The Astral Factor (Cinematic Titanic Live)

Film Year:  1978
Genre:  Science Fiction
Director:  John Floria, Gene Fowler Jr., Arthur C. Pierce
Starring:  Robert Foxworth, Stefanie Powers, Sue Lyon, Mark Slade
CT Number:  ??? Unreleased

The Movie

No, this isn't a lost spin-off sequel to The Alien Factor.

A convicted felon discovers the ability to tap into supernatural powers that give him psychic abilities and turn himself invisible.  He uses these powers to escape from jail and murder the women who testified against him.  A cop who has a pet bimbo without pants attempts to track him down.

In the Cinematic Titanic intro Joel ponders that this might have been a TV pilot for a series, but I can't really find any evidence to support this.  In fact I'm inclined to believe the contrary.  While there isn't much info about this film online that I can find, simple IMDB and Google searches bring up info that it played in theaters, or at the very least it could have in 1984 under the title Invisible Strangler.  I also think the content of the film itself contradict Joel's conclusion, as it features some slight-but-not-1978-TV-friendly nudity and has an ending that doesn't quite set up anything episodic (like at all).  I think Joel's way off base on that one.

As invisible antagonists go, The Astral Factor is closer to Kevin Bacon's Hollow Man than Claude Rains' Invisible Man.  It's pretty low budget, almost a borderline slasher movie.  But the idea of having a murderer you can't see is neat, keeping the victims in the dark and never seeing the killer coming while the authority figures have no idea how to track him.  But the budget and overall cheesiness of the writing get the best of it, as the film seems to be so in love with the idea that it came up with that it tries to escape the lack of development and resources they put into it.

The Astral Factor is good for some unintentional laughs and is rarely dull, though at times it does threaten us with blandness.  That gives me enough to recommend it to those who like to wade through cheap, bad movies.  But those with taste will be best to avoid without a riff accompanying it.

The Riff

May the Titans forgive me but I find myself watching one of their shows via bootleg.  But since the group is defunct now, they never played in Idaho, and they never released a DVD of The Astral Factor, chances are they weren't getting my money anyway.  So guess what?  I don't feel guilty.

The Astral Factor is one of three riffs the Titans made that was never released on DVD, the others being Samson and the Seven Miracles of the World and The Doll Squad.  Someone attending one of Cinematic Titanic's Live shows decided to record the audio somehow.  Normally this would be a call for shame, but it turns out they actually preserved something that would have otherwise been lost.  They then took video from the film itself and synced it to the audio, recreating a lost Cinematic Titanic release.  Unfortunately Samson and Doll Squad are lost to time (Samson actually only played a handful of times before rights issues with the movie arose), though at a future date I might watch the films uncut to add them onto the site.

One thing to note off the bat here is that J. Elvis Weinstein was unable to attend this show due to an unfortunate bout with cancer.  A comedian named Dave Allen takes his place, who I am unfamiliar with.  I'm going to make an uneducated guess and assume it's this Dave Allen and not the one who died in 2005, before Cinematic Titanic was even formed.  Allen does fine, and sometimes even sounds a bit like J. Elvis, making the replacement barely noticeable.

As for the riffing, it took me a while to get into it.  This might have been because while the audio is surprisingly good for an audience recording it's of lower quality than we're used to on live shows for not just CT but Rifftrax as well.  A lot of it is coherent, but some of the slighter deliveries tend to get a tad lost.  At times someone delivers what seems to be a tasteless punchline, gets a jeering response from the audience, and the performers do some humorous defense, which would be funnier if I understood what the joke was in the first place.  There's also a bit halfway through where there isn't really any riffing but the audience is reacting to something involving a twirling hypnotic disc in the film.  I'm not sure but I'm almost positive that the Titan's are doing expression gags at this point, which we unfortunately cannot see.  The disc itself still is fairly funny, but there seems to be something missing in the scene.  But all of this is circumstantial of the recording and not a fault of the show itself.

I find myself more invested in this show by the third act.  Not only is there more going on in the movie but I felt I had gotten used to the presentation by then.  The laughs started coming in very steady just in time for a killer, hysterical finale.  I found myself with an overall positive impression of the riff as a whole, even when I was having trouble working myself past the audio.  Joel even makes a quite perfect callback to Pod People at one point in the show, and when you can make me remember Pod People fondly (which doesn't happen often) then your show must be doing something right.  I'm glad The Astral Factor made it out of obscurity if only because it feels like a better final impression of Cinematic Titanic than Rattlers was.

Good

Beginning Responsibility: Being a Good Sport (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2011
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

This latest installment of the Beginning Responsibility series sees a pair of pouty brats throwing a temper tantrum during a Checkers game.  A narrator then lists various lessons they've learned about sportsmanship and how to properly conduct oneself during a situation.

The short holds decent lesson at heart which it targets at children.  If I were to list something that drove me nuts about it it's that all the children throwing fits grates on my nerves.  Though I'm not quite the right target audience so my complaint is moot.  Could children learn from this?  Probably.  Though it's also likely the bad sports would likely be pouting in the corner about how they have to watch this stupid film in the first place.

The riffing does offer a swell counterweight to the short's more obnoxious elements.  I had a good chuckle early on in which Kevin wishes it was a series on "Ending Responsibility" instead, and then the guys list off various potential titles.  A group of bratty kids throw rocks at a lamppost resulting Kevin to quip "Electricity was new to Woody's town.  The boys feared and hated it."  And of course there are plenty of jabs about how being a bad sport just might have been the correct path all along.

And Dungeons & Dragons gags.  Because of course there are.

It's almost easy for me to look at Being a Good Sport and say the laughs fade into the background among whiny children we're forced to watch, but that wouldn't be a good sport of me to say this short is without merit.  The commentary is actually pretty strong and laughter echos over the pissing and moaning we're enduring.  Because of that I'll give it a pass, though those with short patience might want to tread lightly.

Thumbs Up

👍

Krull (Rifftrax Live)

Film Year:  1983
Genre:  Fantasy
Director:  Peter Yates
Starring:  Ken Marshall, Lysette Anthony, Freddie Jones, David Battley, Liam Neeson, Robbie Coltrane
Rifftrax Year:  2018
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

The Movie

On the far away world of Krull, a prince is to wed a princess, but an alien beast and his army of Slayers invade and take the princess captive to marry the beast in a constantly moving castle.  The prince then leads a quest to rescue the princess and slay the beast.

Halfway through the Rifftrax the riffers mix a little bit of video games with Shakespeare, having the princess run through the castle singing "Mario, Mario, where for art thou Mario?"  Once I made the connection between the two I couldn't unsee it.  In many ways Krull is a better version of the Super Mario Bros. movie than the actual Super Mario Bros. movie.  Here we have our hero chasing after a princess stolen by a monster, and in seeking her he has to level up at several points to reach his destination and kill the giant reptile creature.  One even looks at Robbie Coltrane's character, who wears a distinct pattern of red and blue and features a little mustache.  If you put a red hat on him he'd be Mario's spitting image.

But the Super Mario Bros. game wasn't released until 1985, which means Krull similarities are just a coincidence (or the game designers were huge Krull fans).  In context of the year it was released what Krull really feels like is a blatant attempt by a studio to groom a franchise into the next Star Wars.  If you've come for insight as to what differentiates Krull and Star Wars you've come to the wrong place.  I guess Star Wars is clearly better, though in many ways watching the two films is a similar experience for me.  At some points I even enjoyed Krull, with its swashbuckling spirit and some cool costumes and set design, though for the most part it's a very padded and dull movie that would greatly benefit from an editor's touch.

As the riffers like to point out repeatedly, Krull was an early film for actors Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane, both of which got the opportunity to feature in far better fantasy franchises in the future (Star Wars and Batman for Neeson, and Harry Potter for Coltrane).  They don't do a lot in the film, though Neeson gets more screentime and dialogue than Coltrane does.

The Live Show

This Rifftrax Live is one of those deals where you either see it in theaters or you don't see it at all, which makes this review kind of pointless unless you're working yourself up to see an eventual reairing.  One takes place Saturday August 25th (I type this immediately after my showing), though other showings might happen in the future depending on rerun rights.

Krull is a lengthy movie, which means like the Live shows of Starship Troopers or Godzilla the boys pretty much dive right in after a bit of opening banter.  To say it off the bat the movie is quite suitable for the Live format.  It's colorful and looks great on the big screen (far better than the previous Live movie, Space Mutiny), and the film itself is daffy and full of long sequences without dialogue, letting riffs fly.  Though the draggier the film tends to get does tend to let the riffs become tiresome as they riff long periods of the same image over and over again.  By the time you get to endless superspeed horses at the end of the film I was really aching for Krull to be more diverse.

However Krull is pretty easily the better of the two Live shows this year.  The laughter is quite strong from the get-go and the level is maintained fairly consistently for a while before one realizes that the movie doesn't quite know when a scene should end.  But still there is a lot of fun stuff here from the flaming horses to a giant spider to a silly looking final creature.  Riffs are plentiful with plenty of howlers and some good hearty chuckles in between.  There is also probably one of the biggest audience riff rejections I've ever heard in a Live show, involving a cave and a certain Thai soccer team that you might remember from the news last month.

Krull is flawed due to the films bloat though I'd say the Live show is definitely one to experience, so definitely seek out the re-airing if you can.  2018 was a solid year for Rifftrax Live.  Can't wait to see what 2019 has in store!

Good

Starship Invasions (Rifftrax)

Film Year:  1977
Genre:  Science Fiction
Director:  Ed Hunt
Starring:  Christopher Lee, Robert Vaughn
Rifftrax Year:  2018
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

The Movie

Well it took some digging but we finally found an alien invasion movie that rivals the ineptitude and unintentional hilarity of Plan 9 from Outer Space.  And wouldn't you know it this one ALSO stars a former Dracula!  Now if we can only get Gary Oldman to do one (and no, Lost in Space doesn't count).

Christopher Lee plays a renegade alien who has lead an insurrection against his people and plans to colonize Earth and wipe out human civilization by transmitting a beam that causes a Happening level suicide epidemic.  UFO expert Robert Vaughn is taken by the peaceful members of the alien race in an effort to stop Lee.  What does Vaughn do?  Well...he sits around and looks worried mostly.  That's a huge help.

Released the same year as Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Starship Invasions was pretty much outdated from the getgo.  Hell, even if those movies weren't released, I'd argue the movie still was outdated upon release.  I'm still not entirely sure what to make of it.  It's a very low budget, very cheap, very silly movie with hysterical performances and an absurd style.  But it's so bloody earnest.  It feels like it's trying real hard to be a real movie.

And through that sincerity there is almost something to like about Starship Invasions.  It's not really a bad idea for a movie.  In fact there are several movies here rolled into one complicated shitstorm.  The warring alien angle fighting over the fate of planet Earth is fine.  I like the idea of the aliens somehow forcing humanity to commit suicide as a form of genocide as well.  Let's be honest, as poor as this movie is it's done waaaaaaaaaaaay better here than it was done in The Happening.  I also have to be honest, as strange as the music in this movie was, it was almost endearing in an odd way.

Starship Invasions is crap, but it's that kind of crap you discover late at night and can't take your eyes off of.  You just sit there thinking to yourself "Wow...somebody made this?"  And somebody did.  And I wouldn't change that for anything.

The Trax

Starship Invasions is something of a perfect target for Rifftrax, though I wonder if it's too perfect.  This movie could be T-Ball, and with the right swing every moment should be over the fence.  It does seem like Mike, Kevin, and Bill are willing to settle with this one.  The movie alone is funny, and they make it funnier, though the resulting commentary feels a bit below their grade-A status.

There are a lot of safe jokes here, more or less pandering to people who remember previous titles Rifftrax has tackled.  Mike does a not-so-subtle burn on Starship Troopers by claiming Invasions is easily "the best movie he's seen with 'Starship' in the title."  They also go on a little bit of a Happening digression when similarities between the two films start to spring up.  These gags are cute, though I prefer the original material and A-game stuff.

At times Rifftrax shines.  This is especially evident as the movie is unfolding early on and the absurd production is coming at us by surprise.  They note in the opening credits the movie was made by Hal Roach Studios, a company that was best known for comedy films and shorts in the 1930's, by hoping the movie was an epic battle between The Little Rascals and Laurel & Hardy IN SPACE!  Then the film offers up cheap effects, lousy costumes, and godawful acting, and the trio delights in it and keeps pace.

The problem is the film doesn't really offer much new in the third act, and by then Mike, Kevin, and Bill are going through the motions and jumping through the same hoops as before.  Starship Invasions is funny and it's worth having in the collection, as the movie is just so silly and the riffing gets good jabs in.  It just doesn't maintain right down to the end, though that's forgivable since it's a good product nonetheless.

Good

How to be a Friend (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2018
Riffers:  Bridget Nelson, Mary Jo Pehl

This'll cure all them sheltered freaks.  How to be a Friend is a series of staged friendship moments that are designed to teach youth about the meaning of friendship.  The purpose of teaching it...I'm not sure.  Perhaps to help the viewer know what a healthy friendship is as opposed to a poor one, though everything the short shows is positive, so...to be honest I can't see anybody learning a damn thing from it.  It's watered down, and the folk music is pretty annoying.

The riffing doesn't always hit its mark.  Every once in a while Bridget and Mary Jo will get a good shot at it but mostly just jus hover around mild amusement.  A lot of their comments of the short's music is fairly funny early on, though they steadily decline in laughs when the short uses it more often, probably since it's less of a surprise later on.  The friendship portions all seem to have one segment per pairing that the duo can turn hilarious, but that only accounts for a third of the short.

As such it's hard for me to fully recommend How to be a Friend.  The appeal of riffing this short is obvious, though the end result is uneven.  This one just doesn't do it for me.  It does have one of the best closing lines of any Rifftrax however...

"Mary Jo, seeing as we're good friends, I made you a mix tape of all this short's music."
::repressing rage:: "Oh you...shouldn't...have..."

Thumbs Down

👎

621-The Beast of Yucca Flats

Film Year:  1961

Genre:  Horror, Science Fiction

Director:  Coleman Francis

Starring:  Tor Johnson and a lot of ADR

MST Season:  6

Shorts Featured:  "Money Talks!," "Progress Island U.S.A."

The Shorts

We've got a pair of shorts for you to try on!

First off we have Money Talks, an instructional film in which Benjamin Franklin haunts a pouting teenager who doesn't have enough money for the dance.  Intimidating him with his silhouette, Benji tries to talk him into forming a budget.

Definitely a short shown to high-schoolers in order to encourage saving over spending so they don't end up homeless, Money Talks is simple and easy to understand.  Though big picture ideas are ignored in favor of little teenage views, it's a fair study and lesson in money.

Up next we stop by in Progress Island U.S.A., a short devoted to the booming industries of Puerto Rico.  Did you know they make pants in Puerto Rico?  How about drugs?  How about booze?  Yeah!  Now you're interested in Puerto Rico!

I'm going to assume this was a promo piece that was cobbled together to convince people to invest in Puerto Rican business or to become involved and work for it in it in some capacity.  It's a very colorful and flashy short, and the locals are beautiful.  You know what?  I'll buy!  The short is fine, though it seems to drone a bit more than the previous.

The Movie

Tor Johnson plays a Russian scientist caught in a nuclear explosion, which turns him into a murderous...I'd say "beast" but technically he's still human.  He's just kinda burned and pissed off.  He wanders around for about an hour and strangles people, meanwhile those who aim to hunt him down shoot everything in sight.

I'm going to be honest, I kind of like Beast of Yucca Flats.  Not in the traditional sense, but it's just a movie where so many creative choices are so absurd that I can't help but watch this movie and be entranced by it.  In some ways it's comparable to The Creeping Terror, in which we're given an oddball horror film that doesn't have a proper soundtrack so we're given a narrator to help try and make sense of it all.  Creeping Terror at the very least stays simple though, while it's not enough for Beast to be a simple monster movie, but it tries to be philosophical as well.  Our narrator throws metaphors out the wazoo to try and give the wild shenanigans a deeper meaning, but half of it doesn't make a lick of sense.  "Flag on the Moon, how did it get there?," "Push of a button, something happens," and, my favorite, "Some men aren't bothered by anything, not even flying saucers."

While the film does this it showcases a very angry world of cruelty, but also one without logic.  The first image of the film is of a woman being hopelessly murdered, which presumably happens after Tor is turned into the monster, but the sequence doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the film leaving us to wonder just when the hell he was supposed to kill this lady.  Also, a group of kids go missing in the desert in the midst of a manhunt for the beast, which causes their father to almost get shot looking for them because "Shoot first, ask questions later."  A criticism of law enforcement?  Possibly, but I doubt it.  It was probably just nonsense for the sake of drama.

Beast was the first film directed by the infamous Coleman Francis, who directed some of the most painful films featured on the Mystery Science Theater.  While it's true that I personally am slightly intrigued by the bleak inanity of Beast of Yucca Flats, to a layman it's a very tough film to get through.  I couldn't recommend this film to anybody except for those who seek out the weirdest of the weird.  For them I say go nuts.

The Episode

Mike, Servo, and Crow brace themselves for the final Coleman Francis film they'll be subjected to (not including his small cameo in This Island Earth), but somewhat under the radar is that it's also the final Tor Johnson movie the show has featured (as of this writing, that is).  It's mildly fitting because the film was one of Tor's final roles and it's also one of his strangest.  But at least he's not a thug named Lobo.

Beast of Yucca Flats is actually a surprisingly easy film to riff.  The movie is all voice-work and poorly done voice work at that.  There is no on set sound, which means all of the empty voices from nowhere, up to and including the film's narrator, are easy to add onto.  A lot of the riffs are them finishing sentences to humorous effect, and there is some great hilarity as a result.  They keep the mood cheerful, because this is a dour movie and the counterweight is deserved.  The overall riff commentary is quite funny overall.

And there's more.  This is the fourth and final time the series offered more than one short in a single episode, and I think it's arguable that the riffing is probably more consistent between these two shorts than in other examples in the series.  Money Talks is a goody, as Mike and the Bots take an opportunity to heckle a lecture by Benjamin Franklin, and why wouldn't they?  There is a mopey teenager, a supernatural figure that tells you what to do, and a moral drilled into your forehead.  It's perfect!  Progress Island U.S.A. is a bit of a jarring change of pace, but Mike and the Bots keep up with it.  There is even an argument that can be made saying that it might be the superior of the two.  One thing I can say for certain is that it probably was the harder short to riff, since Money Talks is much goofier.  Progress Island is a disembodied voice accompanying a bunch of images, while the guys offer their own disembodied voices to go with it.  I laughed fairly often during these opening thirty minutes.

Given how good the theater work is, the host segments are a bit of a letdown.  The highlight of the group for me is Crow's ad for Film Anti-Preservation, which is a hilarious plea for some films to just rot.  The Proposition Deep 13 segments, which try to present the episode as a political attack, are quite fun too.  But the rest feels like hollow filler, and I don't believe I laughed all that much.

Beast of Yucca Flats was briefly mentioned as one of Mike's training films in his first episode, The Brain that Wouldn't Die.  The fact that it comes out of the blue here as an official experiment is a pleasant surprise, though Mike doesn't seem to remember he's seen it before ("Just repeat to yourself...").  I'd say Beast winds up being a memorable episode, because the movie is a doozy and the riffing is quite hilarious.

Good

The DVD

Beast of Yucca Flats on DVD.  How did it get there?  Shout Factory of course!  This was one of the episodes featured on their Volume XVIII collection.  Video was spotty, filled with tape hits throughout, while audio was solid.

First up was a thirty minute documentary on the making of the film, called No Dialogue Necessary:  Making an "Off-Camera Masterpiece."  This featurette talks to people who worked on the film, film historians, as well as Bob Burns, who screened the film with Coleman Francis, and MST's Frank Coniff, who discusses the film's use on Mystery Science Theater.  A lot of the oddities of the film are addressed, and everyone is very upfront about the "quality" of this movie.

Up next is an interview with Lee Strosnider, who worked with Coleman Francis on Beast and The Skydivers.  He discusses working with Francis and being his friend, right down to his sad end.

Rounding out the disc is a jazzy bongo drum trailer for the film as well as a gallery of still photos from the film (but not many).

"The Gear is Family" (ICWXP)

Featured Short:  "The Great American Chocolate Factory"

The Short

MAKE AMERICAN CHOCOLATE FACTORY GREAT AGAIN!

Chocolate lovers rejoice!  Hershey's is here to take you on a tour of their chocolate factory and no golden ticket is required!  See where cocoa beans come from, how they are refined, and turned into those deliciously chocolatey treats you love and make you obese!

This short is a fairly informative to those who are interested in the making of such fattening goodness.  I was actually intrigued for the most part and enjoyed seeing such familiar treats in their raw form and taking shape, from the classic Hershey bar to the Hershey Kiss.

But the short does wear out its welcome after twenty minutes.  One does question one's sanity after looking at all of the mechanics and cocoa.  The Great American Chocolate Factory gets kudos from me for not boring me, at least for a while.

The Episode

Watching the cold opening to The Gear is Family I found myself reflecting on the pureness of an independent production without restriction.  This episode begins with an eleven minute sequence told from the point of view of the little floating ball robot that rescued Rick in the previous episode, as we see it's life since Dr. Blackwood (now played by Rikk Wolf) created it to the point we first met it in the episode.  If this were something created for television this sequence would have been trimmed the eff down.  This is self-indulgence at it's most consuming, where Rikk Wolf is playing around with this idea he has and milking it for all it's worth.  I'm not going to judge or resent him for it, it's his production and his money so he can do whatever he wants, but I am going to say that if it's going to be as long as it is then it needs to be a home run.  As it is, it's just middling to good, as some moments work better than others.  I liked the Silent Fire Alarm personally ("We're going to save lives!"), though while the concept works I think it would have been more amusing if it were half of its runtime.  Especially coming off of a three-minute recap of the previous two episodes it just feels like we've made it fifteen minutes into the episode without anything really happening.

Once this hurdle is passed, we finally meet up back where the previous episode left off, with Rick and the Bots taking one of the baddies captive for questioning...except they don't really question him.  They "torture" him for a bit by reading Twilight at him (which is cute) but the only real thing that happens is that we discover that the outside world may not be as ravaged as we thought.

After the theater segment has ended we find our group having logged in online, which is pretty much an excuse for them to parody the internet for the rest of the episode.  Some of the YouTube videos they come up with are fun, including a return of The Count who is used to parody Christian Bale's famous rant on the set of Terminator:  Salvation.  A good amount of these parodies are solid and pretty funny, though I wouldn't say I had a very verbal laughter reaction to any of them.  The episode finally ends with very little progression other than internet access, making this feel like a filler episode of a show that spends more time in production between episodes than any other show of its type.

When it comes to the theater work, maybe the innovation of the previous episode spoiled me but I was a tad disappointed to see Rick, Topsy, and Cylon just riff a group of concessions commercials before the short begins.  There isn't a lot of meat on their bones and it feels like an exorcise in seeing how well the trio can riff dead air.  Some riffs are fun, though this sequence feels lengthy and doesn't whet the appetite for the feature presentation.

Once the short starts, riffing instantly improves.  The short actually gives them what they need to work with for the most part, even though the majority of it is imagery of machines making chocolate.  While I wouldn't say most of the riffing is inspirational, they get a surprisingly steady stream of laughs going at what could have been a monotonous affair, so I'll give them credit where credit is due.

Unlike the previous episode the highlight of the episode happens in the theater, which feels like that's how it should be.  The unfortunate counterpoint to this is that ICWXP currently wants what is both inside and outside of the theater to be equally important, which gives me pause as to whether I'd consider this a good episode or not.  If one took this short and put it in the previous episode, then yes I'd have no hesitance in saying it's worthwhile.  But given the lengthy cold opening, non-formative host segments, sluggish pre-riffing commercial appetizer, and a fairly funny but decidedly non-diverse feature, this episode just feels like a slog.  Ultimately I came out feeling mildly amused, but with an aftertaste that made me feel like I had wasted my time.

Average

The DVD

Like all of ICWXP offerings, this episode was released on DVD through icwxp.com as it's own disc or as a part of the Season 2 Collection Volume 1.  Picture and audio were solid and, as is normal for this show at this point, the theater sequence is presented in a stretch format to fill the entire widescreen television.  Special features are plentiful, though the page that displays them can be a little jarring.  Cleverly they are presented as candy from the concessions stand, though it's difficult to read the feature titles on the menu.

First up is a feature titled ICWXP@NAKA, which features the ICWXP crew visiting a Kansas convention and advertising their show.  Rick, Topsy, and Cylon actually riff a portion of this footage with laughter resulting.  Stay until the very end to see the best stream of riffs which target a Batman cosplayer ("This strip mall needs a symbol!").  There is also some footage of the Zombie Walk for Hunger.

Next up is a promo for the YouTube exclusive episode Zombie Poo-Pocalypse.  Rick, Topsy, and Cylon explain the premise and then make a poo joke.

Up next is a short riffed by Josh Way, How Do You Do?  It's a middling riff on a bizarre film that overthinks the greeting phrase of the title.  Overall it's okay.  There is also a promo for another riffing project, Cartoon Lagoon.

The special features conclude with two audio commentaries.  The first is by Rikk Wolf and Nick Evans, which delves deep into the creative decisions of the episode.  The duo has a good back and forth and some funny moments are had.  They even have a discussion about being compared to Mystery Science Theater which is well worth a listen and valid points are made.  The second commentary is just by Rikk Wolf, which skews technical.  He has a lot to say during the host segments, where he shares a lot of info about how things were pulled off on-set.  Wolf however talks himself into a corner when it comes to the theater segment, in which he seems to talk about the same subject in a loop for about twenty minutes, discussing what might happen if the series is picked up by a network (spoiler alert:  that never happened).

Soapy, the Germ Fighter (Rifftrax Live Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2016 (Live Performed), 2017 (Released On Website)
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

Our child Jimmy is upset about washing up when he gets dirty, afraid it'll make him a "sissy."  But a specter named Soapy, a giant talking soap bar, projects himself into Jimmy's room to clear up a few misconceptions about cleanliness.

Shorts like this where a talking mascot sells us viewers on the wonders of a particular product/activity of the week are a dime a dozen.  Soapy, the Germ Fighter is just the latest.  What makes Soapy stand out is that unlike a lot of shorts Soapy isn't a cartoon character, just some guy in a cardboard box pretending to be a talking bar of soap.  Somehow this makes the short even creepier than it would have been, because it sucks the whimsy out of the attempted education.

The short's point is put across well, though it tends to drone and nag a little.  Soapy is fine as an educational short, I suppose.  It just has hilariously ill-conceived title character.

Like Halloween Party, this short is performed live in front of an audience as part of a Live show they are unable to release on their website, in this case Mothra.  Soapy, the Germ Fighter was also riffed by the core of Incognito Cinema Warriors several years prior.  Some might conclude that I'm "sticking it to" ICWXP by posting my positive review of the Rifftrax version so soon after my lukewarm reaction to the ICWXP version, but in reality this is just a coincidence based on the random selection method I use.

Even still, the Rifftrax to ICWXP comparison isn't exactly apples to apples.  For one this Rifftrax take has the benefit of being performed in front of an audience, whose reaction to the short is hysterical.  Mike, Kevin, and Bill don't need to imply much about how creepy it is because the audience is underlining it themselves.

Ignoring audience reaction, this Rifftrax version tends to be less one-note than the ICWXP version.  The short's creepyness is a target, but it's not always the one they go after.  The riff script plays with a lot of portions of the short, with my favorite string of laugha coming from the short showing off mundane objects germs might be dwelling in, while the guys list off the various diseases they carry.

If memory serves, Soapy was probably the highlight of the Mothra live show, which was okay to above average.  If we were to only have one portion of it then I'm glad Soapy survived.  I'd love to have home copies of these unavailable live shows one day though, just to be sure of course.

Thumbs Up

👍

Berserker: Hell's Warrior (Rifftrax)

Film Year:  2004
Genre:  Action, Fantasy
Director:  Paul Matthews
Starring:  Paul Johansson, Kari Wuhrer, Craig Sheffer, Patrick Bergin
Rifftrax Year:  2018
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

The Movie

"ODIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!"

Based on the Norse mythology, Berserker:  Hell's Warrior sees two brothers who seek to free a powerful and seductive witch from the curse of Odin.  But only one who is pure may rescue her, as one boy is makes it through the ring of fire protecting her, and the other is horribly burned.  The unscathed brother asks the witch to heal his brother, which links the trio together through a curse:  they are destined to be reincarnated throughout time and be at war with each other.  Their war continues in modern day.

This cursed love story of reincarnation almost feels like it could be a bad Twilight-esque young adult novel, but someone decided to Game of Thrones up the gore and steal the style of Highlander, all the while doing so on the budget smaller than what is given to one of those direct to DVD Scorpion King sequels.  Truth-be-told there is probably a concept worth salvaging in Berserker.  It needs a script doctor and a higher budget, but I can see why somebody thought this movie was worth making.  I even like parts of it, including the somewhat obvious "twist" ending that "shocks" us with the secret behind the curse.  But alas, the film is a cheapie and it's not very coherent, though there is a diamond in the rough here.

Rifftrax fans might recognize Kari Wuhrer from her supporting roles in Anaconda and Sharknado 2, while here she plays the female lead.  Wuhrer was never a great actress, though she admittedly looks good as a vampire-witch, though awful as a bookish, scientist in modern day.  Usually when I see her in a production I can somewhat guess as to what to expect from a film, as she's usually cast based on the implants in her chest as opposed to how well she delivers the material.  This movie actually shows off said implants with a lengthy sequence of nudity, so the filmmakers get their money's worth out of her this time around.  But that's really the type of film Berserker is, a low-budget showcase of sex and violence without much competence nor any desire to be judged.  Based on that, I don't think I should judge it any more than I have to.

The Trax

Berserker:  Hell's Warrior has a lot to offer Rifftrax, but at times it doesn't play to their strengths.  There are sometimes lengthy sequences of silent action for the guys to riff over, but when the film desires to deliver exposition it rattles it off at a rapid pace, and if you miss it it's gone forever.  And unfortunately with the desire to keep the humor flow moving Mike, Kevin, and Bill find themselves riffing over a lot of dialogue, sometimes making this rapid, confusing movie even more confusing than it needs to be.

But just taking the humor in general, I find Beserker rather uneven.  The first two acts of the riff feel a tad stale, safe, and underwhelming, and a lot of the material there feels like material I've heard before in other riffs.  When the action picks up in modern day there is a slow incline in laughter.  Finally as we enter the third act it seems the humor has finally found a groove with this movie, and that groove can be quite hilarious.  The torture scene alone makes Berserker watching at least once.

"He must have this mixed around.  You torture them for information, you don't murder them and hope they speak as they die."

That in mind, I think I can recommend Berserker on the basis of two things:  It's hilarious third act and the craziness of the film itself.  But if you want laughter from beginning to end, I'd probably practice hesitance in picking this one up.  Even if the riff had aspects that won me over I don't really picture myself revisiting this one down the road that often.  What didn't work in the riff still makes up the majority of it.

Average

Boredom at Work (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2017
Riffers:  Bridget Nelson, Mary Jo Pehl

Boredom at Work is actually part 1 of a series of films about how boredom causes one to get into the hobby of throwing turtles.  Part 2 will teach you how to get good distance.

Actually the turtle chucking is just a subplot.  The real story is about a man's boredom at work leaking into his home life, leading to an unsatisfied wife, an angry son, and just dissatisfaction with thife in general.  At the end we come to the conclusion that the secret to a happy life is sex, booze, tool sheds, and, of course, turtle throwing.

"Mary Jo, here's a knife.  Do you want to just kill yourself?"
"He's got a whole closet of turtles he just throws."

Halfway through the short Bridget and Mary Jo question the short's use of the word "boredom," claiming the word it's actually looking for is "depression."  Technically this is true, however one's depression can stem from the feeling that you're stuck in a rut, which is a result of boredom.  This is pretty much the short's point, that boredom begats depression and one should seek help before it becomes serious.  It's just very somber and melodramatic about it.  And boooooooy does it go on forever.

"Now they can put on Schindler's List as a pick-me-up!"

Bridget and Mary Jo seem to be a little taken aback by the short.  The at times they just find it funny (they seem most amused when the short tackles sex), and in others they're left a little speechless (they're horrified by the turtle throwing incidents).  They seem to be trying to figure it out as it goes along and making amusing anecdotes on the side.

Boredom at Work is a bit of a departure for the duo, as they tend to riff on educational shorts directed at women or children more often than not.  I think they chose this short based on the "relations" scenes between the husband and wife, and during those scenes they knock the riffing out of the park.  The rest of the short they take on rather calmly, though still funny.  It's not their greatest work, but you won't be bored.

Thumbs Up

👍

910-The Final Sacrifice

Film Year:  1990
Genre:  Adventure, Fantasy
Director:  Tjardus Greidanus
Starring:  Bruce J. Mitchell, Christian Malcolm
MST Season:  9

The Movie

This Canadian epic tells the story of a boy who dresses like Gilligan named Troy on the hunt for the truth behind the death of his dad.  In his search he becomes targeted by a group of cultists seeking to sacrifice him to raise an ancient city of power.  Troy's only hope is to seek the guidance of Canada's greatest adventurer, Zap Rowsdower, a hopeless drunk who is eternally repairing his own truck.

This "zero-budget feature" is actually that phrase taken quite literally.  Apparently it was made by film students who borrowed equipment from the school and just went out and shot the fucker, to hell with filming permits.  To be honest since finding out this little detail about the making of this film it increased my interest in the film tenfold.  It's still not a very good movie, I mean as far as civilians without proper resources shooting a movie goes this is no Evil Dead, but now I can see a passion inside of it that I had never seen before.

If I were to criticize the film's cut and run style I'd say its reach far exceeded its grasp.  The people making this movie tried to make a film with fantastical elements but no proper way of portraying that fantasy with special effects (the climactic rising city looks like a toy they just shot up close sitting on a table).  The Final Sacrifice would have maybe been a tad better had it kept itself more grounded so they can keep all of its aspects in camera and sold by the actors.  They could keep the cast, maybe even the cult angle, and just lose what mysticism it's going for and maybe it would be easier to take a film like this seriously.

Ignoring how the film came to be, the film really just comes off as some crap you might have stumbled upon at the video store, got twenty minutes into, tired of, then returned it hoping for a refund.  It's easy to admire the drive it took to make this movie, but I wish I could say the resulting movie was enjoyable enough to say "job well done."

The Episode

When Final Sacrifice debuted MSTies were heard around the world howling with laughter.  Each moment of the episode was funnier than the last.  In unison all logged in to the infancy of the world wide web to state it was not only one of the best episodes of the Sci-Fi Channel run, but one of the best episodes of the show.

When Final Sacrifice debuted on my TV my reaction was "Yeah, that was a decently funny episode, I guess.  I wonder what's on next week?"

Yeah.  I'm going to be that guy.  I'm sorry.

I've always been kind of secretly surprised by the adoration of this episode by our rabid fanbase.  There isn't a lot wrong with it, but I don't really find it one of the funniest things I've ever seen.  I'd say the episode runs a bit repetitive for me, with many places where they just repeat the name "Rowsdower" in different tones over and over again.  I get why they're obsessed with it, it's a stupid name, but hearing it over and over again doesn't really make it funnier to me.  This type of humor really drives home the style of this episode, where they just latch onto something and ride it, driving it into the ground.  A lot of these jokes start out funny, such as the grizzled old prospector jokes, Canadian ribbing, and, of all the strange things, Larry Csonka, but by the episode's end I find I'm just ready for the entire episode to be done because I've heard way too many variations of the same joke.

That's not to say I don't enjoy the episode.  I get some hearty chuckles out of its best moments.  Zap Rowsdower himself is an MST legend:  a beer-guzzling reluctant hero...or a more somber version of Mitchell.  It's really hard not to love him and there is some quality riffs on this memorable character.  The cultist get some great riffs in their direction and a lot of the nerd quips thrown at Troy are excellent.  So yeah, the riffing is pretty good.  Not great, but I assure you it does make me laugh.

Even if one isn't impressed with the riffing one must at least remember the episode for The Canada Song, which is the unquestionable highlight of the host segments.  This song starts out as an ode to the great nation up north soon turns into an aggressive bit of Canada bashing, and it's quite catchy and funny.  Outside of that, I am quite fond of Pearl's master plan of ruling the world one person at a time, where she drags people in and asks them "Can I rule you?"  There are also cute host segments devoted to Hockey Hair and Grizzled Old Prospector Syndrome.

It seems like Pod People before it, The Final Sacrifice is one I've watched maybe one too many times trying to enjoy it as much as other people seem to.  Fortunately for me I'm far more fond of Final Sacrifice than I am Pod People even if I don't consider it an all-time classic.  There are way too many episodes that make me laugh more than this, and a great deal more that provide a more memorable experience to me.  I think it's time to put The Final Sacrifice to rest in my rotation of "Maybe THIS time..." and just accept that it will always just be a good episode to me, but never a great one.

Good

The DVD

The Final Sacrifice was released by Shout Factory in their Volume XVII collection with solid audio and video.  The sole special feature was an interview with the late Bruce J. Mitchell, who gives insight to the low budget production and the cast and crew.

Unfortunately the rights to this episode lapsed and the volume is out of print.