Release Date: December 1, 2015
This box set is such a celebration of American International Pictures and their contributions to the cheesy movie market that its special features are mostly devoted solely to a documentary about the history of the company that is about as long as the Mystery Science Theater episodes themselves. While it doesn't have every AIP episode of the series (there were way more than four), it is a nice sampler pack with some pretty fine episodes in Viking Women and the Sea Serpent and The Undead. War of the Colossal Beast and The She-Creature aren't nearly as good, but the former contains the most popular short of the series, Mr. B Natural. I'm not a huge fan of the short myself, but most would consider the set a must-own based on that alone.
Average Rating (out of 4): 2.75
Audio and video for this release were mostly good, though Undead featured some slight flaws. The only sizable bonus feature is the above mentioned documentary, It Was a Colossal Teenage Movie Machine. It also features a trailer for Viking Women and War of the Colossal Beast by Frank Conniff and theatrical trailers for Colossal Beast, Undead, and The She-Creature. That's it, but the documentary is so massive that it makes up for the lack of content.
The box art is the usual stock cover that Shout Factory gave the series, featuring the Mystery Science Theater logo in the upper left corner, the theater seat silhouettes at the bottom looking up at the roman numerals XXXIV painted in purple against a starry backdrop. The interior cases however feature wonderful art by Steve Vance. Viking Women's title has been shortened to the much more shelf-friendly Viking Women vs. the Sea Serpent, and features Tom Servo as a Viking woman daring to sail the treacherous waters and do battle with Crow as the sea serpent. War of the Colossal Beast sees Servo playing Glen, the titular Colossal Beast, towering above his sister, played by Crow. The Undead sees Crow dressed up as the male lead and Servo as our time traveling hooker, surrounded by inferno as the face of the devil looks on above them. The She-Creature sees Servo as hypnotist Carlo Lombardi putting his lovely assistant Crow under his spell as the title creature looms behind them.
Disc art is the standard episode logos against a starry backdrop. The menus continue the puppet skits that we've seen in the last few sets. Viking Women sees Crow trying to sacrifice Viking Servo to the gods by burning him at the stake. Colossal Beast sees Crow and Servo accidentally summoning Mr. B Natural and having to call Glen the Colossal Beast to save them. The Undead sees Crow and Servo selling their souls to the devil and all hell breaking loose on the Satellite of Love. The She-Creature sees Crow trying to hypnotize Servo, only to have the She-Creature appear on the SOL bridge and make out with Servo.
Unfortunately Volume XXXIV was eventually pulled from the market due to a lawsuit, and not for the usual reasons of lapsing movie rights. The AIP documentary used footage some archival public domain footage of films that were under a copyright, and the copyright holder took objection to that. The court settlement allowed the set to remain in print for a few years though so it's not exactly a rarity, and there is always the possibility that Shout could reissue it without the documentary since they still have all the episodes under license. That would mean setting up a new disc for Viking Women, but it doesn't seem like it should be that difficult to do. That's just speculation on my part. I'm glad to have the documentary, and it's sad that other fans might miss out on it, but the stars of the set will always be the episodes and at least two of them are worth collecting, while another has one of the most popular segments in the history of the show.
No comments:
Post a Comment