Fugitive Rage (RiffTrax)

Film Year:  1996

Genre:  Action

Director:  Fred Olen Ray

Starring:  Wendy Schumacher, Shauna O'Brien, Jay Richardson, Tim Abell, Ross Hagen

RiffTrax Year:  2022

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

The Movie

Women.  Prison.  Guns.  Nudity.  Action.  Everything a man wants in a movie in one package.  But it's direct to video, so it won't be done well, but that hardly makes a difference to us.  Fugitive Rage tells the story of blonde bombshell policewoman Tara who tried to murder the mob boss who killed her sister.  Now in prison, she is offered an opportunity to be released if she promises to join a covert mission to kill the same boss she tried to assassinate.

Clearly not a lot of effort was put into this movie.  The centerpiece that the entire film seems to have been built around is a scene where star Wendy Schumacher strips down and takes a shower as the camera lingers upon her glistening shapely body.  Everything surrounding this scene has far less thought and care put into it.  Schumacher's take on the badass heroine is to be as sarcastic as possible and kick really high, though to be fair, she looks good in the role.  But the entire movie is a fumble and it's hard to tell if she has action hero chops when she's being showcased in such a clumsy production.

Mystery Science Theater fans will rejoice to see a familiar face in Ross Hagen, star of The Side Hackers and The Hellcats.  I like Hagen, and he's clearly the best actor here, but he's also held back with a production that can't choreograph worth a damn or give him anything to do.  He has one big climactic fight with Schumacher, which concludes with him getting stabbed.  Despite the film's R rating, there is no blood nor wound featured, as the area in which he is stabbed is clean and his clothes look perfectly tailored.  That's a recurring feature of the violence in this movie, as people are gunned down in multiple sequences which results in them grimacing or clutching vague areas of their body, implying a mortal wound but you can tell one is not actually there.  That would be somewhat forgivable if this movie were made in 1940, but this is the mid-90's for crying out loud!

The film features twists and turns...kinda.  They're there and I guess they're surprising, but I also wasn't thinking too hard about this movie while it was running, so I wasn't anticipating anything.  There is an attempt at a heart as Schumacher befriends a fellow prisoner, but there is no real meaning to their relationship as it only exists to give Schumacher someone to save in the third act.  The film is a hollow showcase of violence featuring women not wearing bras.  Let's face it, at that mild ambition, the movie reaches a level of adequacy but not full blown competence.

The Trax

Mike, Kevin, and Bill have a movie that has no shame this week as it just plays out and does whatever during its duration.  I think they get something of a kick out of how nonchalant the film is about its own badness, as it really gets their amusement level up during its goofiest moments.  They get a laugh out of Wendy Schumacher's whole "This is stupid" attitude throughout the whole movie, noticing that "She's always in some degree of eyeroll."  I'd be curious if maybe Schumacher has some RiffTrax starlet X-factor in her and maybe there are more movies featuring her to be seen.

But to put it bluntly, this RiffTrax is quite funny.  I think the dumb movie was always going to win some amusement status with Trax fans as it gets laughs on its own quite a lot, but the commentary gets some quality chuckles to boost it.  Fugitive Rage is always doing something stupid, saying something stupid, showing something stupid, which means more often than not there is something to say about it.  The terrible blocking of action scenes gets roasted, as does the film's terrible attempt at quipping.

"If you do anything to attract attention, I'm going to put you on Death Row permanently."

"That's just Death Row, dumbass."

I laughed a lot during this riff to the point where I do consider bestowing a healthy "classic" rating upon it.  I'm going to be a bit restrained though and dial my enthusiasm back a tad.  There are slow spots and a few wasted jokes that made my humor fire dim down a bit while watching.  But it's certainly one to pick up, if only for an unforgettable sequence in which Wendy Schumacher is splayed on the hood of a moving car.  The comedy here is worth the purchase.

Good

610-The Violent Years

Film Year:  1956

Genre:  Drama, Crime

Director:  William Morgan

Starring:  Jean Moorhead, Barbara Weeks, Arthur Millan, Theresa Hancock, Glenn Corbett, Joanne Cangi, Gloria Farr, Lee Constant

MST Season:  6

Featured Short:  "Young Man's Fancy"

The Short

This short tells the story of young boy-crazy Judy who is dreading the return of her pesky brother Bob from college and his sure to be nerdy friend Alex.  Little does she know that Alex is a total hunk!  Susan does her best to doll herself up and get Alex interested in her womanly ways.  In other words, she wants some of that!

This short kind of drones on without an actual point to these sitcom shenanigans until the finale, in which Judy feigns damsel in distress in the kitchen, forcing Alex to come to her rescue and explain how a kitchen works and the wonders of her electronic devices.  At long last, a short that relates the importance of Mansplaining.

To say Young Man's Fancy is odd is an understatement.  It's meant to relate the miracles electric tools can be for cooking, but its story is almost entirely unrelated and it stops in its tracks so Alex can give a monologue about it.  And the underlining sexual undertones of the entire story gets one thinking that the only electronic device Judy really needs is a vibrator.  But who can blame her for trying to jump Alex?  He's a dreamboat!  And the way he explains things I already know!  I'm squishy just thinking about it!

The Movie

Oh joy of joys!  An Ed Wood movie!  Well, technically not a true auteur Edward D. Wood Jr. masterpiece but rather a script he wrote and handed off to another director.  One does wonder what levels of craft The Violent Years would have achieved under Wood's deft guidance, but we'll have to settle for merely good instead of outstanding.

The Violent Years is a story of youth gone wrong, as the spoiled and bored rich girl Sheila decides to throw excitement into her life by organizing a small gang of lady criminals.  They do the works:  rob gas stations, rape men, and even through a scandalous slumber party or two.  But all good things and bad girls must come to an end, as the fuzz eventually catch up to them and the molls pay the price.

The Violent Years features that lovably clumsy Ed Wood dialogue we all love though the production is better than normal.  That doesn't mean the movie is any less exploitive and sleazy as it sounds, far from it, it just has a semblance of a budget.  But it still a one-dimensional film about ladies who do bad things because they feel like it until consequences come a-knockin'.

The primary takeaway I get from this movie is that the structure is pretty odd.  The first half is all "action," so to speak.  Our leading ladies get into trouble, one incident after another, and they just keep at it.  The second half is all "talk."  The ladies get caught, some of them killed in action, while our head girl Sheila is given a lot of stern talking-tos, mostly by a judge who delivers nothing but rehearsed monologues about the bad things she's done and why she has to pay for them.  Ed Wood wants to dig into the psychology of people who do bad things, but he doesn't have any real insight other than "bad things are bad."  It's silly, and no matter what dramatic beats he tries to hit, they fail.

But this is also a film that has people getting shot, clutching their chest, and feinting, without so much as a wound, so it's pretty funny no matter how you look at it.  Even if Ed Wood isn't the man in the director's chair, he's the director in spirit.  And that's good enough for me.

The Episode

Boy, the writers of this show sure were frisky when they wrote this one!  Everything about this episode is making them hot and steamy, and it's hard to blame them.  The short is a peculiar appetizer that is about a girl on her way to be as man-hungry as a woman ever got, and Mike and the Bots do latch onto its strange sexuality overcoming its message.  Probably the best description of it is a line Mike comes up with toward the end when he just blurts out "Judy:  Beyond ThunderSquishy."  That just says spades, right there.  They couple it with the short's obvious misogamy to bring the tone of the piece to "Judy gets turned on by men talking down to her," and it really works because there is a truth to that present in the short.  Young Man's Fancy is wildly funny, and a great way to start the episode.  The gang even adds a sexual relationship between Alex and Bob, because why not?  The rest of the short is subtly about sex anyway, so no room for platonic friendship.  Besides, as protective as Bob is at keeping Alex away from his thirsty sister, maybe a relationship is supposed to be implied anyway.

Moving onto the feature, the fact that the movie stars four promiscuous ladies who do dirty things keeps the innuendo flowing.  Probably the most prominent portion of this is the rape scene, which sounds offensive when I spell it out though I think it's a scene that works.  While rape shouldn't be funny, the way it's presented in the film is almost of a softcore group sex fetish fantasy.  The victim doesn't really resist (which could just be wooden acting) and just goes along with whatever the girls have him do.  It feels to me like the writers really picked up on how non-seriously the film was taking the crime it was depicting and laid it out there that the guy who is being assaulted by these women is just into it.

But probably the big hurdle about this movie is how it shifts gears for its third act and goes full melodrama.  The absurd bad girl element is deflated and now its a lot slower paced and a lot of dialogue.  While the riffing isn't exactly weaker, the final theater segment isn't as much fun as what came before it.  It leaves the episode on a bit of a lower note than I would hope, but it's a funny episode nonetheless.

Like a lot of host segments in season six, the segments presented here are more hit-and-run gags than anything fully formed.  The few larger segments do stand out though.  Everyone coming up with their own theme song is a catchy way to open the episode, at least.  Turn Your Crank To Frank is one of those gags every MSTie knows by heart and loves, especially for Frank's enthusiasm for having a radio station named after him.  Less impressive but enjoyable segments include Tom Servo's new head (which looks like a creepy Howdy Doody), Crow and Mike recreating the gas station holdup from the movie, and Crow trying to get Mike to play Keanu Reeves in a biopic (mind you, this was pre-Matrix and John Wick Keanu Reeves).  If nothing else, "This is my own private Idaho!  POTATO!" is a line that tickles me.  Tom Servo playing Barbara Streisand in A Star is Born is a bit of a stinker though.

The Violent Years has a great short and swell riffing momentum throughout most of the movie.  The fact that it slows down in the final act and that there is a problematic sequence that, despite my opinion of it being pretty funny, might make it hard to recommend in case one objects to its mockery.  This has aspects of being one of the show's finest, but it falls just a slight bit short.

Good

The DVD

This episode was released on Shout Factory's Volume XXII set, with good audio but occasionally flickering video.  The bonus features show off interviews with the two loves of Ed Wood's life, Deloris Fuller and Kathy Wood.  These interviews look to have been conducted around the time of Tim Burton's Ed Wood biopic in 1994, where they were played by Sarah Jessica Parker and Patricia Arquette, respectively.  It's an interesting inclusion on this disc and I'm happy to have them.

Amityville Horror: The Evil Escapes (Rifftrax Live)

Film Year:  1989

Genre:  Horror

Director:  Sandor Stern

Starring:  Patty Duke, Jayne Wyatt, Fredric Lehne

Rifftrax Year:  2021

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

Short Featured:  "Face It:  It's Your Accident"

The Short

Our short starts off with the grumpy, tomato loving Mike having a bad day.  He heads to work in a distracted mood and accidentally injures his hand.  While bleeding out, he is lectured by a coworker he can't stand, Joe, about how he needs to take responsibility for his own actions and accept that he let the accident happen to himself.  During his hospital stay in which he watches his daughter share her glistening, ripe tomatoes with his roommate a little too eagerly, Mike mulls it over and begins to wonder if Joe has a point.

This short is of course supposed to encourage safety in the workplace, championing the very real point that accidents can often be caused by one's own careless actions and one needs to recognize what those actions are.  It's unfortunate that the short is as comical as it is though, which undercuts the serious message it's trying to deliver.  The public shaming of Mike after his accident is really mean, as instead of taking him to a hospital they drag him into another room for him to stare directly into a mirror that says "Face It:  It's YOUR Accident!"

The character preaching safety is intentionally grating, but that doesn't make it forgivable.  Of course he's right, he's still a douche, as he goes directly to Mike's hospital room and scolds Mike in front of his family without even saying hello to any of them.  The entire presentation of the moral is strange and it even makes myself want to get into an accident to spite this short.  If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go shake hands with danger.

The Movie

Full disclosure, the only Amityville Horror film I've seen is the Ryan Reynolds remake, and I remember not caring for it.  I have thought about dabbing in the original Amityville movies but have been warded off because the word on the street is they are boring, even the original.  How a movie can be boring and spawn that many sequels, I'm not sure.  But never underestimate the power of a horror movie that uses the often misleading tagline "Based on a true story."  The Amityville Horror was based on a novel, to be sure, but that novel (perhaps loosely) was influenced by events that actually occurred.  The Amityville story was even briefly covered by Ed and Lorraine Warren, the two paranormal specialists/grifters (whichever you believe) that inspired the Conjuring series.

This fourth entry of the franchise was made directly for television, and also one of the few films of the Amityville series to be based on a novel from the actual book series that the original novel spawned.  Of course this particular novel had no basis in true events (one could argue neither was the original novel, but that's neither here nor there).  I can't say how faithful it is to the novel it's based, because that would presume I was bored enough to read it, but look at a wiki page makes it seem as if both stories of the book and film are vaguely similar.  The Evil Escapes chronicles the idea that haunted household items from the Amityville home were sold at a yard sale, setting up hauntings distant from the house.  In this film version, it appears whatever the fuck was haunting the Amityville house (which appears to be a demon in Klingon makeup doing scowling faces) decided the conduit of pure evil needs to inhabit is one hell of an ass-ugly lamp.  Said lamp is sold and sent to a home in California, where it begins haunting the family that resides.

Because I have no basis for comparison between this movie and the ones that came before it, I can only comment on the movie in front of me, which is hilariously inept.  Let's face it, made for television horror isn't exactly a rich environment.  For every Trilogy of Terror or Don't Be Afraid of the Dark there was a When a Stranger Calls Back or The Birds II:  Land's End.  While it would be easy to point to budget limitations as a reason for a TV movie's weakness, what's ironic is that a lot of the best horror movies embrace a slight budget and use it to fuel their off the cuff creativity.  Horror movies have been better than Amityville 4 with half the budget and have accomplished much more.  In the case of this movie, it's fairly clear that there is effort to make the movie seem frightening, but little knowledge in what makes something effectively scary.  A lot of the sequences in the film are a exaggerated to the point where the movie is almost a live-action cartoon.  The evil entity of the film travels through electric cords via a comedic looking bubble, like something you'd see in a Three Stooges short if Larry were filling up electric wiring with water.

The acting does little to elevate.  Patty Duke and Jayne Wyatt are seasoned veterans in the acting game, but they both look a little deflated here, and aren't really trying to elevate their material.  But why would they?  It's clear it wouldn't make a difference, and this film sure isn't worth the effort.  Nobody else is either, as what remains of the regular cast are child actors who seem to be hired because they fill a specific "look" rather than their acting abilities.  The daughter is a typical twenty-something pretending to be a teenager, though her bosom is so abnormally large for her slender frame that she can't so much as stand up without looking like she's aiming to fall over.  Often I was feeling sorry as I pictured some producer forcing this actress to keep jutting out her boobs toward the camera until I realized she wasn't and she was only standing up straight.  The son feels like he was cast based on what the producers thought "80's cool" was, with a kid mullet and bright clothing, but he often looks like Gary Busey's head shoved onto Tom Holland's body.  The youngest is the attempt at an Omen style "creepy kid," who more or less just comes off as a brat rather than evil incarnate.

All of these strange choices in casting and creativity just kind of snowball and make the movie this weird and kind of funny little goofball that's not quite a trainwreck because it's too amusing to be one.  I mean, it's a movie where most of the horror scenes are the actors screaming at a lamp, for god's sake.  If the other Amityville movies are this silly, then maybe I'm missing out.

The Live Show

Now this is more like it!

I always get more excited about a Rifftrax event if it's a movie I haven't seen before, and Amityville is certainly the Halloween treat I didn't know I wanted.  It's a ghost house movie that was never meant to be seen on the big screen here on the big screen anyway, and Mike, Kevin, and Bill are ready to hold our hands through it as they knowingly wink at us with a tone of "Get a load of this crap!"  The tone of this Live show is perfection for the spooky season!

Our riffers themselves are very amused by the idea of a movie that focuses on a scary lamp.  Their obsession with haunted décor is infectious, as they play with the evils of yard sales, shipping to other states, and moving it from one room to another.  But the kooky style of the film is hard to not play with, as it's both silly slapstick and surprisingly gory.  Hands get chopped off in garbage disposals, people die of infections, someone even gets drowned in sewage (think Zack and Miri in regards to this scene), and the shifting tone allows Mike, Kevin, and Bill something unique and new to latch onto after each turn, even as it's taking a break for some soap opera melodramatics.  They note about how the haunted house is infested with bugs ("The movie's already attracting flies.  That's a bad sign.") and later wonder if anybody got that dead plumber out from underneath the house, because he's never mentioned again after choking on poo.

All of this leads up to a riot of a scene where an exorcism is performed on a lamp, which is exactly as fun as it sounds.  I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe!

"Mirror mirror on the wall, show me how my hand got mauled."

Reeling back to the show's beginning is a rousing short which actually feels like it matches the tone of the film.  After all, both the short and the feature feature mutilated hands.  Face It:  It's Your Accident is a wild affair of blame game, and it's pretty funny on its own.  After all, right after our main character has his hand mangled, his coworker doesn't go get help, he drags him into another room so he can look into the "accident mirror," which is so funny by itself that it doesn't even need commentary.  The short is full of strange quirks, including a daughter who is obsessed with feeding tomatoes to everyone (fondle her tomatoes, why don't ya) and a dad who openly licks frosting off the tomatoes on camera.  Showcases like these are easy to make winning material out of.

The one missed opportunity that I can count with this short is that there is a sequence late in it where one character gets irritated at another and tries to run them over with a forklift.  This would have been a perfect opportunity to do a callback to Fugitive Alien's "He triiiiiiiiiiiied to kill me with a forklift!" song, but no reference is ever made.  I suppose it's asking too much for the MST alumni to remember every riff they've ever made for over thirty years (Bill wasn't even a part of the show when Fugitive Alien was on), but the reference would have made my night.

That minor imperfection out of the way, Amityville Horror:  The Evil Escapes is an absolute trophy of a Live show and one of their best Live performances to date.  Maybe the extra year they got in preparation helped put some polish on this one, I'm not sure, but all I know is that I laughed, I cried, I may even have peed a little.  This is the best Rifftrax Live in years and will likely go down as an all-time favorite.

Classic

K10-Cosmic Princess

Film Year:  1982 (compiled from a 1976 television series)

Genre:  Science Fiction

Director:  Charles Crichton, Peter Medak

Starring:  Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, and some people who weren't on Mission:  Impossible

MST Season:  KTMA

The Movie

Gerry and Sylvia Anderson are back, baby!  They've moved on from their marionette shows and have decided it's time to work with actors and try their hand at the special effects game.  The resulting show was Space:  1999, a series about a colony that was on the moon when an accident hurtled it into space.  An absurd premise to be sure (losing the moon would be catastrophic for the Earth), but sometimes dealing with the absurd is what playful storytelling does best.  After all, these people used to make TV shows with a bunch of puppets!  Who needs reality?

Cosmic Princess is from a series of videos that VCI put out editing episodes from the series together for retail sale on VHS.  This particular video took two episodes from the show's retooled second season and tried to pass them off as a continuity narrative.  The first was The Metamorph, in which our space heroes, the Alphans, are threatened by the villainous Mentor, an alien being who wishes to use their brains to power his computer.  This episode introduces the titular "Cosmic Princess" in a character called Maya, who joined the series as a science officer after this episode.  The second episode aired later in the season, Space Warp, which featured Maya falling ill and losing control of her morphing ability.  This edit of the episodes alters them to try and tie it into the previous episode.

I dig retro space shows.  I haven't personally seen Space:  1999 but based on what I see here, I like the cut of its jib.  It certainly has its goofy qualities, with a few low-fi monster costumes and whatnot, but I was entertained throughout Cosmic Princess.  It's the balance of serious and goofy I crave.

Probably the most notable aspect of the series for old TV buffs is that it starred the real-life husband/wife duo Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, years after having starred in Mission:  Impossible together.  Landau plays moonbase leader John Koenig while Bain is medical head Helena Russell.  Cosmic Princess Maya is played by Catherine Schell, who James Bond fans will recognize from her small role in On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Clouseau fans will recognize from Return of the Pink Panther (though Mystery Science Theater fans will likely know her best from Moon Zero Two).  She doesn't do a whole lot in the episodes presented.  Her first episode is her denying her brain-sucking father is that bad of a bloke and the second is just her flailing about.

The special effects aren't as dynamic as Battlestar Galactica would do just a few years later, though I dare say the space shots are a leap forward from what Star Trek was capable of a few years earlier (though arguably even Lost in Space had more impressive spaceship effects than Star Trek).  What might make it or break it are the silly alien costumes, which are fairly raggedy and Halloween store renal quality.  If one dives head first into this show, it's something of a mixed bag in the effectiveness of what's onscreen.

Probably the best summery I can come up with for this show is a point in the first featured episode in which one of the Alphans shoots a laser at Mentor, only to have it deflected back at the Alphan and vaporize him.  Martin Landeau responds to this incident by pulling his gun out and pointing it at Mentor.  That's showcases the thought that is put into this show and it made me laugh out loud.  I hope the rest of the series lives up to that one moment.

The Episode

We dive right back into the "TV show posing as a movie" waters after a few rounds of movies that actually were real movies.  Even better it's from Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, creators of Stingray and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, so it's not entirely unfamiliar territory.  Cosmic Princess is colorful and fun, with special effects that are both solid and lame alike.  It's the type of content I like to see on Mystery Science Theater, so it's a welcome presence in my book.  And if I'm enjoying the movie, that's half the battle right there for a KTMA episode.

The improved riffing doesn't quite do the movie justice, but they're into the inherent silliness to the movie and play along.  Well, Josh doesn't seem to be in the mood for this movie's crap.  His Tom Servo comments a lot on the production values, snickering at alien costumes, saying "That's the worst chunk of crap monster I've ever seen!" and getting irritated and calling the whole thing "Doodie!" at the end.  Joel and Trace seem to take it more in stride, as they're probably more in the wavelength of what TV had to offer in the 70's than Josh is.  Joel is very playful here, and he also congratulates both of the bots when they accidentally predict lines of dialogue before they happen.

"Spaceship graveyard."

"It's a graveyard of ships!"

"Ha!  Good call!"

"I could be writing this crap!"

The host segments are highlighted by a funny bit in which Crow gives Joel a haircut.  The dialogue exchange is charming during this segment and it's no wonder they remade it in the first season.  The bots also get pissed that Joel doesn't claim them as dependents on his taxes (isn't space considered international territory?), while Servo loses his head a few times.  They cleverly use this to explain a coughing fit Josh has in the theater at one point, as Crow claims that maybe they screwed his head on too tight.  Also there are some football segments, because this episode aired on Superbowl Sunday (they couldn't have aired Superdome that night?).

This is probably my favorite of the KTMA season.  It's a goofy but fun movie with a casual commentary with a few good chuckles.  It certainly seems like these kids are onto something with these space movies and surrounding puppet show.  I hope they keep it up!

Good

K13-SST- Death Flight

Film Year:  1977

Genre:  Disaster

Director:  David Lowell Rich

Starring:  Barbara Anderson, Bert Convy, Peter Graves, Lorne Greene, Season Hubley, Tina Louise, George Maharis, Doug McClure, Burgess Meredith, Martin Milner, Brock Peters, Robert Reed, Susan Strasberg, Misty Roe, Billy Crystal, John de Lancie, Regis Philbin

MST Season:  KTMA

The Movie

It's a TV movie that spent all of its budget on its actors, SST- Death Flight is a dream for anybody who watched a lot of TV during the 60's...or Nick at Night during the 90's.  This star studded cast mostly plays the passengers of a new model of supersonic plane that is sabotaged during its flight, while also containing a disease on board that has been accidentally set free.  Having been refused at its destination, they are forced to detour with limited fuel.

It's very clear that SST- Death Flight is mostly sold on its sizable cast, while also riding high on the success of the Airport film series by creating an airplane based thriller to be aired directly for television.  Since it's cast with seasoned professionals, we're at least given a bunch of people who will play the material to the best of their abilities.  But the majority of what takes place is people having mostly the same concerned conversation with each other over and over.  It's not a compelling script, but thankfully we're given a group of people who will try and elevate it.

Probably the most amusing thing about this movie in retrospect is that it stars Peter Graves a few years before he starred in the Airport parody classic Airplane, which has arguably lasted much longer in pop culture than Airport has, and certainly much longer than Death Flight, whose only claim to fame these days is the Mystery Science Theater episode.  I'm also watching said episode of MST during the COVID-19 pandemic, so its story about an uncontained virus does hit a little close to home at the moment.  If only Robert Reed and Burgess Meredith were here to save us.

The Episode

"Everybody form two lines!  Love Boat on the left, Fantasy Island on the right!"

Joel and the Bots are mostly starstruck during the opening of SST- Death Flight.  They can't believe all of the stars that they're seeing, and they're mostly content with just listing them off instead of telling actual jokes.  They become a bit over-eager about it after a while, as they're so in the rhythm of spotting celebrities that they misidentify Brock Peters as Barney from Mission:  Impossible.  Spoiler Alert, Brock Peters did not play Barney on Mission:  Impossible (that would be Greg Morris).  But I think they're just surprised to see this many familiar faces after so many Gamera movies, Gerry Anderson puppets, killer ants, and whatever the hell Humanoid Woman was.  They even get to see a few faces they'll see down the line, like Burgess Meredith (The Last Chase), Peter Graves (It Conquered the World, Beginning of the End, Parts:  The Clonus Horror),Robert Reed (Bloodlust!), and Doug McClure (The Land That Time Forgot, At the Earth's Core).

Once they calm their jets, they take ample opportunity to do make riffs based on previous roles of the many people we're seeing.  If you're a TV buff, this riff is ripe with references to TV history and it's one that is easily appreciated.  They're in that crude KTMA style, but there's enough fun to be had and its an enjoyable experience.  Even seeing that the film itself is a TV production adds a cozy "Sit in and watch TV with a bucket of popcorn" vibe to this episode.

Host segments are pretty light.  Dr. Forrester went to Vegas and has stories, which is a fun way to open the episode.  And Gypsy has a lady's voice for once in pre-2017 MST history.  Make-up lady Faye Burkholder plays the sexy Gypsy voice here.  This would make her the first woman to play Gypsy, beating Rebecca Hanson to the punch by nearly 30 years, but the joke of the segment is that she's Tom Servo throwing his voice.  First woman to play Tom Servo?  Joel, Crow, and Gypsy also limbo while Servo sings "Day-O," which may be copyright infringing, I'm not sure.  Also Joel experiments on the Bots to make them feel pain, and Servo wants more.

I think this is one of the more enjoyable episodes of KTMA.  The movie is relatively watchable and the pop culture riffing is a really fun underlining to it.  For those who have never seen a KTMA episode it's probably one that I'd recommend a newbie give a try.  It might not win many converts to the early days of the series, but it is a very strong example of it.

Good

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXXII DVD Retrospective

Release Date:  March 24, 2015

Buy It Here!

Episodes Featured:

Radar Secret Service

San Francisco International

Hercules

Space Travelers

It's weird to think that a volume featuring my all-time favorite short, Last Clear Chance, and an episode that is so immensely chill and enjoyable as Hercules could be dogged down as much as Volume XXXII is, but for my money both San Francisco International and Space Travelers are among the most boring episodes of the series.  Even Radar Secret Service, which is coupled with Last Clear Chance, is a fairly inert movie as well.  That episode has stronger riffing to elevate it, but the movie selection in this volume is a bit of a dog.  Hercules does the heavy lifting, because it's the most lively and fun film/episode in the set, which I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that he is the strongest man who ever lived!

Average Rating:  2.25

The audio and video is pretty good on this release.  Bonus features include a making of featurette for Space Travelers called Marooned:  A Forgotten Odyssey and a career overview on producer Joseph E. Levine called Barnum of Baltimore.  MST related features include Sampo Speaks!, which is an interview with Satellite News contributor Chris Cornell, and MSTUK, which shows Trace and Frank touring in England.  Frank also contributes intros for Space Travelers and Hercules and there are also trailers for both of those films as well.

The box art is Shout's basic stock cover, featuring the MST logo in the upper right hand corner and theater seats at the bottom, while the roman numeral "XXXII" is painted in yellow in the center.  But as usual, the real artwork are the individual case covers on the inside by Steve Vance.  Radar Secret Service features Crow and Tom Servo as secret service agents in dapper outfits with guns at the ready as a radar tower looms above them.  San Francisco International features features Crow as the villainous priest holding lady Tom Servo hostage as airplanes fly above the airport behind them.  Hercules features Crow as Hercules, whipping a chain at an army in one had and holding Tom Servo as Iole in the other.  Space Travelers has Crow as an astronaut in a space capsule reaching for astronaut Tom Servo, who is adrift in space.

Disc art is also Shout's stock design, with episode logos against a starry backdrop.  The disc menus feature a bit of a change-up from Shout's norm though, as they've dropped the computer generated menus they've been commissioning since the 20th Anniversary Edition set and instead employ the same basic idea of mini-skits using audio from the episodes, but this time they are performed by miniature puppets.  It's not a drastic change and they're kinda cute.  I think the CG menus are more expressive, though these can be charming.  Radar Secret Service features Crow and Tom Servo communicating with a radar dish through conventional and unconventional means.  San Francisco International has Crow and Servo jamming out with the hippie from the film.  Hercules features the demigod harassing Crow and Servo while they're playing Connect 4.  Space Travelers has Crow and Servo as Houston control trying to communicate with Gene Hackman in space.

Like Volume 2 and Volume XXX before it, there are some aspects to this volume that help lift it up from being a skippable collection.  The best corners of it feature's the show at its most lovable, but it's a bit of a slog as a whole, which makes it low on the totem pole of MST volumes.  Last Clear Chance and Hercules are definite recommends from me though that I feel every MSTie has to watch at least once.

502-Hercules

Film Year:  1958

Genre:  Fantasy, Adventure

Director:  Pietro Francisci

Starring:  Steve Reeves, Sylva Koscina, Gianna Maria Canale, Fabrizo Mioni, Arturo Dominici, Mimmo Palmara, Lidia Alfonsi, Gina Roveri

MST Season:  5

The Movie

Given that Hercules is something of an iconic mythological figure, it's funny to think he hadn't been very prominent in film until the 1950's.  The earliest film featuring Herc as a prominent character is a comedy called The Warrior's Husband from 1933, directed by The King and I's Walter Lang, which featured him as an cowardly antagonist to a group of Amazons.

Then there was a lot of nothing.

And suddenly Steve Reeves.

Hercules became a template for the musclebound hero on a fantasy quest in Italian cinema.  Sweeping tales featuring Maceste, Colossus, Samson, and many loinclothed kin would follow suit, as well as many more adventures starring Hercules himself.  This particular film features Hercules joining the quest of Jason to retrieve the Golden Fleece and reclaim Jason's right to a stolen throne.

Lavish, lush, and full of energy, Hercules starts the endless Italian Hercules franchise with style.  Hercules goes on his adventures and accomplishes his amazing feats, and the movie never slows down to bore the audience.  There is always a new location and a new foe to keep the adventurers on their toes, from soldiers, to Amazons, and even dragons (who stole Godzilla's roar!).

There is no real artistic value to the movie, but the movie is primarily an entertainer first and foremost.  Hercules's primary ambition is to get children into seats and watch the oily and muscular hero wrestle the bad guys to the ground and even tear down an entire structure using only a pair of chains.  In its modest ambitions Hercules is more successful than most, and even for a non-demanding adult the movie is addictively playful.

Hercules would go on to star in many more Italian films, with Steve Reeves only reprising the role for the direct sequel, Hercules Unchained, which was featured earlier on Mystery Science Theater.  Once the box office dropped, all good things must come to an end, though Herc did pop up from time to time.  Following in Reeves' footsteps, other musclebound stars such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno, and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson all took a crack at the role.  There was a TV series series in the 90's that was produced by Sam Raimi and also spun off into the even more popular Xena:  Warrior Princess.  Walt Disney's animation studio took a crack at it, albeit with a loose interpretation of the mythology (but they've all been loose to one extent or another).  Hell, even the Three Stooges went up against their own version of the demigod.  But as far as pure entertainers go, Steve Reeves set a high bar that very few have been able to match

The Episode

I've always really liked this one.  First of all, this movie is wildly entertaining and it's easily the best of all the Hercules movies featured on the show.  The movie is so fun to watch that the only thing that could sink this episode is a lackluster commentary, but by season five everyone is truly firing on all cylinders and failure is not an option.  While there are probably episodes with bigger laughs out there, what Hercules has going for it is its variety.   Most Hercules movies stay stationary for good long portions, while this one is more episodic, moving from location to location.  The riffers are constantly on their feet keeping up with the film and they always have something up their sleeve for every scenario.  Probably the most fun they have with it is when the crew of the Argo bumps into a group of Amazons, who contrary to the myths of Amazons, are less noble warriors and more sexy, flirtatious nymphs basking in the attention they get from the men.  Joel and the Bots have a lot of fun with the film's sexual tension and let it ride.

The ending host segment does point out that the Amazons of the film bear little resemblance to the myths that inspire them, as Servo and Crow daydream of being waited on hand and foot by them before Joel comes in and corrects them.  This sets up a pretty wonderful cameo by Bridget Jones and Mary Jo Pehl as the "modern" Amazons, who are basically a traveling group of soccer moms.  Probably the most memorable of the remaining segments is Crow's little riff on Match Game, which is admittedly a bit odd, though anybody who has ever watched classic Match Game can appreciate the work that went into it.  Servo also comes up with new constellations and Joel tries to explain Hamilton Joe Frank and Reynolds to the Bots, both to middling laughs.  The Invention Exchange is fun, offering up the Cellular Desk and Instant Karma, which are both fun visual props.

Hercules does rely on a lot of jokes we've heard before, like Herc being a muscle-headed jerk and men wearing skirts and the like.  But there is so much confidence in this riff and the movie works so well in this format that when I'm in to mood for MST taking on Hercules I usually pop this one in.  This was nearly the last time they showed Hercules on the show, until the series was rebooted and they featured The Loves of Hercules anyway.  But if it had been Herc's final bow then it would have been a grand sendoff.  It's funny, it's engaging, and you get to see Steve Reeves slap people with chains.  I might be overrating this episode, but I've always been honest about how I feel about every episode and I'm not about to stop now.

Classic

The DVD

The might of Hercules was featured on Shout Factory's Volume XXXII box set, featuring good audio and video.  Bonus features include an introduction by Frank Conniff, who discusses the entire Hercules series and how they were suited for the show.  Following that up is Barnum of Baltimore:  The Films of Joseph E. Levine, which chronicles the career of the producer who brought the original Hercules film to the United States, as well as a host of other foreign films such as the original Godzilla, and also had a hand in the creation of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.  Finally is a trailer for the film.