Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax

[RumblyTumbly]

I think the worst movie MST3K ever touched was Monster A Go-Go

Watching that film make me appreciate the story that Manos told, which at least had a beginning, a middle and an end.

Monster A Go-Go is such an incomprehensible mess that I couldn't follow it at all, and it turned out to be one of the weaker episodes of MST3K as well because I felt like they didn't even know what to do with it.

 

[XYZpdq]

Manos: The Hands of Fate is unironically a better film than anything in Coleman Francis' library. They just hadn't encountered true horror yet when they did Manos.

somewhere I saw a theory that played off the riff of "Coleman Francis had a dark muddy vision, with cars" that Francis really did have an ongoing motif of an endlessly dreary world where betrayal and bad times was common.

I find Kitten With A Whip probably one of the least entertaining movies they did. It's not bad per se, just kind of an okay studio flick. There's no hook to make it funny.

 

[Francis E. Dec Esc.]

I think the worst movie MST3K ever touched was Monster A Go-Go

Watching that film make me appreciate the story that Manos told, which at least had a beginning, a middle and an end.

Monster A Go-Go is such an incomprehensible mess that I couldn't follow it at all, and it turned out to be one of the weaker episodes of MST3K as well because I felt like they didn't even know what to do with it.

Fun fact: Director Bill Rebane ran out of money halfway through making Monster-A-Go-Go, and sold the footage to Herschell Gordon Lewis, who added a few random scenes and released it as half of a double bill with a movie called Moonshine Mountain. That's why MMAG has no ending and that disjointed fever-dream-with-a-little-too-much-Nyquil aesthetic.

Ten years later, Bill Rebane made another movie called The Giant Spider Invasion, which became one of the better episodes of MST3K's eighth season. ("PACKERS! PACKERS! WOO!")

 

[XYZpdq]

iirc the Rifftrax cover of Giant Spider Invasion wasn't bad either
I remember this one time when TCM showed Monster a go go and Giant Spider back to back

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

I think Red Zone Cuba and The Beast of Yukka Flats manage to eek their way to 'bad enough to be entertaining' but Skydivers is just... bad, in the worst sort of bland and boring way possible.

Red Zone Cuba was malaise in film form. I was profoundly depressed after watching it and words failed me as to why.

I think the worst movie MST3K ever touched was Monster A Go-Go

Watching that film make me appreciate the story that Manos told, which at least had a beginning, a middle and an end.

Monster A Go-Go is such an incomprehensible mess that I couldn't follow it at all, and it turned out to be one of the weaker episodes of MST3K as well because I felt like they didn't even know what to do with it.

The opening narration of Monster A Go-Go says that "THE FOLLOWING EVENTS MAY NOT EVEN BE POSSIBLE!" It turns out at the end they in fact were impossible and none of the monster bits of the film actually happened. What a twist.

 

[King Dead]

Fun fact: Director Bill Rebane ran out of money halfway through making Monster-A-Go-Go, and sold the footage to Herschell Gordon Lewis, who added a few random scenes and released it as half of a double bill with a movie called Moonshine Mountain. That's why MMAG has no ending and that disjointed fever-dream-with-a-little-too-much-Nyquil aesthetic.

Ten years later, Bill Rebane made another movie called The Giant Spider Invasion, which became one of the better episodes of MST3K's eighth season. ("PACKERS! PACKERS! WOO!")

iirc the Rifftrax cover of Giant Spider Invasion wasn't bad either
I remember this one time when TCM showed Monster a go go and Giant Spider back to back

Rifftrax's live shows sometimes include movies from the MST3K days but with redone riffs (I know they've done Manos and Space Mutiny before, along with a bunch of Christmas movies, and Hobgoblins is coming up this year). However, the "PACKERS WOOOOOOO" riffs were so good that they were pretty much forced to reinclude them. It just wouldn't have been a low-budget monster film from Wisconsin without them.

I remember that when they redid Space Mutiny, they included a few new David Ryder nicknames too. I fucking love that episode.

Speaking of Rifftrax live shows, it sucks that they can't distribute the live show of The Five Doctors. Something to do with the BBC and rights and whatnot; from what I've heard, that extends to the riffs themselves, so they can't just rerecord the riffs and distribute those like they normally do. That was a great show, and I'd love to be able to see it again. Thanks for nothing, BBC.

 

[XYZpdq]

Rifftrax's live shows sometimes include movies from the MST3K days but with redone riffs (I know they've done Manos and Space Mutiny before, along with a bunch of Christmas movies, and Hobgoblins is coming up this year). However, the "PACKERS WOOOOOOO" riffs were so good that they were pretty much forced to reinclude them. It just wouldn't have been a low-budget monster film from Wisconsin without them.

I remember that when they redid Space Mutiny, they included a few new David Ryder nicknames too. I fucking love that episode.

Speaking of Rifftrax live shows, it sucks that they can't distribute the live show of The Five Doctors. Something to do with the BBC and rights and whatnot; from what I've heard, that extends to the riffs themselves, so they can't just rerecord the riffs and distribute those like they normally do. That was a great show, and I'd love to be able to see it again. Thanks for nothing, BBC.

Pretty sure there's bootlegs of Five Doctors at least

 

[RumblyTumbly]

The best part about the "PACKERS! WOOOO!" bit is that it kind of sort of makes me pull for the Packers every year to win the Super Bowl just so I can play that vid at a Super Bowl party, lol.

 

[XYZpdq]

Yeah been catching a bunch of the RT live shows. Been good enough at least. Give absolutely no fucks about the music acts and whatever bullshit.
I'm still mildly butthurt I didn't get to see them do Mothra. Not so much because I gave fucks about them riffing it as it was a chance to see Mothra on a movie screen. Kinda the reason I went to see them do Plan 9, too. I really got a kick out of the idea that after all those years, Plan 9 From Outer Space was playing in hundreds of cities in packed theaters across America. Manos, too.
Nobody knows a single movie by the Hollywood guy the fertilizer salesman made a bet with, but dammit they know Manos.

 

[RumblyTumbly]

Yeah been catching a bunch of the RT live shows. Been good enough at least. Give absolutely no fucks about the music acts and whatever bullshit.
I'm still mildly butthurt I didn't get to see them do Mothra. Not so much because I gave fucks about them riffing it as it was a chance to see Mothra on a movie screen. Kinda the reason I went to see them do Plan 9, too. I really got a kick out of the idea that after all those years, Plan 9 From Outer Space was playing in hundreds of cities in packed theaters across America. Manos, too.
Nobody knows a single movie by the Hollywood guy the fertilizer salesman made a bet with, but dammit they know Manos.

I saw the Mothra one...it was pretty great.

The line that sticks out to me the most is when Nelson kidnaps the two faeries:

"Two tiny Asian women? Woody Allen will pay a fortune for these!"

 

[XYZpdq]

I saw the Mothra one...it was pretty great.

I saw the non-live version and it was nice enough riffing, but really it's not like there's revivals of old Toei flicks, and a big screen makes giant monster movies waaaaaaaay better.

 

[XYZpdq]

Girl In Lover's Lane is another one where the movie really gets in the way of anything funny.
I should see if my old CT uploads still work

 

[Stab You in the Back]

Attack of the Super Monsters is a really bad movie and a really good riff.

 

[XYZpdq]

Attack of the Super Monsters is a really bad movie and a really good riff.

Yeah I had seen that years ago from back when netflix was dvd only. Been liking the shit dub stuff they've been working with.

Another instance of "joke transcending time", like when they mentioned Frank in the KTMA days, ep 617 The Sword And The Dragon has a ref to The Legend Of Boggy Creek

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

Attack of the Super Monsters is a really bad movie and a really good riff.

It's also the first time the trio tackles anime, which is always hilarious.

 

[XYZpdq]

It's also the first time the trio tackles anime, which is always hilarious.

Not just anime, but that weird hybrid anime toku hybrid Tsuburaya tried a couple of times.
I hope they do more hopping vampire movies.

 

[Commander X]

To quote Frank Conniff, who appeared in a short documentary about The Beast of Yucca Flats titled "No Dialogue Necessary" which was a feature on the Shout! Factory DVD release:

Of all of the filmmakers we did, he was sort of the one we discovered. You know, Ed Wood gets all this attention, shouldn’t Coleman Francis be getting some attention, as someone who made these Grade-Z movies?

I’m proud in a way, because everybody knows Ed Wood, but Coleman Francis was our big filmmaking discovery.

To also quote 'B-movie historian' and filmmaker Larry Blamire from the same documentary:

The shots of the mother looking for her children are so bleak. If you took away the Mystery Science Theater comments, and the music, which is just library music, it would be an incredibly deadening experience

While the Francis films are not good, I find them fascinating in their way - from the barren landscapes to the motif of coffee as social lubricant. The Beast is stark anti-cinematography. Skydivers, seemingly filmed in “Despair-vision,” is possibly the saddest, bleakest film ever made. and the collective of airport gawking freaks and weirdos in Skydivers makes Ed Wood’s crew look like the Algonquin Roundtable, Red Zone Cuba, what more can be said, Francis' filmmaking reaches it's "high point" here, such as it is. It all comes together.

Seems like I read about a Griffin once. They called him the Cotton King of the South. Sold a lot of cotton one day, at night he sent his trucks in and stole it right back. Sent him up for a long stretch. Seems like a thousand years ago... wife spent all the money and become a streetwalker. Every newspaper in the south had a picture of her. What a beautiful broad.

 

[XYZpdq]

gosh Frank, way to ignore Sinister Cinema who hooked you up with that shit

 

[XYZpdq]

doubleposting about The Visitor, RT covered it, decent enjoyable crap movie, decent enjoyable riffing
also saw the three riffer version of Little Shop Of Horrors, the old movie, decent riffing

 

[Commander X]

I think the worst movie MST3K ever touched was Monster A Go-Go

Watching that film make me appreciate the story that Manos told, which at least had a beginning, a middle and an end.

Monster A Go-Go is such an incomprehensible mess that I couldn't follow it at all, and it turned out to be one of the weaker episodes of MST3K as well because I felt like they didn't even know what to do with it.

Monster A Go-Go, back in 1961 midwest auteur Bill Rebane started work on a 50’s-style monster rampage picture by the somewhat odd name of Terror at Halfday. It was a remarkably ambitious production, with a climax that called for swarms of soldiers, cops, and firemen, together with their vehicles and equipment, taking over the subterranean portion of Chicago’s street grid between Lake Shore Drive and Wabash Avenue, south of the Chicago River. Terror at Halfday required airplanes, helicopters, and laboratory spaces that could not be faked with stock footage, not to mention a full-scale prop space capsule. The monster was supposed to be so tall that only a circus giant would suffice to play it. And Rebane proposed to do it all on a budget of just $60,000. Not surprisingly, he ran out of money before Terror at Halfday was anywhere close to finished, and he never did scrape together the funds to complete the project. The nearest Rebane ever came to recouping his costs was the $8000 he received from Herschel Gordon Lewis in 1965, when Lewis bought about two hours’ worth of silent Terror at Halfday footage (counting coverage and outtakes) with the aim of turning it into a supporting feature for his forthcoming Moonshine Mountain. Herschel Gordon Lewis filmed new scenes years later, dropping characters whose “actors” were unavailable.

Bill Rebane was unable to finish his first movie, Herschel Gordon Lewis did it for him. Monster a Go-Go is like a mash up of horrible Midwestern exploitation filmmaking.

It almost becomes postmodern enough to be interesting, but not quite. Oddly even the DVD is lousy, with a stupid commentary by “director” Rebane that blames his problems on “unions,” while Lewis also tried the “it’s supposed to be funny” cop-out.