Mystery Science Theater 3000: XXX

Shout Factory brings us, fortunately not a Triple-X version of the venerable Mystery Science Theater 3000 (aka MST3K), but instead the thirtieth box-set installation of the iconic movie-riff show. Host and show creator Joel Hodgson (later replaced by the show’s head writer, Mike Nelson) and his robot friends Tom Servo, Crow T. Robot and Gypsy were the first to crack wise over “cheesy movies” and, over ten years split between Comedy Central and the Sci-Fi Channel, they laid waste to almost every possible genre. Here, they deliver four more so-bad-they’re-good classics— giving us giant Mexican scorpions, beefy cosmic hunks, inept scientists and, of course, were-bat-people.

 

Up first is The Black Scorpion, the last remaining episode from the fairly primitive Season One to make it to DVD. The 1957 giant monster thriller is actually fairly decent for a ‘50’s-era creature feature, showcasing some good special effects from slumming King Kong stop-motion animator Willis O’Brien— at least until the money ran out and journeyman director Edward Ludwig was forced to resort to using giant black animated scorpion-shaped blobs, er, “shadows” to show the creatures. The story — about stalwart scientist Richard Denning and local rancher Mara Corday (a veteran of several other giant-monster movies of the ‘50s, such as The Giant Claw and Tarantula) discovering a cavern full of enormous man-eating other scorpions and other prehistoric insects—is pretty much for the birds, but the effects are solid, particularly a grisly sequence where the scorpions derail a passenger train (despite the train being an obvious model) and turn it into a buffet, and Joel and the ‘Bots are relatively kind to the piece. Other than the theatrical trailer, the sole extra is Ballyhoo Motion Pictures’ “Stinger Of Death: Making The Black Scorpion,” a terrific 13-minute look at Warner Brothers’ efforts to get on the giant-monster bandwagon in the ‘50s, hosted by film historian (and exploitation director himself), C. Courtney Joyner.

 

Joel fans will be disappointed by the fact that only one of his films made the cut this time around, but those of us who appreciate Mike Nelson’s more earnest approach in the later episodes couldn’t be happier with the selection of Season Five’s Outlaw (Of Gor)— the “Of Gor” added to make sure fans of author John Norman’s dopey Conan-esque sword-and-sorcery films were kept in the loop. The 1989 film, a sequel to the equally lousy Gor, trades that film’s star, Oliver Reed, for the hammy, long-in-the-tooth Jack Palance. The story — about Professor Tarl Cabot (Urbano Barberini) getting sent through time and space with his nebbish pal Watney Smith (charisma-free Russel Savadier) to the planet of Gor, which looks like a desert backlot filled with extras who look like they’ve all stumbled out a Hercules movie — is full of goofy characters and flat palace intrigue and Mike and the ‘Bots have a field day tearing it apart, particularly every time Jack Palance turns up on screen. Be prepared for plenty of City Slickers references. This film is packed full of extras, including a look at the novels of John Norman (side-stepping the rampant misogyny that percolates through the Gor series), and interviews with production manager Danny Lerner and director John “Bud” Cardos, a stuntman-turned-director who, realizing he wasn’t making Shakespeare, at least tried to have as good of a time as he can during the production.

 

A step up in quality and a step down in fun, the 1967 British sci-fi thriller The Projected Man is a largely stiff and obvious take on The Fly, with lead Bryant Halliday (best-known for co-founding Janus Films, now the parent company of the Criterion Collection) as a scientist who, ignored by the powers-that-be, tests out a laser teleportation device on himself, becoming a disfigured creature with an electrical touch in the process. The movie is largely a bore, with Halliday’s self-experimentation happening too late in the story to deliver the mayhem and excitement the piece badly needs, but Halliday’s post-transformation makeup is appropriately gross and Tracey Crisp adds some Carnaby Street-esque fun as a secretary who spends the last third of the film in a yellow bikini. The episode is a little lackluster as well, with Tom Servo’s randiness providing some of the only real interest. Ballyhoo Motion Picture’s featurette “A Shock To The System: Creating The Projected Man,” narrated by historian Tom Weaver, details how the film was developed and largely abandoned by its producers, who funneled a good chunk of its budget toward another project, Island Of Terror, with which this film opened as the second half of a drive-in double-bill in the U.S.

 

Last (and sort of) least, It Lives By Night is a 1974 horror cheapie best known by the more revealing title The Bat People. Bland TV actor Stewart Moss stars as a scientist who, while exploring Carlsbad Cavern with his wife, is bitten by a vampire bat and suddenly begins to turn into one himself. The story moves at a snail’s pace and the cool poster art features all sorts of mayhem which mysteriously doesn’t turn up in the movie itself— the best we get are close-ups of man-bat makeup (early work by FX legend Stan Winston) that makes Moss look he’s wearing a Halloween werewolf mask. Mike and the ‘Bots have fun taking the movie apart— veteran character actor Michael Pataki, as a beefy, mustached lawman who seems to be the only one who realize Moss is to blame for a series of killings, takes a lot of the heat — but the host sessions, featuring MST3K writer Mary Jo Pehl, are extremely dull. The only extra here is a strange short featuring Frank Conniff, “TV’s Frank” from the show’s Comedy Central era, resurrected as  Frankenstein’s Monster.

 

Shout Factory has announced the next MST3K box will be a “Turkey Day”-themed set containing Jungle Goddess, Lassie: The Painted Hills, The Screaming Skull and Squirm (Shout’s sister company, Scream Factory, is putting out the un-MSTied Squirm on Blu-Ray as well this fall). Look for it on November 25, just in time for the real Turkey Day.

You can buy Mystery Science Theater 3000 Volume XXX from Amazon or directly from Shout Factory.