Watching the Movies For MST's New Season

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 Patrick Wayne 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.

Next Week:

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. 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, 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 just 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 raunchie 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 being trolled by Munchie. I do feel like pointing out that while this guy is a dick, 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.

Next Week:

There's this Jack Black movie from a while back called Be Kind Rewind where he and Mos Def are video store employees (remember those?) who accidentally erase every tape in their store. To try and save the impending disaster of customer service they decide to "home brew" remake every movie they have starring themselves using a home camcorder. The results of their "remakes" are about what you would expect, but the people of their little community absolutely love them and they become an unexpected hit. To be blunt, I always thought that movie was kinda dumb. In some weird way however, Demon Squad made me appreciate its premise a bit more.

Demon Squad in several ways reminds me of the type of movie Jack Black and Mos Def would make in Be Kind Rewind, only maybe by people who look to be a bit more professional. This movie certainly wasn't made by two dipshits with a VHS tape, though by indie filmmaking of 2019 standards this film is very low tech. Maybe on the same level of money Kevin Smith made Clerks on? Can't say, this is just speculation based on what's onscreen. If it is in that cash range, this movie is more ambitious than Clerks so it stretches that money pretty thin. If I were to compare Demon Squad to any film featured previously on Mystery Science Theater it would be Final Sacrifice, and I mean that as a favorable comparison, mind you. That movie was made by film students who had access some equipment and went out and made something. Demon Squad has that same vibe, as if they could be filming on their local street and the director is telling all the actors "Okay, say your lines quick and let's beat it before the cops come." In spirit I'd say it's also close to Time Chasers, where it's clear the filmmakers have a very specific movie they want to make, don't have a lot of money to do it, but decided "Fuck it, we'll do it anyway, and have fun making it."

The film's story does come off like it was adapted from fan fiction lying around for the TV show Angel or the comic series John Constantine: Hellblazer that has been reformatted with original characters to avoid getting sued. Demon Squad tells the tale of supernatural detective Nick Moon and his assistant Daisy who are recently visited by the wealthy and beautiful Lilah Fontaine who hires them to search for her missing father. As the duo dig deeper into the mystery, things become more nefarious than initially appear.

Surface level, there is a lot that can be dismissed about Demon Squad. The cinematography is low rent, the music is barren, the sound quality is both inconsistent and often trashy, and its story feels more like a riff on pop entertainment than anything with artistic merit. But that's only if I approach this movie like a film critic, which I pride myself in not being because fuck that noise. Demon Squad isn't a normal movie and I feel shouldn't be judged like it is. It's a movie with certain limitations and resources made by people who got their hands dirty and took the time to put together something with what little they had. They even had the audacity to put in make-up, puppets, and special effects, sometimes crude ones, but this is an example when bonus points for effort should be awarded. This is a movie where it seems like its own existence is a reward for the people who made it.

What probably crosses Demon Squad over into its own level of enjoyability is its cheekiness. Everyone involved in the production knows this whole thing looks and feels kind of silly, so there is a level of taking it just serious enough to make it feel like a narrative but goofing around just enough for them to feel like they're admitting to the audience "We know what this is, just play along." And for a movie this low on the totem pole of cinema, I'd actually say that there's a good argument that can be made that the acting in this movie is pretty solid. Everyone has charisma and charm, and they play to their strengths even when delivering clunky fantasy babble. The big drawback to the actors is that they feel like they're at war with the sound equipment, which drains out their line delivery to the point where sometimes it sounds garbled up. It's cool that this movie has as much make-up effects as it does, but maybe they could have saved on one or two to buy a boom mic?

The worst thing I can say about Demon Squad is that it's a movie that will provoke a cynical reaction from cynical viewers who will dismiss it immediately. However, and I cannot stress this enough, it is not a cynical film itself, which is something I can't say for a lot of films on Mystery Science Theater 3000. It's people with a camera having fun, and they can't guarantee that the audience that stumbles upon their creation has a good time but they're clearly of the attitude "If you get it, you get it." There is something innocent and pure about that, and I'm personally in favor of it.

Next Week:

Note:  I watched this movie with the AIP dub rather than it's original Japanese audio track, since that will be the version featured on the series.



A Gamera movie without a Sandy Frank dub? What is this nonsense?

Like most of the original Gamera movies, Gamera vs. Jiger was originally imported to the US by American International Television, which it played under the title of Gamera vs. Monster X. The Sandy Frank imports happened over a decade later, and Gamera vs. Jiger was one of the titles overlooked by the producer (along with Gamera vs. Viras and Gamera: Super Monster). That's why this film wasn't on the original Mystery Science Theater, because their deal was with Sandy Frank and he didn't have the rights to this movie. It's a little bit of a shame, because Jiger is one of the more enjoyable Gamera entries. Like any of the original Gamera movies, it's not a great movie but it is a solidly goofy execution of its formula with some fun expansions upon it to put it ahead of the pack.

Gamera vs. Jiger was somewhat scripted around the anticipation of Japan's Expo '70 in Osaka at the time, working it into the storyline to show off locations of the grounds. The movie sees a mysterious totem being removed from its site on Wester Island (get it?), which unleashes the monster Jiger from its slumber. Gamera appears to try and subdue the monster, but Jiger proves to be a powerful opponent for the turtle, finally bringing the mighty Friend to All Children down by planting an egg in Gamera's lung with her stinger. The only way to help Gamera is by venturing inside his body, and the two new Kennies of the movie, Hiroshi and Tommy, take the charge by getting into a minisub and piloting it straight down Gamera's throat and curing the big lug.

All the Gamera movies surrounding this one features the turtle squaring off against cosmic threats (Gamera vs. Viras, Gamera vs. Guiron, Gamera vs. Zigra, Gamera: Super Monster), which is a lot of outer space to tangle with. It's almost refreshing that Gamera vs. Jiger not only chooses to keep its story earthbound, but also tackle inner space as well. The wacky premise of "going inside Gamera" makes Gamera vs. Jiger a bit of treat for this franchise because it allows the filmmakers to do something different. Noriaki Yuasa isn't a daring enough director to take full advantage of the situation, as he doesn't entirely seem to comprehend that there is a whole world of setpieces open to him with this new opportunity of exploration. He even sets up the idea that the minisub might see danger if it ventures into Gamera's stomach but instead of exploring that idea they just veer away from it. Instead the kids just play around in Gamera's lung (which looks like a cluster of artichokes) and get chased by a mini-Jiger. Yuasa is playful enough to make the situation fun but with this scenario the audience almost yearns for it to go a bit further. But in a series this formulaic, one takes innovation however they can get it.

The kaiju action is amusing in that traditional absurdist Gamera style and there is quite a bit of it this time. Gamera fights Jiger a grand total of three times throughout the film, almost punctuating each of the film's three acts with a brawl between the two beasts. The first happens when Jiger is unleashed, where Jiger sticks pins in each of Gamera's limbs ensuring the turtle can't retract into his shell and fly away. After Jiger rampages through Osaka, Gamera is back for round two but meets Jiger's stinger leading to the Fantastic Voyage twist of the movie. As Gamera revives, he takes the totem and impales it straight into Jiger's forehead.

Children's entertainment, folks.

It's actually fascinating to me that Gamera films are squarely aimed at kids but they're so nonchalant about death and destruction as they are. One could probably make the same claim about the Godzilla series but even as Godzilla became a bit more self depreciating and catering to younger audiences, it always seemed to embrace the weight of the circumstances in which it was portraying. Gamera vs. Jiger features a scene in which Jiger incinerates the entire middle of Osaka and everybody with it, and the movie just plays it as...



This is also a movie in which Gamera plugs his earholes with telephone poles to block Jiger's deadly sound waves.  Yup, that's a thing.

While Gamera vs. Jiger is held back by limitations, the truth of the matter is all Gamera movies are held back by limitations. They're made cheap and fast with ideas so wild that it's hard for them to unearth potential without certain resources at their disposal or maybe fresh blood behind the camera. Yuasa makes movies with spirit, you got to give him that, and one can't say a Yuasa Gamera film isn't distinctly a Yuasa Gamera film (the one non-Yuasa Gamera film of the original Showa series, Gamera vs. Barugon, is distinctly non-Yuasa). Gamera vs. Jiger is what you'd expect from a Gamera movie but, based on what formulas it has established for itself, it's playing more outside the box than usual. Gamera vs. Jiger may not offer much more than the traditional Gamera film with a few new flourishes but it's probably my favorite of the original series.

Next Week:

One of the more landmark names in the history of science fiction is H.G. Welles, who of course gifted us such classics as The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, and The Invisible Man. I used to read a few of his books as a kid myself but one that I hadn't gotten around to was a book called The Shape of Things to Come, which was a story about a future that is ravaged by plagues and wars, reverting to less advanced civilization that rebuilds from the ground up with new ideals. At least that's the gist of it that I can get from skimming the Wikipedia overview. I don't know if that summary is entirely accurate or not.

Anyway, pop culture moves on to another landmark in science fiction, a movie called Star Wars released in 1977. Suddenly feature films set in space are big business and many are rushed into production. Some became classics, like Alien, while some wound up on Mystery Science Theater 3000, like Starcrash. In the heat of this science fiction boom the decision to capitalize on the name of a noted science fiction author probably seemed like a smart advertising plan in the moment, and H.G. Welles was probably the best name you could use. The problem was that Welles didn't really have any space operas under his belt. I guess you could reinvent War of the Worlds into one if you really needed to, but the George Pal adaptation was still highly regarded at this point and I imagine nobody was interested in touching it.

The Shape of Things to Come had been adapted to film before with a film called Things to Come in 1936, which apparently was fairly loose itself but more faithful than this film. This version of The Shape of Things to Come pretty much borrows the title and maybe a few character names and nothing else, instead creating an original space adventure to capitalize off of Star Wars. This movie shows man having been relocated to a moon colony following the ravaging of Earth from the Robot Wars (Robot Wars is a prequel in my headcanon and you can't change my mind). They find their way of life in danger when Jack Palance suddenly appears with an army of robots and insists that he is the new emperor of the galaxy. It's up to a scrappy group of dogooders to fend off Palance on the distant planet of Delta 3.

With little knowledge of the source material, I instead have to judge this movie based on its own merits, which are uneven. Here's the deal, the models in this movie never don't look like models, but a lot of the designs are neat to look at and I admire the crafting of them if nothing else. If you squint really hard, this movie almost passes off as the original Battlestar Galactica series from the 70's. But looking at it eyes wide can show it's a much shoddier production, with lackluster costume design and some bulky and clunky not-too-intimidating robot antagonists.

The movie does have some inherent cheese factor that helps keep it afloat though, so B-movie enthusiasts will be of interest. The music is overbearing and often silly in how large it feels in comparison to mundane things onscreen. There is a slow motion sequence in a "gravity vortex" which is hilarious and makes the wormhole sequence from Star Trek: The Motion Picture look like nuanced cinema. And then there is just Jack Palance, who is Palancing it up a storm. I haven't seen him Palance it up like this since Tim Burton's Batman.

The Shape of Things to Come is a crummy movie, but it's not a painful one. It's enjoyable under the right circumstances and even a bit funny and entertaining. I had fun with it, even if it does staple a dead man's name on its poster for a tasteless marketing ploy.

Next Week:

After assimilating nine of the thirteen movies being shown this season, that just leaves the question of whether or not they’re going to be good episodes or not. We’ll find out in due course. Part of the magic of Mystery Science Theater 3000 is how it takes something from the heap and turns it into something new and fun. There are films out there that you might not see the potential in that might absolutely have the spark hidden within. I probably would have never have taken a second look at films like Girl in Gold Boots, Red Zone Cuba, or maybe even Mitchell or Manos and have thought to myself “This would make a great episode,” but somehow the series made them work.

But speaking as someone who has seen every episode of the series more than once and has logged every single one on a dumpster fire of a blog, I can safely say I have opinions on the show and maybe even a gut feeling about what maybe will make good fuel for the series. Based on that, I give you the nine movies I watched ranked based on my anticipation for the episode.



9. Munchie

I’d hesitate to call Munchie a lost cause, as comedies can be tricky business but not impossible. That slight doubt of what Munchie has to offer is what puts it at the bottom of this list. I imagine it’s an attempt to recreate the experience of Mac and Me from the previous season, though Munchie is a bit more flamboyant than Mac and Me which might prove more troublesome for a comedy commentary. On Twitter, Hampton Yaunt said he was assigned to write on this movie and he said it nearly broke him, and if I know this fanbase as well as I do, I think the majority of fans will reject the movie selection (It’s amazing how many fans of a franchise devoted to bad movies complain when it makes them watch a bad movie). Munchie feels like it’s going to be less of the Mac and Me of this season and closer to the Atlantic Rim of this season, the one that could be a solid episode but people will whine about because they don’t want to watch the movie.

I’d say the smarter play might have been to not try and recreate Mac and Me and try and recreate Hobgoblins instead, forgetting about Munchie and going straight for the prequel Munchies instead. Munchie is the worse movie, but Munchies is the bolder experience that will leave an impression outside of the riffing itself. And Shout can’t tell me they couldn’t get the rights to it, as they’ve owned New Horizon’s catalogue for several years and even have Munchies and Munchie available in a double feature blu-ray.



8. Beyond Atlantis

The potential in Beyond Atlantis feels like it’s the same potential as films like Wild Women of Wongo or Jungle Goddess, as it’s a pretty daff movie that’s mostly stationary. The plotline is large for a movie that moves so little, but despite those big ideas it can get dull because it feels like it’s not going anywhere. They’ve worked with films like this before though so there might be a diamond in the rough here.

There are silly makeup effects a plenty and there are a lot of underwater swimming bikini sequences, so even if this results in a lackluster episode there will be highlights. I like this movie choice based mostly on its premise though its execution might fail the MST format.



7. Robot Wars

It crushes me that I’m rating Robot Wars this low. Based on the title and the trailer footage this movie seems like it should be the most amazing film choice of the season. The thing I can’t get past is that the movie isn’t nearly as fun a bad movie as it sounds, as it’s pacing is a disaster and there are less robots than I would like in my Robot Wars movie.

That being said, the movie certainly is silly enough, and the production design is adorable. I don’t want to fully write off a Charles Band production featured on the series because there will always be something special there, and because of that I ranked it above Beyond Atlantis at the very least. This one is just way too close to a tossup than is comfortable for me.



6. The Million Eyes of Sumuru

The good news is that The Million Eyes of Sumuru has already been on the series. It was a KTMA episode, but still it has clout. The KTMA episode isn’t half bad, though it declines a bit as it goes (mostly because J. Elvis Weinstein had to duck out half way through filming). KTMA films have been refeatured on the show to great effect in the third season, so getting to see them take another crack at more seems like a good idea.

Would I have picked Sumuru? There is promise, though it’s a bit too self-aware and intentionally comedic than I’d like. If I were to pick a movie from KTMA to take another crack at, I’d like to see Cosmic Princess or City on Fire. Also Legend of Dinosaurs, because I love my Japanese movies, though I concede that movie might be a bit too dour. I think Sumuru might make for a healthy episode though not a spectacular one. But even if the episode is bad, we always have the RiffTrax version.



5. Demon Squad

I’m a little nervous about what the future of Demon Squad will be after it hits the series. Throwing a movie like this to a wider audience that lives to scrutinize is almost like a salmon jumping out of a river in front of a bear. It’s easy prey but it’s not a movie that really deserves to be judged too harshly. And if there is one thing I know about MST it’s that its fans do have a tendency to drag titles on the series through the mud. A lot of ratings for films featured on the series on IMDB have been skewed simply because they’ve been on the series, not because they deserve the scrutiny. The highest rated film that has been on MST over there is Phase IV with a 6.5, and I think that movie gets off so easy because it was featured on KTMA (the only other movie with over a 6 is Diabolik).

However the silver lining to Demon Squad being on the series is that the show does grow an audience for films few people have seen. Manos was virtually unheard of before it was on the show, but now it’s a staple in cult films. Demon Squad has the potential to be a new Time Chasers, which was a movie everyone had laughs at but a good amount of fans defended after it aired saying “You know what, that movie wasn’t bad. I kinda liked it.” That might be Demon Squad’s future, which is really what it deserves, in my opinion. And if the episode is as good as Time Chasers then that certainly wouldn’t hurt.



4. The Christmas Dragon

Normally I wouldn’t think too highly of this one, but the one thing that lingers in the back of my head is how much of a personality it has. The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t was a fairly disappointing holiday special in season 11, which could possibly be because as dumb as the movie is, it’s really not that interesting. The Christmas Dragon doesn’t have that problem. It has elements that are about as equal parts earnest and stupid as Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. I’m thinking there is something to be mined from that. There aren’t many Christmas movies with dragons burning people alive, that’s something I can tell you right now.

Another intriguing thing about The Christmas Dragon has nothing to do with the film itself but rather what we already know about the episode. We do know that this particular episode will see the Avengers of Mystery Science Theater 3000 unite as Joel Hodgson, Jonah Ray, and Emily Marsh will all riff this film together. I’d prefer Mike Nelson be there to complete that experience, but as a long standing fan of this series I can’t help but be excited for it. Is The Christmas Dragon the ideal candidate to bring them together? Probably not. But it’s one that could make a good episode regardless.



3. The Shape of Things to Come

Oh hell yes. Nonsensical space operas are my jam, and from Rocky Jones to Starcrash, they work so well on the series. The Shape of Things to Come feels like it could make for a wildly fun episode. The goofy model work, the absurd plot, Jack Palance in general (Outlaw is one of the series highlights), and OH MY GOD THE SLOW MOTION SCENE! If done right, this could be a gem in the making.

The one worrying aspect is that they might ride a bit too hard on the joke that this is nothing like the novel its based on. A prime example of this is the RiffTrax of the Super Mario Bros. movie, which gets a little clumsy in its “I don’t remember this in the game” riffs. I don’t think that will be a problem but it is something to be concerned about. Like Million Eyes of Sumuru there is a RiffTrax of this movie also, so we’ll see which group make better work out of this.



2. Gamera vs. Jiger

It’s Gamera. That’s really all that needs to be said. Gamera has such a rich history with the series, even if all the episodes aren’t winners. What works in Jiger’s favor is that it’s one of the better and more enjoyable Gamera movies with a premise that is just as insane as you’d expect. This movie has more fire in it than Gamera vs. Gaos or Gamera vs. Zigra, which leads me to believe that this will be one of the better Gamera episodes of the series.

Another thing to note is that this is the one film of the season that will be featured unedited, which has been confirmed to be a stipulation by Kadokawa on the film’s inclusion on the series, which means it won’t be cut down for comedic pacing or to compact it in the tradition MST time frame. This could potentially be a bad thing, but I have enough faith that they’ll make due.

One thing we do know about this episode is that the Kickstarter updates accidentally outed the fact that this will be one of the movies hosted by Jonah’s crew, and they’re the veterans right now. Maybe next year they can give Gamera vs. Viras to Emily so they can each have one.



1. Doctor Mordrid

I absolutely adore this movie selection. This movie is so much fun by itself and if a movie is fun by itself, that bodes well for the MST episode. This is the type of film I wished Robot Wars was more like, less talk and more action. A rambunctious fantasy that is so silly that you can’t help but look at it and laugh while clapping your hands.

Maybe that’s not a guarantee for a great episode, but I can’t help but look at this movie and think of movies like Wizards of the Lost Kingdom, Soultaker, Zombie Nightmare, Eegah, or Outlaw. That’s some stunning pedigree right there, and if I’m being reminded of it without even having watched the episode itself, that’s saying a lot about how confident I am in this film.

The Unseen

But if I only watched nine of thirteen, what does that leave and what do I think of them based on what I’ve seen? I won’t hazard any speculations too confident but these are my gut reactions:



Gamera and Sumuru aren’t the only returns we’ll be seeing this season, as we’ll also be seeing the return of everyone’s favorite Lucha Libre superhero Santo, last seen in Samson vs. the Vampire Women. This time he is also fighting vampire women, so I guess safety in familiarity? Santo is definitively an icon in the series, but Samson vs. the Vampire Women is not a favorite episode of mine. Because of that it’s hard for me to get too excited for The Treasure of Dracula. It might even be my least anticipated episode of the season, which is unfortunate because it’s the first one.



Batwoman’s world got a little less wild, wild. This rather infamous Spanish knock-off has a reputation that precedes it. If nothing else, we have bikinis! This movie looks like it could be a good fit for the series. The last Batwoman movie we saw was a rough one so this one can’t possibly be any worse.



The first black and white movie featured on the show since Horrors of Spider Island in 1999, and it’s also the episode the crew plans to release in 3D. I’m not really looking forward to the 3D experience, but this movie looks interesting. Jonah Ray admitted on Twitter that he wrote on this one and that he enjoyed the movie quite a bit. I’m going to trust that endorsement and I’m pretty excited for this one.



The hype for The Bubble dates back to the Kickstarter as Joel was constantly teasing an movie as being “The next Manos” and a film that “Ruined our day” when they first watched it. Those kind of words don’t generate much of any excitement in any fanbase except our own, so if nothing else I’m interested in seeing what this movie is. Online reviews don’t seem to think that the film is quite that bad, but I’m curious about that Manos-spark that lies within it.

And with that this little project comes to an end. I had fun and I’m on pins and needles waiting for Friday as the new season gets underway. The Gizmoplex is ready to rock and roll and I have all my apps downloaded. And if we get another season, you bet I’ll try and do this again!

Just when my back is turned...