Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory (ICWXP)

Film Year:  1961
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Richard Benson (Paolo Huesch)
Starring:  Barbara Lass, Carl Schell
Featured Short:  "Ghost Rider"

The Short

Nicolas Cage stars in this film based on the Marvel comic, as a death defying daredevil is gifted with extraordinary demonic powers from hell itself...oh wait, wrong Ghost Rider.

This somber and depressing short is about a boy who is haunted by a girl who died in a bus accident.  She urges him to read up on bus safety, but at least she's not crawling out of a TV and punishing everyone who might still be using VHS like other ghost girls I know.  As luck would have it, the bus is in an accident the following day.  Instead of being freaked out and accusing the ghost girl of being the freakishly supernatural cause, he leads everyone to safety with what he has learned.

Educational short films can be worse.  The story presented here is silly and poorly acted, but the safety protocol emergencies presented are well executed.  There's nothing too wrong with Ghost Rider other than it's limited production value and the fact that it's title rips off a Marvel comic, leading one to think this will be cooler than it really is.  I will say maybe it gets so plot heavy that it's lessons are a little buried in it.  But it does give a sense of urgency to learning what it wants to teach, which is something I suppose.

The Movie

Well, that title is pretty self-explanatory.  Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory is about a werewolf killing off female students in a panty raid gone horribly wrong.  Suspicions follow the faculty's newest teacher as to whether or not he is the vicious beast killing budding teenagers, or just a perv.

Originally titled Lycanthropus in its native country of Italy, it's easy to see why this film was made.  Horror is a hot genre, and female victims drive up the sex appeal.  However this film can be a bit of a dank and rough watch.  The film tries to spice itself up by being a bit of a mystery, though the red herrings prove to be rather inane and thrown at us carelessly.

This film can be a bit plodding, so don't be surprised if your attention wanders.  Once werewolf action hits the screen, the film becomes a bit more amusing.  Often due to unintentional humor, because the attacks can be comical in how pitiful they can be.  The deaths can be comical as well, with the frozen face of terror of the first victim being quite the laugh-getter.

Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory is mostly for the trash crowd, as werewolf and horror fans won't find it very interesting or exciting.  For those of us who dwell in the bottom of the barrel cinema it's fairly watchable and far from the worst movie you'll find, but that doesn't make it good.

The Episode

The gang at Incognito Cinema Warriors XP regroups to film a finale to "season one" of their series as they prep up a fairly more ambitious "season two" that tries to distance itself further from Mystery Science Theater.  They have a new, one-timer voice for Topsy (Gregory Wyatt Tinnen) and a new antagonist in Kincaid (also played by Tinnen).  As of this writing this is the final full length feature film riff ICWXP has done, though Rikk Wolf claims that episode six of "season two" will be a full feature as well.

I enter this episode of ICWXP with a fair amount of tepid curiosity.  I've been running hot and cold on the group since starting making my way through these episodes, and my opinions have varied all over the place.  I think these guys can showcase talent at the best of times, but it often feels like they need to be reeled in.  So I have no expectations of episode four because I don't really know what to expect to feel anymore.

The short Ghost Rider is a very serious presentation, which would create the perfect straight man.  However I'd say the riffing on it is fair at best.  There are a few standout lines (Topsy's Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption impression was pretty aces), but overall the effort didn't generate too much enthusiasm from me.  Rifftrax reriffed this short in 2013, and while I can't speak for that short at this time, I will say there is room for improvement.

Pushing on to the movie, I'd say the middling string of riffs continue for a time, at least until the first host segment.  But the gang snowballs with the film's ugly crazyness and the episode gets progressively funnier.  Rick and the Bots seem to be having a good time with this silly movie, looking past the pain it brings to see the pleasure in just how goofy it is under the surface.  All of this in consideration, some of ICWXP's worst tendencies do come into play.  Sometimes they throw out a reference that vaguely resembles what's happening onscreen, but just barely too far removed that it doesn't feel like it belongs.  At other points they just ride on a few gags that feel like they are there to amuse themselves, such as the leather chair noise gags.  There are points they can make it work, but in others it feels as if they should just let it go.

On the host segment end, I got a good laugh out of the first segment where Johnny Cylon puts on a "ghost hunter" reality show.  The other segments didn't quite do much for me, though I didn't particularly hate any of them.  We have the gang create their own coffee shop, put up a birthday party for Topsy's grandfather, and Topsy dresses in drag.  Meanwhile, Kincaid sends Dr. Blackwood for "re-education" and takes over with his own brand of maniacal laughter.  I preferred Blackwood, though Kincaid is fine.

Note:  Kincaid threatens to send Rick both The Happening and Crossroads, two movies that were riffed by Rifftrax.

Now having seen the entirety of ICWXP's first season I find myself amused by most of it, but still not entirely as infatuated with the show as it's rabid fanbase would have me believe.  I think as far as fan-based riffing projects go these guys might be among the head of the pack, but I'm still not entirely won over.  In certain areas they aren't working at the same frequency as my own sense of humor, though in others they line up quite well.  As for this episode as an individual, it's one of the better ones so far, though Lady Frankenstein is a bit more consistent.  I'd recommend it.

Good

The DVD

You can find this episode sold as a single through icwxp.com, or as a part of the "Season 1 Collection," which also features Lady Frankenstein and Bloody Pit of Horror.  This is the first ICWXP episode to be filmed and presented entirely in anamorphic widescreen, and undoubtedly it's the best looking episode so far.  The one issue I have is that since the short and film were filmed in full screen, series creator Rikk Wolf opts to present them in a stretched format to fill the entire 1.78:1 screen.  As someone who believes in aspect ratio preservation, I am firmly against this practice.

But I have to admit, it's no different than watching TV with my dad, so I'll manage.

This is also the first disc with bonus features, so yay!  The first feature is a Q&A with Wolf and his fellow riffers Zach Legler (Johnny Cylon) and Greggory Wyatt Tinnen (who played Topsy-Bot 5000 and Kincaid solely in this episode).  They talk about the series and movie they like, don't like, and what could be riffed or not.  Following that we have separate features devoted to Wolf discussing the set and the Bot puppets.

Moving on there are three music videos.  At first glance they're entirely irrelevant, but upon closer inspection they were all directed by Rikk Wolf, which I imagine is somewhat of Wolf putting together some demo material for anybody who might be on the lookout.  There's also a bonus song from the band of the voice of Johnny Cylon.  There's also a photo gallery of fans showing off their ICWXP DVDs, which is...fine...I guess.  Good for them.

Rikk Wolf also does something that is pretty unheard of for a riffing show...he provides an audio commentary!  But only for the host segments since, as he points out, commentating over the commentary would be silly.  He's more technical than anything.  There is no mention of the switching cast, more or less just pointing out origins of skits and how the show is made.  It's about 20 minutes or so of commentary.