1304-Munchie

Film Year:  1992

Genre:  Comedy, Fantasy

Director:  Jim Wynorski

Starring:  Loni Anderson, Andrew Stevens, (Jennifer) Love Hewitt, and Dom DeLuise as MUNCHIE!

MST Season:  13

Host:  Jonah

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

Despite the waves it made when it landed, cinephiles may have preferred Gremlins wasn't as impactful as it was as the knock-offs soon began.  But the cult fans got a little something for every corner when that happened, including MSTies who would go on to get a fan favorite episode out of the movie Hobgoblins.  Personally, while I don't have any nostalgic fondness for Gremlins myself (I watched it once as a lad and didn't care for it, haven't seen it since), I can't imagine my life without Critters.  Knock-offs would continue with the likes of Ghoulies and, more relevant, a film produced by Roger Corman called Munchies.

Munchies is a goofy little movie about a little creature found in a Peruvian temple who is taken back to the States by an archeologist looking for links between the ancient civilization and aliens.  The creature is put in the care of his care-free, aspirational comedian son and his attractive, independent girlfriend.  Shenanigans ensue, resulting in the creature getting kidnapped and chopped up into little pieces, which regenerate Reptilicus style into multiple little hungry and horny creatures who burst onto the town and wreck havoc.

I have no real information as to how successful Munchies was considered as a movie, but the film was pretty low budget and it did spawn a franchise...of sorts.  Five years later this movie happened.  I don't know what to think about that.

Doing the whole Alien/Aliens thing backwards, this movie scales back to just one Munchie.  Well...I guess he's a Munchie.  He says his name is "Munchie," even though "Munchie" was just a name that was made up on the spot for a nameless creature in the original and never brought up again.  His relationship to the Munchies in the previous movie is a huge mystery, as he seemed to be loose in civilization as early as 1970 (in a prologue that is cut out of the MST version), while the primary Munchie from the previous movie was trapped in a temple in the late 80's.  This Munchie does seem to have some ties to the Peruvian origins of the other Munchies, which is kept pretty vague.

But I digress, the story of this particular movie has a kid stumbling upon this Munchie, who is less a crazy hungry animal and more of a mischievous magical imp.  The boy befriends Munchie, who promises him that with his powers he can change his life for the better, from getting rid of his mom's scummy boyfriend, to dealing with school bullies, to getting the girl of his dreams, even down to just eating pizza for dinner.  But as Munchie tries to help out, he begins causing even more chaos.

How we got from Munchies to this movie, I'm not certain.  I don't understand it and I'm not sure I want to understand it.  Munchies is rated PG, but it's a pretty raunchy PG.  Throughout the movie, the young leads have sex, many lewd comments are made and innuendos are referenced, while there's also a very lengthy scene in which the Munchies watch a pair of girls playing miniatrure golf, bend over repeatedly, have their skirts raise up above their behinds and expose their underwear clad booties to the world.  I mean...if I heard this movie was a hit with kids, I wouldn't be surprised, but to scale back to a movie only meant for kids seems to destroy why they liked it.

Not to mention the fact is the idea of this being a sequel is a huge question mark in general.  The Munchie of this film kinda looks like the original Munchies, just bulked up, made cuter, and given a stupid Dick York haircut, but to say they're the same thing is a bit of a stretch.  The original Munchies were small creatures that just tore shit up because it was in front of them.  This Munchie is a bit more sentient and has magical powers.  They're both mischievous, but in different ways.  If I were to come up with some sort of convoluted headcanon for this movie, it would be maybe this Munchie is a fully grown adult with formed skills while the other Munchies were just adolescents.  But that's thinking about this too hard.

Getting away from trying to figure out what makes the Munchies franchise tick, Munchie kinda bites.  It's an oddball kids comedy made for cheap laughs.  I'll admit I did enjoy certain scenes, as there's a fantasy funeral scene early on in the film that I actually thought was pretty funny on its own merits, but for the most part the movie plays out like a schlocky version of The Wonder Years with the Great Gazoo as a side character.  It's not entirely charmless, it's just devoid of wit.

Munchie himself is voiced by Dom DeLuise, replacing the 80's voice acting legends of Frank Welker and Fred Newman who voiced the characters in the first film.  On paper this seems like a lateral decision, but Dom DeLuise without good material is just a large voice coming out of a little puppet.  80's sex symbol Loni Anderson is here as well playing the worried mother of the piece, with her primary storyline being that she's dating a scumbag and slowly learns she's dating a scumbag.  Said scumbag is shown to "get his comeuppance" at the end of the movie as he gets arrested by some cops after trying to capture Munchie for some reason .  I do feel like pointing out that while this guy is a dick, for most of the movie the only actual thing he does to annoy anybody in this movie is try to get into Loni Anderson's pants, and if you could get arrested for that then 98% of the fanbase to WKRP in Cincinnati would be in jail right now.  Rounding out this curious cast is a very young Jennifer Love Hewitt playing the young lead's romantic interest.  Having grown up in the 90's, it's hard to not have formed crushes on the cast of Party of Five.  This kid was just ahead of the curb.

Believe it or not, Munchie has a direct sequel called Munchie Strikes Back, which came out two years later.  For whatever reason this was the more successful version of the Munchies franchise and actually formed a direct continuation featuring the same Munchie character from this film.  That movie couldn't get Dom DeLuise back to voice Munchie, but it did manage to keep director Jim Wynorski.  It's probably hard to lose Wynorski once you get him (he has also directed sequels to cult classics like Deathstalker, Swamp Thing, Sorority House Massacre, and 976-EVIL), though he does win some points for being the helmer of the film Chopping Mall.  Munchie is no Chopping Mall.  It's not even Munchies.

The Episode

Way back when I reviewed Carnival Magic in season 11 I remarked how I felt that particular riff suffered from Netflix's rapid joke pace because the movie demands reaction in addition to scripted commentary.  Pleasantly Munchie seems to be a course correction on this, because the movie seems to be selected to provoke a reaction.  Munchie is an off-putting puppet, and Jonah and the Bots don't like him.  He pops up at random periods and they always jump at the sight, because they just want him to go away.  In a way, Munchie is almost like a feature length Mr. B Natural, if Mr. B were less gender-identity-questioning and more of a horrifying hellbeast.  On the flip side, I was also a bit hard on the Mr. B Natural short when I reviewed it because it never really amped up its riffing outside of reacting to Mr. B jumping around.  It's a fan favorite short so I know I'm in the minority on that, but I'd rather find a balance between the two when dealing with something bizarre and out of left field.  I always felt Design for Dreaming should be the template over Mr. B Natural.

So where does Munchie lie?  I think it comes really close to achieving that balance that I hope for.  The introduction to Munchie terrifies Jonah and the Bots, who don't understand what they're seeing.  GPC jumps in and sees their expression and orders them to abandon the theater.  My one problem with this bit is that it threatens to be an endless string of noise for the sake of noise, when a slower build-up through layers of terror might have been more effective.  It might have been funnier if they had an unsure reaction of unease when he's introduced, only to ramp up their screaming when he bursts out in his number of "Hello My Baby!"  Instead they just jump into screaming and they do it through the entire scene, which is a little tiring.

The entire episode doesn't suffer because of this, though.  It's actually a bit of a minor victory because this movie could easily be a disaster for the show if it wasn't approached properly.  Treating it like a horror movie in the guise of comedy is inspired, because comedy is traditionally hard on this format.  And Munchie is an aggressively cringe one of random catchphrase parroting and pratfalls, so I wasn't anticipating much to work with here.  Jonah's crew works hard to enunciate lame gags and punctuate them with their own jokes that are far more clever and funny.  They hit at a surprisingly high rate, taking gags like lead character Gage's award show fantasy where the winner is "La La Land!  Oh not again!" to just hearing the random nonsense coming out of Munchie's mouth, where Servo asks "Is that a joke, Jonah?" only to have Jonah respond "I don't know."  Crow at one point notes how strange the preppy school bully is in this movie, remarking "Wait, he dresses like that and he's eager to get to class?  How is Gage considered the nerd in this movie?"

And of course there is Munchie.  He's the ace in the hole.  Their resentment of this character is always good for a laugh or two.

That resentment leads to one of the best host segments of any of the Jonah episodes, where Jonah and the Bots evacuate the theater at the sight of Munchie and are trying to collect their bearings, asking themselves if it's worth finishing this movie.  Kinga interrupts, ordering them back in the theater.  Jonah hesitates for a moment, then just flat out refuses, leading to golden interplay between the two where Kinga threatens to shut off the oxygen to the Satellite of Love and Jonah calls her bluff.  The whole idea of oxygen being shut off to the Satellite if they refuse to enter the theater isn't a new one, as Dr. Forrester shut off Mike's oxygen to make him bow during the opening to This Island Earth while Pearl had it shut off while Mike tried to take a break during Invasion of the Neptune Men.  Kinga's method is simple but effective, as she just grabs a hose and squeezes it, leading to Jonah immediately suffocating (How little air is there on the SOL?  And how does he eat?  And other science facts?).  It's such a delightful delivery of a classic concept, and the entire cast is in top form throughout.

Another golden segment is the return of Dr. Donna St. Phibes, played by the returning Deanna Rooney, who I'm so happy they've asked back as she was a Gauntlet highlight.  Here she explains the evolutionary history of a Munchie, though sadly she never brings up the Munchies from the previous Munchies film (instead opting for Gremlins, Ghoulies, Critters, Hobgoblins, and even Leprechaun).  Also returning is Waverly and Growler, who we also haven't seen since last season.  They've actually applied for Bonehead positions in Moon 1.  I do wonder if this is setting something up, but it's a slight skit which is fun.  Mega Synthia also gets her first line in the series, then is quickly shooed off.  Yvonne Freese has barely been featured so far and we're four episodes in!  The Invention Exchange involves a zombie treadmill and Jonah coming up with ways for rock musicians to be less wasteful with their instruments.

Munchie is a blemished product that sits a bit on the edge of greatness.  The positive is I think this is probably the funniest episode with Jonah's crew since Wizards of the Lost Kingdom.  I also think that it's the best episode of the season yet, taking that crown from Beyond Atlantis, which was an on-fire debut for Emily's cast but Munchie feels more like a polished achievement.  What's holding me back a little bit on Munchie are mostly little moments where they sit a bit restrained and don't hit an opening or do it in a way that isn't the kill shot it could be.  But I didn't have Munchie pegged as being a choice that would have inspired an episode that is this funny and the fact that I laughed as much as I did is a testament to just how great the new cast and crew is.  I hope there are many more seasons so they can cement themselves in its legacy like they deserve.

Good

The Livestream

Munchie is the first episode to fully debut after the opening of the Gizmoplex to the public, which means no pre-release screenings and  it's available to all MSTies, fully finished, right now.  There is only one livestream event to cover for this one (thank god), and it plays out a little bit differently than what we had seen previously.  The first thing to notice is that the stream has little bookend host segments wrapped around the episode where we get to see what Emily and her Bots are up to on the Simulator of Love.  They don't have anything to do with the episode itself, mind you, they're just funny little bonus skits featuring our new cast that are exclusive to the livestream.  The first has Tom Servo and Crow hunting down a "critter" on board the Simulator, which predictably turns out to be Emily.  The second has Emily and Servo discovering Crow's lifeless husk and being distraught because they assume their friend is dead.  The second is better than the first, though I'd contend it would have been better to save this one until a latter live stream as Emily would have more than one episode of history with Crow.  They're both highlighted with some solid writing and both are very funny, especially as the weeping Emily and Servo eulogize their friend and Emily cries "He was the best of all of us!" and Servo's choked response is "Debatable!"  Kelsey Ann Brady's Crow at one point gets a potshot at those who criticize her voice as she responds to Servo's voice change to allergies with "I sound different in a way that's noticeable but you get used to it really quickly!"

Also included is a new preview trailer to the next episode, Doctor Mordrid, which has new footage of host segments and riffing.  It also confirms it will be Emily's next episode, and this is my favorite movie selection of the season so I'm hoping it's a great one!

The post-episode livestream begins as producer Matt McGinnis puts together a "support group" of writers/stars who claim that this movie broke them.  These folks include Jonah Ray, Hampton Yount, Rebecca Hanson, Deanna Rooney (making her livestream debut), and Matt Oswalt (who is sharing a space with Jonah, Rebecca, and Deanna, so he isn't completely crashed from the stream this time).  Absent from the festivities is Felicia Day, who also wrote on this episode and everyone on stream claims also hates this movie.  There are no issues with muting or crashing feeds this stream, but like always there has to be something wrong.  That tech issue turns out to be hot mics, as Jonah, Rebecca, Deanna, and Matt O all enter the stream holding mics too close to their face, causing an earful of throbbing bass.  They try to compensate for it by holding the mics further away, to mixed results.  Matt O has the most problems, because it's hard to hear what he is saying half the time.  The guy can't catch a break!

Matt McG then goes on to say this movie is bad, but he thinks the worst movie of the season is The Bubble (which is the movie Joel has been touting as "The New Manos" for over a year now).  Nobody present wrote on that episode, but Jonah claims he was present when they recorded riffs for the episode (I believe he directed all the episodes he didn't star in) and says he thought the movie looked "fun."  The Bubble is one of the few movies this season I haven't seen outside the series, so I can't comment on what Joel and Matt see in it, but what reactions I can find online state the movie isn't great but nobody really claims it's "Manos bad."  But while Joel is not present for this stream, he does message a little potshot to Matt McG saying "I don't get all the bellyaching for Munchie, but then again I had to write for Castle of Fu Manchu."  The man has a point.

But talk does often turn to how much these people hate this movie.  To be fair, this is nowhere close to being the worst movie I've ever seen, but then again I never had to write comedy over it.  Everyone talks about what specifically they hated about it, and it does seem to always fall back on writing for it was tough.  It's revealed that it was one of the last episodes they had to write, everyone was drained, and they were given this comedy movie to do, which isn't a great format for layering another comedy on top of.  And then there is Hampton, who just hates Dom DeLuise and how he never shuts up.  This does lead into Jonah discussing the difficulty of riffing the film also falls on the fact that the film has so much dialogue, especially when DeLuise is onscreen.  Jonah also professes his disappointment on hearing the title of this movie and thinking they were riffing the original Munchies only to find out it was this movie instead.  Matt McG does reveal that he screened Munchies right before this movie but chose Munchie because he thought the puppet would get better reactions.  He also neither confirms nor denies whether or not they're considering Munchie Strikes Back for next season, to which Jonah implores him to just "Say no!"

Streaming questions do get more playful, as everyone is asked what they would do if they found a Munchie puppet in their house, which leads to a colorful story of Jonah receiving a promotional Chucky doll for the new Chucky TV series and how it spooked his wife Deanna (this Chucky doll can be seen in previous livestreams).  They also discuss their favorite Gremlins knock-offs, of which Jonah talks about enjoying Ghoulies before the conversation is completely derailed by the greatest Gremlins knock-off of all time, Critters, which also evolves into talking about Killer Klowns from Outer Space.  Deanna also talks a bit about her role as Donna St. Phibes, while Matt O has a hilarious story about a birthday cake with Munchie's face on it that they happily sliced up (at a restaurant Loni Anderson is a regular at to boot).

This is a pretty rowdy stream full of people venting pain.  We need to understand them and let them express their sorrow and rage.  And as long as they keep it entertaining, I'm happy to hear it!  This was a fun stream, hot mics aside.  I can hardly wait for Doctor Mordrid in two weeks just to experience another one!

"Court Case" & A Tribute to Hobgoblins (MST3K Special)

The Short

Another Short of the Month already?  Why it feels like we had one just yesterday!  And oh boy!  I love legal dramas!  I can't wait to see what Court Case has in store!

Oh.  It's about tennis.  Wrong court.  Fine, I guess.

This is an industrial short made by Penn Racquet Sports to show off how they make tennis balls and how they pop them into that tube and seal them up like Pringles.  Yes, they actually give a reason for that in the short, to avoid cutting fingers or something.  Though if your pack is severing customer fingers, you might need to rethink it.  But the majority of it is about ball manufacturing, and how important that Penn name is!

I never really thought about how tennis balls are made, so some of this stuff is actually interesting.  I do wonder about the differences between manufacturing tennis balls compared to baseballs to basketballs to footballs, hell maybe throw in a bowling ball in there too.  As someone who has worked in a factory setting like this, I also recognized some of the rush rush rush techniques people are imprinted with by management while they just kind of drone in their head "Eventually it will be five o'clock" over and over again.  That is not so pleasing, but I imagine most of these people's jobs have been replaced by machines since then, so yay?

Court Case is Emily's crew's second short (except Kelsey, it's her first) following the short the riffed for Turkey Day 2020, and they do a solid job.  It's a fun, low pressure short that mostly gets by with factory gizmos, of which Emily's team is always playful enough to meet.  They also have fun at the expense of the narrator and some quality barbs float in his direction, especially the hilarious reaction to his mentioning a "Threeway proposition."  They also have some fun at the odd shapes off the various pieces of a ball, as Crow notes that discarded pieces of the interior will be turned into "Muppet eyes" while the narrator notes that the green outer layer comes in shapes like a "dog bone," to which Emily responds "I was going to say Maxipad, but sure, let's go with dog bone."  First Maxipad reference on the show?  It's a joke that wouldn't hit as hard coming out of the mouths of the other hosts, so kudos to Emily for stepping into that territory.

This whole short can be perfectly summed up by Servo's line:  "This is a lot of work for something your dog will chew on."

This short doesn't list specific puppeteers for the Bots in the end credits, but it feels to me as if Kelsey Ann Brady's Crow has a more natural dialogue flow in this short than was featured in her first full episode.  I'm not going to presume Nate Begle didn't perform Crow in this (he is listed as a writer on it at the very least), but I'm leaning toward believing Kelsey is the one under the puppet here because it doesn't sound like a strange overdub.  If that's the case, I'm more confident with her playing the role here than I was in Beyond Atlantis as it feels as if she's allowed to perform Crow her own way by not trying to match his lip movements in post and she does seem to have a solid footing with the character. (That being said, there are still more episodes where she has to dub over Nate in the future, so let's brace for those too.)

So far none of the shorts have been a home run, but this one is decently funny and is probably the best of the lot so far.  At the same time, it kind of washed over me.  I laughed, but a lot of it left my head as soon as it was over.  That's unfortunate, but I'm having fun in the moment and that counts as a success.

Thumbs Up

👍

The Livestream

"I've almost got my flea infestation under control!  The pill is great, it tastes like beef!"

Pearl and Synthia are looking for the most foul little critters to sick on Jonah and the bots in tonight's tribute experiment, so of course they settle on Hobgoblins (my original review here).  This was always a torture-favorite of Pearl's, so it makes sense she'd want to make Jonah watch her torment of Mike and his Bots.  Jonah takes the time to prattle off some knowledge of the 80's punk rock scene and gives us some info on what happened to Club Scum, though the Bots are not having it ("I don't remember asking to hear any of this," Crow observes).  We also close with a hilarious bit where the Bots can't tell the difference between Mike and Jonah.

Matt McGinnis is in luck because all the mics are working tonight!  That doesn't stop Mary Jo from screwing with him a bit when she's introduced.

Tonight's live stream has several special guests, including original series Crow Bill Corbett and original series holdover Mary Jo Pehl.  Not only that, but we also have somebody who worked on the film itself, Kenneth J. Hall, the man who designed the Hobgoblins themselves!  Kenneth happens to be a MSTie himself and reflects on seeing the episode on TV for the first time and how elated he was.  Notable absences tonight are Joel Hodgson, who was scheduled to attend but wasn't feeling well, and Emily Marsh, who was never stated to be attending but has often stated her fondness for this episode.  Oh well, the show must go on!  But having such a Sci-Fi era centric live stream is a joy for me, because that's my era of the show and am happy to see Bill and Mary Jo discussing the episode with someone who worked on the film.

Not to shortchange her, but Rebecca Hanson is here too.  But she also shuns Eegah and I feel I need to shun her in return.

Nah, I'm kidding.  As someone who doesn't care for Pod People or Final Sacrifice, it's perfectly fine to not respond fully to a popular episode.  Just not that one.  SHUN!

Discussion on this one is more episode centric than it was for Future War, likely because the participants are less rowdy than Emily and her team, leading to a calmer presentation overall.  Mary Joe reflects on the evolution of Pearl and how diverse a character she is, of which Bill states he loved writing for her.  Bill and Mary Jo discuss the things they remember about the episode, as well as the movie itself.  A question does ask if they were hesitant about using Hobgoblins since it's raunchier than your average MST3K movie, to which Bill doesn't feel the had any hesitancy to it at all, since the attitude toward sex is what he calls "juvenile," like it was made by somebody who has "heard of sex but doesn't understand it" (Bill can't fathom "Donkey Mud Wrestling").  Another question asks if they consider it the Manos of the Sci-Fi era, to which Bill and Mary Jo think it's incompatible with Manos because Manos was a more serious attempt at filmmaking than Hobgoblins was.  In my opinion, it's hard to find a movie from the Sci-Fi era that's as bad as Hobgoblins.  Overdrawn at the Memory Bank maybe, or Horrors of Spider Island.  Hobgoblins is a bit of a next-level find that they seemed to have mostly avoided during those seasons, as they tended to shy away from films like Manos, Monster A-Go Go, or Red Zone Cuba.  It's probably most comparable to The Wild Wild World of Batwoman, an aggressive attempt at goofball filmmaking that isn't really all that fun or funny.

In terms of popularity, since Matt brings it up but it's not discussed, Hobgoblins is an episode brought up a lot from the Sci-Fi seasons, but it's likely trumped by Space Mutiny or The Final Sacrifice.

Questions directed at Kenneth range from his work on the film, to which he says they just hired him to make the Hobgoblins because they couldn't afford to hire him as a puppeteer (he describes the puppeteering in the film as "doll waving," which made me fall in love with the guy).  He also says the same dolls were used for the legacy sequel Hobgoblins 2, and Sloane wanted him to patch them up so he could make a Hobgoblins 3 but he turned it down (I'm always rooting for the underdog filmmaker no matter how bad, so I hope Sloane does get to make a Hobgoblins 3 someday).  His one experience on the set was during the sequence where Nick lights himself on fire at Club Scum, where he describes the surroundings for such a scene not being ideal.  He also talks about his other work, including puppets for the new Nicolas Cage film Willy's Wonderland and a pair of burlesque puppets he's made that he says he's very proud of, as well as his directorial effort The Halfway House.  Discussions also turn to other people who worked on the films that reacted positively to MST tackling their stuff, like Kim Cattrall from City Limits, Arch Hall Jr. from Eegah, Reb Brown from Space Mutiny, Jackie Nayman Jones from Manos, and the entire crew of Time Chasers.

As this stream comes to a close, as well as a full week of Gizmoplex coverage that I've been doing here that has knocked the wind out of me, we are reminded there will be no live event next week to my near relief (and then I realize I have RiffTrax and the Mads to catch up on).  Our next stream will be two weeks from tonight for a new episode, which will be followed up by two more episode premieres as the next short and tribute event will be in July.  It's weird to think how the Short of the Month concept hasn't exactly worked out as monthly, but I'll ride with new MST content no matter how I get it.  Even if it is Munchie, which is our next movie.  Bill seems tickled by the magical imp voiced by Dom DeLuise movie that he hasn't heard of, but Mary Jo leaves us on the most horrifying joke of the night as she casually drops the title "50 Shades of Munchie."  I can't top that sign-off, so I'm not going to try.

"Let's Make a Meal in 20 Minutes" & A Tribute to Future War (MST3K Special)

The Short

Well, you can't say there isn't truth in advertising.  Shorts are what we wanted, and what we got was very short indeed.  Let's Make a Meal in 20 Minutes only runs a scant four minutes, and while I'm not sure if that makes it the shortest short MST3K ever tackled (the show's timing with commercial breaks makes things complicated), the closest I can think of for comparison is when RiffTrax did a combo of Why Doesn't Cathy Eat Breakfast and paired it up with Petaluma Chicken because neither by themselves reached their normal ten minute threshold for short content.  On MST3K, maybe the last Commando Cody short is comparable, which cut itself short for time.  But still, just as we're in the swing of things, Let's Cook a Meal in 20 Minutes is already over.

Maybe comedy is like a good meal.  Leave them wanting more.  Let's just make sure we don't leave them starving either.

Let's Make a Meal in 20 Minutes has a narrator micromanaging Sally, a young 50's gal who looks like she'd rather be out with her friends than stuck at home cooking a meal for daddy and brother.  But here she is, and she has only twenty minutes to get the meal done or it's the basement for her again like the time they caught her with a boy at the soda shop.  The narrator lists all the steps for her to cook a good, nutritious meal straight out of the can and onto the stove, hot and ready to eat for the men who control her life.

I'd hesitate to call this instructional, because the instructions featured in the short are not very helpful.  The short exists to tell us the steps to prepare a meal are:  Figure out what you want, cook it, put it on a plate.  End.  I mean...it could be worse.  They could have just instructed us to tear open a bag of ramen and boil it for three minutes and just drink water from the tap.  That's the bachelor pad version of this film.  The ending meal doesn't look very inspired, as it's just a slab of chopped up corned beef with corn and green beans on the side.  Or maybe it's just that I don't like corned beef weighing me down.  The corn and green beans look fine though.

I think this short exists mostly to mansplain to women how they can be more efficient in the kitchen.  Yes ma'am, you too can save time on dinner and have plenty of time to do the rest of the household chores if you follow our simple guidance.  Get your buns in the kitchen and give it a try, won't you?

There is not much momentum to the riffing of this short because there is no time to build up any, so Jonah and the Bots just come in and fire whatever they got at it.  This short can cause some flashbacks to Michael Winslow in Police Academy, because a lot of their default humor is just adding sound effects to the film.  I'd normally wouldn't be very thrilled by this, but considering the constraints they're under here, it's actually pretty fun.  Crow dips into this type of riff quite a bit and even goes on quite the noise spree during a sequence where Sally is checking everything on her stove.

It's not all down to such gags, as the show's trademark sarcasm is still here.  It's a bit haphazard, because there is very little here to comment on when it comes to imagery, which is just a girl cooking.  They latch onto the one thing they can:  the narrator, adding in narration dialogue to make sure he comes off as judgmental and pushy.  I think Crow says it best as the narrator states that now we've learned it's possible for anybody to cook a meal in twenty minutes if you have the right techniques and tools as the Bot adds "...and you're a woman."  That's probably the unspoken theme of the short, he's just saying the quiet part loud.

It's not a great short, but it is a funny one.  It's just a brief little sample of Mystery Science Theater fun and I found it tasty, but am craving more.

Thumbs Up

👍

The Livestream

This stream was supposed to come out last month in between Robot Wars and Beyond Atlantis and it was supposed to coincide with the Vault Picks theme of dystopian futures as it offered episodes like Time Chasers, Warrior of the Lost World, and City Limits up for all who had Vault access.  Unfortunately they decided to bump this stream until after the Gizmoplex launched and that monthly theme had already went away.  It's just as well.  Technically Future War isn't about a future dystopia.  Like Crow says "This isn't the future and it's not a war."  Future War is a pretty solid episode though (read my review here), and it deserves to be celebrated.

The new segments wrapping around the episode are pretty cute.  Jonah and the Bots spend a bit of time discussing dystopian scenarios, and the Bots' let it be known that they intend to Logan's Run him as soon as he hits 30 (if anyone asks, Jonah is 27) while they also discuss their preferred mutations should any occur after the apocalypse.  They also do a fun riff on the Droppy the Water Droplet segment, where they discuss being spokesmen for the elements of the Periodic Table (part of me wishes Pipeline to the Clouds was the opening short to this stream, because that would have been perfect).  There is a bit of talk about the 90's culture, whether at the expense of the 90's movie or the 90's episode of the series, I'm not sure.  What I do know is that the most it amounts to is a lot of long dead catchphrases like "Talk to the hand" and "Peace out!"  The phrase "WHAZUUUUUUUUUAH!" (thank you for this, Scary Movie, hate you forever) gets Synthia and Pearl a scolding by Dr. Kabahl, who insists it's not coming back.  Speaking of the clonee/clone dynamic duo, Pearl notes the irony of the short presented as the Mads don't allow him to cook up there, then starts to ponder how he eats...or breathes.  Cute callback.

Still...if they don't get a food supply from the Mads...how is Jonah not dead by now?  Don't make me ask the science facts questions, show!

As always, tonight's livestream is headed by producer Matt McGinnis, who clearly hates this movie and even misidentifies it as "Future Wars."  He's seems bewildered and enraged by what he saw tonight, so welcome to the depths of 90's crap, Matt.  Some of us have been here for a while, lol.  C'mon Matt, you work on this show and you can't even handle Future War?  Amateur.

One thing working in Matt's favor is that his mic is working perfectly tonight.  The bad news is that he seems to have infected Conor McGiffin and Yvonne Freese.  He tries to introduce Conor, who does a skit reading fan mail with Servo, unaware that nobody can hear him.  It's both unfortunate and really funny at the same time.  While they work on getting Conor back in play, he introduces Yvonne to the stream, who is muted as well.  Matt's wondering if this is a bit, but it's actually happening.

I think Matt's playing dumb and is actually the evil mastermind behind this.  For once everyone else will experience technical difficulties and he'll be the normal one!  IT'S MATT'S TIME!

But everything starts to smooth out once they introduce Kelsey Ann Brady into the room, who successfully can be heard.  The hero of the stream!  But Emily Marsh decides to fuck with him a little bit and pretend to be muted, though her bit loses impact because we can hear her whispering what she's saying through her mic.  Jonah Ray gets a better reaction out of Matt, as he actually rides the bit of his mic being muted, then starts playing "Heaven is a Place on Earth," which really heats Matt up because they don't have the rights to use that song.

Torturing Matt aside, discussion rounds begin with tales about filming the series and how Emily has to stand on a trail of apple boxes behind the desk because she's much shorter than Joel or Jonah.  They then are asked about how they spent their downtime during tours, but since the last one was during Covid there wasn't much time outside the bus to speak of.  Emily, Conor, Kelsey, and Yvonne do relate stories of Covid testing by someone named Jordan that they speak fondly of, and Emily prods Conor quite a bit because of his habit of sleeping in.  Jonah ends the discussion with a sweet story about how he spent most of his tours by himself, but got a call from Kevin Murphy while in Minneapolis who took him fishing.

On the subject of tonight's movie, they're asked by someone what Future War "ruined" for them, which is probably instantly a worthwhile question as Yvonne's answer is "dinosaur puppets," then proceeds to demonstrate how she controls a dinosaur puppet from one of her non-MST gigs (one could say she "walks the dinosaur").  "This opens the mouth, this does the tongue" she claims to her hand-gestures, which absolutely sends Emily into hysterics.  They also talk about plaid outfits inspired by the movie.  Kelsey even has a plaid hat at the ready, which she says makes her feel like a 90's DJ (and her Jurassic Park shirt is helping complete the image).  Jonah has a special plaid shirt with a Necronomicon from Evil Dead imprinted on it.  They then discuss what action hero they would want to combat the Future War, and the names thrown out include Chuck Norris, Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt (which inspires a debate over the title of Edge of Tomorrow out of nowhere), Mulan, Uma Thurman, and Bruce Campbell.

Guys...the correct answer is clearly John Wick.  Get it together.  Or the Power Rangers.  The Power Rangers would probably annihilate the Future War.

This is the first stream since the Gizmoplex soft-launched that Joel hasn't participated in at all.  Probably because it's a no-good, stinkin' Mike episode and who cares.  It's probably for the best, because as broken as this stream was, it probably would have crashed from too many people.  But it's another round of laughs with the new cast who certainly look like they're being driven insane by all the livestream material they have filmed over the last two weeks.  Kelsey is sent into a laughing fit for almost no reason toward the end, which starts to get infectious.  "It's the Witchin' Hour!"  This leads into the big finish where everyone impersonates each other, which predictably ends with everyone doing their best Joel imitation simultaneously (and even Matt joins in).  It's Joel Fest 2022, which means our head honcho is here with us in spirit.

1303-Beyond Atlantis

Film Year:  1973

Genre:  Adventure, Fantasy

Director:  Eddie Romeo

Starring:  Patrick Wayne, John Ashley, Leigh Christian, Sid Haig, Lenore Stevens, George Nader, Vic Diaz

MST Season:  13

Host:  Emily

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

From one of the directors of Danger on Tiki Island, this flick from the Philippines has a group of pearl hunters setting sail for a mysterious island for the chance to find some easy white gold.  Once there they encounter a group of natives that can live both on the surface and under the ocean.  Most of these natives are mutated, with the exception of the beautiful and scantily-clad Syriana.  Syriana is also the only one of the tribe who is still able to bear children and has been ordered by her tribe chief and father to mate with one of the outsiders and conceive.

Beyond Atlantis stars the son of legendary actor John Wayne, Patrick Wayne, as the lead, who reportedly negotiated the idea that if he were to star in the film then it would have to be rated PG.  The production then had to scale back its exploitation quite a bit to accommodate this (apparently all the tribe women in this film were supposed to be topless in the early vision for it).  You can tell by watching the film that exploiting the female form is very much on the mind of this movie but it's refraining from going the full nine yards.  Instead it takes a note from the playbook of One Million Years B.C., where part of what made that movie a success was blossoming teenage boys discovering sex through Raquel Welch's animal skin bikini while dads may very feel like sitting through the movie too.  The idea is admittedly timeless, as it has been utilized many times since.  My personal blossoming experience was either Halle Berry in the Flintstones movie or Jennifer O'Dell in the crappy syndicated series The Lost World, pick your poison.

Because it feels like it would be more interesting if it were exploitive, Beyond Atlantis is a bit flaccid.  The bikinis are nice and everything, and we get some nice 360 degree angles of Leigh Christian during her underwater scenes, but its a very inert film.  It feels a bit too casually paced, and if the movie were giving us something...how should I put this...more visual to admire than just a pretty island scenery, then the slow pace may not slog as much.

Or it could potentially fling it in a different direction and make it too sexually deviant.  This is a very rapey flick.  Not only does the premise somewhat hinge on a woman raping outsiders, the movie has a very primate-like look on sex in general.  There is a scene early on in which John Ashley attempts to seduce Lenore Stephens' character, which is just a notch above him grunting at her and dragging her to bed.  It's a film that's obviously written by men for men to watch and nod their heads at.

Not helping the lack of momentum in the plot is the acting, which is stiff and wooden and reading from a script full of jive talk.  The actors look mostly bored, with the most lively performance coming from the late character actor Sid Haig, who is just colorful enough to make the best of this movie in his scenes.  Also clogging up the movie is the majority of underwater scenes, which pad out the movie so much that even Thunderball would be envious of it.  The photography is beautiful, and its often used to show off shapely female bodies, but it rarely helps the narrative.  The film is also underlined by a synth score by Ed Norton (Honeymooners Ed Norton or American History X Ed Norton?).  All I can say is John Carpenter he is not.

Beyond Atlantis isn't quite a bad time but it does get dry and dull.  It's a movie with a batch of ideas on how to make itself appealing that doesn't really form any of them fully.  But there are some kicks to be had if you dig deep enough into its silliness.

The Episode

Well hello, fresh meat!  Are you ready for the grinder?

It's been several years in the making and the day is finally here:  Emily Marsh, Conor McGiffin, and Yvonne Ingrid Freese have made their in-theater debut on Mystery Science Theater 3000 as Emily Connor, Tom Servo, and GPC/GPC2.  We've been seeing them pop up in fan events for the series since 2019, and it wasn't always clear what the intent was for them. But now they are official canon to the series, serving as a second host and group of Bots being experimented alongside Jonah and his Bots.

But there is a bit of an elephant in the room with this debut, and that's the outing of Nate Begle as Emily's Crow T. Robot, who has been with the group through two live tours and several Turkey Days, while also riffing a short with Emily and Conor during Turkey Day 2020 and was also promised to be Emily's Crow in the upcoming series as he, his fedora, and Ed Wynn impression were with us all throughout the Kickstarter.  Nate very quietly left the series after the last tour ended and official statements from the project have been light and vague.  Whatever the reason for Nate's departure, I wish him the best.  It's clear that he is a very funny and talented guy.

How they worked around Nate's departure was a bit of a question mark.  We had no real way of knowing whether or not his performances in the episodes he had already filmed would be left intact, and I was working under the assumption that they would be because dubbing over a comedy performance is a dangerous game to play.  Besides, even if Nate only had four episodes under his belt, he'd still only have the second shortest stint as the Bot on the series (following Josh Weinstein, who picked up the Crow puppet for Invaders of the Deep and Gamera during the KTMA season).  But this was not to be, and it looks like we have a dubbed performance by Crow's new performer, Kelsey Ann Brady.  Kelsey is a puppeteer who seemed to join the last live tour as an understudy for various performers and jumped in during various tour dates while Nate bowed out as his wife gave birth.  Following the end of the tour, it seems she was hired to take over for him and dub over his performance on previously filmed episodes, making her the first woman to play the role.

And I know what you're thinking, "Crow's a dude!  MST3K has gone woke!"  First of all, it dates back to the KTMA season that his name is an acronym for Cybernetic Remote Operated Woman, so the idea that Crow is female has precedent, and secondly Crow is a robot/puppet and has no sex organs to speak of.  I'm sure if you were to ask him today what gender he identifies with he'd say "Mr. B Natural" while adding that his pronouns are "Lick/Me."  If it means that much to you, go cry to the Quartering to make a whiney YouTube video about it while fishing for SuperChats.  Personally I think there is no real reason why Crow can't be a woman, because he has no defining traits that are distinctly male.  He's just a bit of a spitfire that likes to start trouble, with an artistic side.  It seems to me that Tom Servo is the one that probably should always be played by a male performer, as his sense of self-confidence should always be played with a hint of toxic masculinity.

Okay, enough digression.  The new cast is here, how do they do?  I must say, they are quite excellent.  Emily adds such an fun and distinct flavor to the host role that really livens it up, while Conor does some excellent work with Tom Servo that puts him up there with Kevin Murphy in his energy (though I prefer Baron Vaughn's take on the theme song, myself).  Kelsey is a bit of an odd duck to grade, because there is that sense of a slight detachment to the episode because of how she's worked in.  Certain things feel like they were written specifically for Nate that she's trying her hardest to adapt to, with mixed results.  I want to see more of her Crow outside of talking over a previous performance, though she does show promise.  Her take on Crow is a bit like a mischievous child who always sounds like they have a bad idea they want to try in the back of their head, while vocally she seems to take influence from the vocal work of Nancy Cartwright and Pamela Hayden on The Simpsons as her Crow voice sounds like a mixture between Nelson Muntz and Milhouse Van Houten.  Giving Kelsey her own material would probably help her evolve the character to her advantage.  That said, she seems more confident with Crow than Bill did during his first appearance, so Kelsey certainly can take her distinctive version of Crow and run with it in the future.

I'm not going to lie, I'm very curious to hear the original Nate audio of this episode.  I can easily picture the riffs and host segments playing out with his voice and I'd have much rather have heard all of this in their natural state (I especially want to hear Nate's game show host in the second segment).  That's not a knock against Kelsey, I just think Nate's strengths aren't necessarily her strengths and I think it does Kelsey a disservice to shoehorn her into material that is written for someone else.

Interestingly, the entire episode doesn't take place on the Satellite of Love at all, as Emily is finishing work on Kinga's new "Simulator of Love" in which Kinga traps her new stooge inside with a pair of freshly programed Bots of her own, including her own GPC, which Emily off-handedly upgrades to a GPC2 model in the final segment, which is really just the live tour puppet.  Interestingly enough, Emily's Tom Servo has a head that glows off and on that I don't believe we've seen in Jonah's.  It's kind of a neat effect and I dig it.  Other segments include everyone busting out their best Sid Haig impression at EddieCon (Emily's beard helmet is hilarious), a Pyramid/Password style gameshow featuring killer crabs, Emily reading from East Eddie's SAT Prep (70's Dirtbag Edition), and a wonderful closing rap of "Mother Crabber" (based on a line of vernacular Sig Haig drops in the film), of which the entire cast completely hits a home run with.  There is also a cameo of encouragement by Jonah, who communicates with his fellow space castaway via a viewing screen and they have a nice gab session.  Emily does question how Jonah hasn't outsmarted Kinga and Max yet as they don't seem that bright, though personally I'd say Jonah gave them a good workaround at the end of last season.  But Emily didn't see that.  The Invention Exchange features Emily showing off the Simulator of Love's giant mech hands, while the Mads have a toothpaste for houseplants called "Plantsodyne," which is just an excuse to show off a houseplant prop with chattering teeth (which would likely have made more sense as a lead-in to the next episode's movie, Munchie, which you'll see why once you see the opening credits).

"Can't we just get BEYOND Atlantis?"  (We all knew this quip was coming)

Getting inside the theater, it was early on that I just started to feel in my gut that I was going to really enjoy this riff, as our leading lady does her soft ascent onto the island's beach, only to have Emily and the Bots pretend the natives are environmentalists encouraging her to leave because it's a "protected beach" and her presence is disrupting hatching turtle eggs.  I laughed, and I continued laughing throughout the movie.  The riffing on Beyond Atlantis is easily the best we've seen yet this season.  I had some reservations about this movie considering how stationary it is, but the best aspect of it is that even when it's still there is always something intriguing about it to point out.  The movie is increasingly sexist fueled by the toxic masculinity of the main characters.  All the jive talk sets a fire under Emily and the Bots, who run with the cringe testosterone of the flick in many different directions, as they mock the "romance" scenes and the male bonding between greedy pirates.  One riff I greatly enjoyed in this area is just a reaction from Tom Servo, after one of our leads mentions he's going to use his share to buy some "fighting cocks."  There are also plenty of riffs that seem specifically to target my generation, such as the line "I killed their Smurfette," which made me laugh harder than it had any right to.  I've also now lived long enough to see an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 make references to Dino-Riders, Legends of the Hidden Temple, and Are You Afraid of the Dark?  I think I'm officially an old man.  Is this what it was like for boomers to hear references to Supercar during the original series?

"And you talk to me in English!"

"That's why American tourists are beloved the world over!"

Beyond Atlantis is an absolute blast from start to finish and easily the best episode of the season thus far.  Unfortunately it takes that title with a little bit of an asterisk in knowing that there is an alternate version of this episode that we will likely never see that might have a better flow to it because it's how it was originally filmed (#ReleaseTheBegleCut?) and knowing that we have a few more episodes that are going to be exactly like this.  But accepting the cards where they lie, it definitely leaves the last two episodes in the dust and is an impressive debut for Emily, Conor, Kelsey, and Yvonne.  One might even say it could arguably be the best cast-debut on the show, as it's easily equal to the likes of The Brain That Wouldn't Die, Revenge of the Creature, and Reptilicus.  Whether it's better than all of them is something I'm not prepared to answer at this time, but what I know in this moment is that I laughed a lot and plan on enjoying this episode many times over down the road.  Great job, rookies.  Now I just need the veterans to give me one this good.

Good

The Backer Livestream

Everything is much more straightforward in this livestream, as they throw the pleasantries out the window and just jump right into the episode, only to greet us at the end for a little roundtable with producer Matt McGinnis, creator Joel Hodgson, and the "new guys" Emily Marsh, Conor McGiffin, and Kelsey Ann Brady (Yvonne Ingrid Freese was unable to attend, but she wasn't in much of the episode anyway).  Joel actually bows out early, so this largely becomes a celebration of the noobs, as they discuss the episode, how they got hired, and compare live performance against studio work (which they all seem to agree are both stressful for different reasons).

This is also the first time Kelsey has joined us during these Zoom discussions (at least that I recall).  She's very bubbly, and she is a performer at heart, because she playacts for the camera in reaction and is constantly playing with little props she has around her, which include Funko Pops of Crow and Bart Simpson and little tiny plastic hands (that freak Matt out at one point).  Kelsey's fidgety handplay seems to rub off on Emily, who is constantly playing with her own prop that she has in reach...a recorder.  So if you're watching with earbuds, now would be a good time to turn down the volume, because she will play it.  You have been warned.  Conor is a bit more calmer than his handsy co-stars, though he does play with sunglasses and a pair of scissors at one point.

The Q&A has more questions specifically for Kelsey than Emily and Conor, which is natural because she's largely an enigma to us.  I found her discussion on how she came up with her Crow voice and how it's different from those who came before her interesting.  They do spend a lot of time discussing the episode at hand (which is more than we got last week), as they talk about filming the instant classic "Mother Crabber" host segment and have a back and forth about their favorite riffs.  Matt also gives Kelsey shit about her Seinfeld impression, and Emily relates an embarrassing moment from the live tour where she had a brain fart and didn't recognize the word "whom" on her riff script while onstage.  Speaking of farts, we also get a little too personal about how well they know each other from their time on the road.

And the answer is no, they never mention the word that begins with "N" and ends with "-ate."  The do seem to be tiptoeing around it, especially when they talk about getting cast on the series and Kelsey doesn't talk very specifically about how she got upgraded to a full castmember while Emily and Conor are both fairly thorough, though she does relate she wasn't the original pick for the job.

It's a fun livestream accompanying a wildly enjoyable episode.  It was definitely a step-up from the all-business, very rehearsed discussion they had for Robot Wars.  And it's revealed that once the finalized versions of Santo, Robot Wars, and Beyond Atlantis stream next week, we'll have some new livestreams to accompany them.

Great.  Give me more shit to type out, why don't ya?

The Premiere Livestream

If you were worried about this livestream having less talk about farts, worry no longer because there is plenty to go around.  Also mixed with the smell of pee and feet too!  It's easily what Matt calls the "Worst Craigslist ad ever" or what Kelsey calls "The BEST!"

This stream largely has the same participants as the backer stream.  The only inclusion we have here that we didn't get for the previous one is Yvonne Freese was able to attend this time.  Otherwise, it's Matt McGinnis, Emily Marsh, Conor McGiffin, and Kelsey Ann Brady are back to talk about how much their bus stinks and how much Emily doesn't want to watch Making Contact again.  Joel also pops in briefly and leaves early on after telling everyone how great they are.  That's two streams with this cast in a row that he bails on.  What did Kelsey do to you, Joel?

Taking in all of that, my big fear for this stream is that it would feel exactly the same as the backer stream.  Luckily maybe forty percent of all the material here feels like it was covered in that one, so it felt mostly fresh to me.  Matt deserves a lot of credit here for picking a batch of questions that weren't asked in the last stream, which covers a lot of new bases like the origin of Emily's surname in the series (which we all guessed came from Terminator, though she said she favored Norris after everyone's favorite Chuck) and the differences between puppeteering Servo and Crow.  I liked the puppeteering questions quite a bit, because Conor goes into detail about not being a trained puppeteer and learning all these different moves he could do with the Servo puppet, while Kelsey talks about how top-heavy Crow is but claims he is a less frustrating puppet than several she worked with when she worked for Disney.  Emily and Yvonne also talk about writing the episode and how they thought the writer's room was exceptional for this episode as well as the odd things about the movie they found funny (Emily is obsessed with the Atlantean eyes).

Well-trodden ground has us covering the audition process for this group again, which we had already covered previously and Kelsey is notably silent for, as she wasn't the original choice for Crow (and no, Nate isn't brought up during this stream either, and I wouldn't expect them to at this point, honestly).  But we do get to hear from Yvonne about what she went through, which includes a funny story about someone trying to steal the seat she was sleeping in at the airport.  They also again talk about the origins of the Mother Crabber rap.

Probably the key thing to this livestream is that it's very funny.  Everyone is in great spirits during it and they're all playing around, likely because they talked about this episode a week ago and are just trying to keep things fun.  And when the sunglasses come out, you know they mean business.  This is a another fun night with the best episode yet this season, and this one deserves it because it sells us on this cast hard and it stands tall with a lot of the most sturdy episodes of the series.  And now that these three episodes are out there for everyone to see, the countdown is on to Munchie, which we all get to suffer through together.

War of the Insects (Cinematic Titanic Live)

Onscreen Title:  "Genocide"

Film Year:  1968

Genre:  Science Fiction, Horror

Director:  Kazui Nihonmatsu

Starring:  Keisuke Sonoi, Yusuke Kawazu, Emi Shindo, Reiko Hitomi, Kathy Horan, Chiko Roland, Ralph Jesser

CT Number:  11

The Movie

Note:  The official title for this movie is  Genocide, and it's even the title of the print featured here.  War of the Insects seems to be a title the US used in the 60's, though I'm not entirely sure why Cinematic Titanic changed that title for promotion, though in cases like The Oozing Skull, Blood of the Vampires, East Meets Watts, and Danger on Tiki Island it was done at the request of the copyright owners.  It's possible there was a similar issue here too.  Or perhaps they thought nobody would want to see a comedy show called "Genocide."

As if Japan didn't have enough bug problems with Mothra on the loose, now a bunch of killer bees want everybody dead too!  An outbreak of killer bugs causes an H-bomb to be lost in transit.  Agents from the US and communists battle over the lost nuke to take back to their country or detonate where they please.  They just have to avoid all the deadly insects with a venom that drives humans and animals insane before dropping dead.

This movie is almost The Happening, only convoluted as fuck and it has a personality.  The film has so many plotlines that it tries to keep relevant that it loses focus on most of them at any given time and it's hard to tell what the primary story is supposed to be.  One would think for a killer critter movie that the insects themselves might be central to the movie but they almost seem to exist by happenstance and are just present while the director makes a spygames movie.

Once we get to the bottom of what is happening with the insects, the movie completely gives up on trying to latch onto any type of coherence.  The finale is a lot of people bumbling around, many things happening at once, before the movie just gives up and says "There.  We're done."  The movie does try to end on a harrowing note with the intended purpose of making the viewer feel uneasy about everything they just saw, but they're more likely to feel unease because everything they've witnessed up until this point was hectic and haphazard.  The movie just collapsing and self-destructing probably was the only way it could have ended.

Of interest to cinephiles, this is one of a fair few riffed films that was released by the Criterion Collection (others include Night of the Living Dead, Carnival of Souls, Armageddon, and the Godzilla films), albeit in one of their Eclipse series box sets grouping movies that they have the rights to but don't want to release individually.  In this case the box was called When Horror Came to Shochiku, which collected genre films by Shochicku studios in the late 60's.

The Live Show

It's pretty easy to get me excited about watching a Japanese genre picture, and if it was featured on Mystery Science Theater, RiffTrax, or, as the case may be this week, Cinematic Titanic, then I'd obviously label it a must-see.  They can get more "out there" than any other film in the industry, and if one wants a hearty experience with craziness, Japan is the best place to look.  For that alone I might be quite biased when it comes to recommending things like War of the Insects because I personally love them so much.  It's possible that not everybody will (Invasion of the Neptune Men is one of my favorite MST episodes, but that's not the case for everyone), so buyer beware on that I suppose.  I do consider War of the Insects to be the best of the live Cinematic Titanic offerings, so make of that what you will.

War of the Insects isn't the most endearing nor the cheesiest Japanese movie any of these riffing projects have tackled.  If anything it's the most dramatic failure at what it's trying to accomplish (yes, I'd argue this movie has more narrative collapse than any given Gamera movie, fight me).  Everything about this movie is nonsense, the movie is so self-serious, and collides various plots in search of something with artistic value.  Cinematic Titanic always seemed to feed of these weird oddities that look and felt they were found under a rock, and War of the Insects fits right in.

The commentary tries to maintain momentum with the film, which is damn near impossible.  They're a bit winded, confused, and curious about this film, and the riffing feels like it's just slightly endeared to it.  They'll make little jabs of intrigue like "Why is the American actor dubbed?" or just playful little humor like dubbing someone "The Japanese Clint Howard."  Most of it is funny because a lot of this movie is noise, and if we don't laugh through the noise we might get overwhelmed by it.  I appreciate their attempts to keep us grounded at least.  As always with Live shows, there is flubbing and lines that they trip over, but this movie is such nonsense that it almost works in its vibe.  In fact, in the heat of the moment it feels natural that we should blame the movie for their screwing up.

While I get a lot of laughs from this offering, one thing I think holds me back from fully saying this is a must-see is that there is so much going on in the movie and it's almost wall-to-wall chaos.  Add in a layer of comedic commentary and audience laughter over it and the experience can be a whirlwind of incoherence.  It's a dangerous game we play and that's just how the cookie crumbles sometimes.  The fact remains that this Live show does have the laughs and entertainment is through the roof.

Good

The DVD

Like all of Cinematic Titanic's offerings, War of the Insects was initially sold through their website with solid audio and video but no bonus features.  Years later, Shout Factory collected all of Cinematic Titanic for a Complete Collection box set, where it shared a disc with Rattlers.  This disc also houses a bonus feature called Between the Riffs showcasing the behind the scenes of Cinematic Titanic.  This bonus feature was originally on Cinematic Titanic's original Danger on Tiki Island disc.

Billy's Helicopter Ride (RiffTrax Shorts)

RiffTrax Year:  2011

Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

Billy likes helicopters.  Billy's Uncle Joe flies helicopters.  Coincidence?  You decide.  Whatever the case, Billy's Uncle Joe is here to explain how helicopters work to Billy and will even take him on a helicopter ride where they can see all the thrilling sights, such as freeways, roofs, building tops, and a forest that may or may not be on fire.

I imagine most kids are like Billy and think helicopters are pretty neat.  Coronet arguably does kids a service by making this short about how helicopters work and operate.  And credit where credit is due, they do so without getting too technical or too boring.  Kids want to know how a helicopter flies without wings, and the short more or less answers that question.  Not thoroughly mind you, but enough for them to not answer any more questions.  And of course this short ends with areal views from a helicopter, which will assure some kids that they are afraid of heights at a young age.

"Uncle Joe has something special that he wants to show Billy."

"Oh god!"

This short is kind of fun and while the guys kinda lean a bit into "This is boring" territory, luckily they aren't too reliant on that other than a few jokes that more or less state that Billy wishes he were back at math class.  The riffs do get very playful with types of gags helicopters might be known for, such as mowing down a flock of birds as it takes off, and Mike, Kevin, and Bill do spice up the mundane sightseeing at the end.  Probably the best thing they do for the short is that they give Uncle Joe a personality, a bit grumpier and more ranty than seen in the short but it's funny to see what they do with the character.

The short is enjoyable and so is the ribbing.  This helicopter ride is worth taking.

Thumbs Up

👍

Zombie Nightmare (RiffTrax)

Film Year:  1986
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Jack Bravman
Starring:  Adam West, Tia Carrere, Jon Mikl Thor, Frank Deitz
RiffTrax Year:  2022

Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

The Movie

A boy witnesses his father’s murder then grows up to be a beefcake with a baseball bat.  History repeats itself and he himself is murdered as well.  His mother is unable to cope with the loss of her son, so she takes him to the local voodoo witch (because every town has one) to extract brutal revenge by reanimating his corpse to kill those who took away her family.

Think of it as I Know What You Did Last Summer, only somehow it’s even dumber.  But this one at least stars Adam West as a corrupt cop, so that patented West annunciation is at hand.  Former bodybuilder and music superstar (HAHAHAHAHA, that’s a good one) Jon Mikl Thor plays our titular zombie, at least he does when he’s human.  In Zombie form, Thor wanders off set and a stunt man is regulated to the role.  Tia Carrere is also here, in what may have been her non-True Lies career high point.  Let’s face it, I’d rather be in a crappy 80s horror movie than General Hospital, Wayne’s World, and Jury Duty, but that’s just me.

Why waste an all-star cast like this?  Zombie Nightmare makes the most of it, with cheapie locations in Canada, lackluster special effect, and barely audible dialogue.  It goes for the gold in grindhouse mood and often flunks, with hilarious scenes featuring victim’s running away at top speed while the zombie stumbles in slow motion.  Victim stupidity is at a high point as they just seem to stand around and wait for the zombie to catch up, with my personal favorite going to Tia Carrere’s bizarre escape plan of hiding behind a window and staring out of it.

Worse horror movies have been made, especially in the 80s.  I can’t give Zombie Nightmare points for not sucking as hard as it could have, but at least the unintentional laughs are aplenty.  Plus it has a zombie killing people with a baseball bat, how can you not love that?

The Trax

As a general rule, I don't have much enthusiasm for re-riffs.  When Zombie Nightmare was announced as the latest RiffTrax however, I was enthused.  Not because I felt the Mystery Science Theater episode needed to be improved, as I think it's an all-time classic, but it also suffered from being horrendously edited for television.  That version of the movie comes close to incoherency, as entire plot points are just excised from the movie because they would have been too graphic.  RiffTrax taking on the film gives the opportunity for a more cohesive edit now that they aren't slaves to time frames and TV censorship.

Ultimately that's about all this riff has to offer.  It's a more coherent film experience than the MST episode (even though ten minutes have been shaved off), but the worst experience of a re-riff is always the sensation that they're essentially making the same joke the previous riff had done, only it's not nearly as funny.  Zombie Nightmare is one of those experiences, where Mike, Kevin, or Bill will say something and I instantly recall the riff from the MST episode that it echoes and find myself wishing I were watching that instead because it was much funnier then.  If anything in Zombie Nightmare feels on-target, that's because they've done most of these jokes before from "Hank Peters, Italian Grocer" to the CSI with the oddly exaggerated accent.

Though credit where credit is due, they do riff Frank Deitz a bit more in this version, which might make the noted MST fan happy.  Adam West jokes are a bit lighter here, and they don't ride on Batman references as hard as they had when they first watched this film.  There is a pretty smart Seth MacFarlane jab in his first scene though.  Oddly they don't note Tia Carrere in this riff like they did in the previous one, likely because Carrere's star status has fallen since the 90's.  Still, it's Tia Carrere.  I don't care if she is in her 50's now, anybody who lived through Wayne's World and True Lies should snap to instant attention when she's present.  To not do so is disrespectful to the queen.

There are a few odd esoteric riffs in the commentary that underline how underwhelming the experience is.  In the climax, there are lines of "It's quiet, a little too quiet" which leads to Mike saying "A little too Raph," which is a reference to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II:  The Secret of the Ooze, which isn't a terrible reference to make except you just know deep down someone much younger than Mike wrote that line and it doesn't feel like he relates to it.  There is also a line about the zombie belching like "Eudora Welty," which is a very odd riff to make because it's a very specific reference to a random one-off joke on the Simpsons about Eudora Welty in a burping contest.  But since Welty isn't best known for The Simpsons (this is like saying Stephen Hawking is primarily a Simpsons character), this is kind of a bad joke to make, especially since the Simpsons has no shortage of characters who burp constantly.

The RiffTrax version of Zombie Nightmare is not a harsh experience due to the film being so perfect for the format, and the version of the film seen here is much more to the film's advantage.  It's probably worth checking out for that, or if you haven't seen the MST version then you might find this much funnier.  And yeah, there are a couple of laughs (I lolled at Bill questioning why the voodoo witch would cross herself during her ritual).  But alas, what it boils down to is that there is a riff out there for this film that is a home run while this riff is just a pretender that fails to clone it.  It's too bad that such a classic can be turned into such a dud.

Not Recommended