"Wake Me Up Before You Decompose" (ICWXP)

Featured Short:  "Victory Gardens"

The Short

ICWXP digs up this short out of someone's compost.  Personally I can't find much info on it, and I'm not even sure "Victory Gardens" is its actual title (the title has been chopped off of the print seen in this episode).  This short sees two children toiling away on their family's victory garden during World War II.  It also gives helpful tips on establishing and maintaining one's own garden, or victory garden should World War III pop up unannounced.

The short is mostly a dry affair.  Those interested in such gardening techniques will find more to like here than most others, though I find it pretty boring.  But who knows, maybe I'll dust this short off and take its tips should I need to start a victory garden of my own.

The Episode

This episode is transitional for Incognito Cinema Warriors.  Most glaring is that they're riffing a short and not a film, we're given a new voice to Topsy (now voiced by Nick Evans), and there seems to be more emphasis on world building in the host segments, being filmed with more flair than the usual straight camera puppet show approach.  It feels to me that ICWXP is tired of being an MST3K leech and is trying to become something new by telling a story outside of the film riffing.  Other than season eight's story arc (which let's face it, was half-assed), MST was never a story show.  Rikk Wolf and the guys working on this show seem to think this could be their strong point.  The issue I'm having is that the writing outside of the theater has not been ICWXP's strong suit up to this point, so I'm struggling to feel any sort of enthusiasm for the idea.

But if I were to give credit where credit is due, the host segments of this episode are probably the strongest ICWXP's offered.  It feels like more heart is being put into them than before, and maybe that's to be expected because now they're a major part of the show.  That said, there is not much that happens in this particular episode.  It comes up with an excuse for a time jump and why we may not have seen any more "full" episodes, while concluding in a long journey to a new robot friend.

It seems it is now five years since Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory, and the titular Incognito Cinema Warriors have watched hundreds of movies before going to war with Kincaid.  During the struggle Rick was taken prisoner and given amnesia, forcing him to forget everything after the previous episode.  Cylon and Topsy save him and bring him back to the theater, where they meet a mysterious new ally hiding behind a voice synthesizer who wishes to join the fight against Kincaid.

All of this is fine.  It's not impressive storytelling, but it's serviceable to what little story ICWXP has, caters to the constraints of the production itself, and is probably more funny than it isn't.  I was amused, though not really interested.  I'm hoping now that this comedic exposition is out of the way further episodes will do it better.

As for the riffing, it's quite good.  Victory Gardens is not really a short of momentum, though they riff upon it with enough grumbling sarcasm to make it bearable.  There is some dark fun at the expense of the war setting as well as jabs at the farming obstacles.  Probably my favorite line is a fairly simple one, when we see seed packets in the dirt and they wonder aloud "Why aren't my crops growing?"  There's also a strange commercial for Alka-Seltzer, which mostly seems like an excuse to riff on fat guys.  But honestly, that commercial is asking for it.

Wake Me Up Before You Decompose is ICWXP's shortest episode at a mere 47 minutes.  I remember rumors about Rikk Wolf shopping the concept around to network television, which leads me to believe these shorter episodes brought a better concept for them fill an hour slot with, as opposed to the two-hour long episodes of the past.  Whatever the reason for pulling back on the time limit, it's leaner than every previous episode and it goes down a bit easier.  I'm not sure if it's the best episode yet, as it's hard to compare what they did then with what they're doing now, but I'd say it ranks among the better.

Good

The DVD

ICWXP continues to offer an animorphic widescreen picture with a stretched format in the theater.  All things considered it looks pretty crisp.  It's also another disc loaded with extras, starting off with a 90 second preview of the next episode which sees Rick building a new weapon of some sort.

Next up is a featurette devoted to redressing the set, as Rikk Wolf and a construction crew get hard at work creating a more elaborate set for the new direction of the show.  If you ever wondered how much work he puts into ICWXP this is a good indicator.  Also about construction is a featurette called "Johnny Cylon Gets His Legs" which is mostly just close-ups of Cylon's new body being put together.

Up next is a segment called "Rick vs. Bride of the Gorilla" in which we get a peek into Rick's head during his VR purgatory in which he's forced to watch Bride of the Gorilla again.  There are some new jokes during the six minute segment for fans to mull over.

This disc also has not one but two audio commentaries.  The first is by Rikk Wolf and Nick Evans and they discuss the new style of ICWXP and what they've done to hopefully make the show better.  The second is a solo track by Wolf which mostly covers technical details.

The disc rounds out with a music video and a silly "Zombie Walk for Hunger."