delves a bit into Craven's past, touching upon his mostly unknown career in porn and how he never watched a movie until he was 22.

Halfway through the movie, Joe Bob brings out a special guest:  Michael Berryman, who played Pluto in the movie.  Berryman talks in great length about the making of the movie, with fine on-set tidbits (including the use of lamb as human flesh) and how they decided to advertise the movie by sneaking into a drive-in in full Pluto costume and scaring moviegoers (which ends hilariously).  Berryman also talks a bit about his non-Hills roles, such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Crow (including the death of Brandon Lee), and The X-Files.  He also talks about being discovered by George Pal.  Darcy also gets him to sign a giant figurine so they can auction it off for charity.

Speaking of Darcy, she doesn't play coy about her love for the remake, for the second film in a row.  Joe Bob actually agrees with her this time, believing the remake to be a much more polished movie, further proving that I'm an ol' grump.  But despite their being on the same page this episode, Darcy uses the viewers to question Joe Bob's authority, who claimed there was only one Thanksgiving themed horror film.  She then goes to list off a handful, to which Joe Bob mostly stands his ground.  But it's just not proper Joe Bob if he's not irritated at something.  Preferably a rant would ensue, though.

Joe Bob's Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐