This week’s topic came to me this week, as I contemplated the upcoming start of the new season of Cinematic Titanic live shows, and along with the announcement of the latest RiffTrax VOD title, “Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe,” hard on the heels of the live show and the recent VOD release of “Galaxy Invader.”
What do those two things have in common? Well, to me it feels like the MST3K is truly back. Yes, it’s a hoot when RiffTrax does an audio track for a major Hollywood stinker, but the unreconstructed MSTie in me gets a special thrill when either group takes on a terrible, low-budget oldie, like “Maniac” or “The Alien Factor.”
And what that means to me is: for the first time in a long time, it’s possible that some of those bad, low-budget movies that MST3K never got around to may FINALLY, some day soon, get the treatment they deserve. Yay!
So, with that wordy preamble, the question for the weekend is: If you had a chance to pitch one terrible movie to Cinematic Titanic and/or RiffTrax, what would you suggest?
For Cinematic Titanic, my gift is 1993’s “Catman: In the Boxer’s Blow.”
For RiffTrax, it’s 1976’s haunting “A*P*E.”
What would YOU pitch?
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I would like to see the 1990 film “Crash and Burn”. It has got to be affordable to license by now. I just remember it being this cheesy post apocalyptic movie with a twist near then end and I don’t remember much, but it seems like every movie I watched as a kid is now really awful. That said, this is pretty much CT/RT fodder now.
Also, somebody may be able to help on this one: 1980’s The Children. I remember a kid hugging a woman and she melts. I was under 5 at the time and my brother said “Okay, you can look now” right when the gore was happening. My brothers are evil EVIL!!!!
I’ve been hoping for years that anyone would get their hands on THE LAST DINOSAUR from 1977. Richard Boone, Joan Van Ark, hilariously bad rubber dinosaur suits, over the top line reading, and a great 1970’s score to rival even MITCHELL. I grew up on this one, and have plenty of riffs of my own I could add to their script!
To Speedy – Oh Yeah, I remember THE CHILDREN. The kids get caught in a toxic gas cloud while riding the school bus (naturally) and it turns them into little zombies with black fingernails. They come to hug you, and they burn you alive. They only way to kill them was to cut off their hands, I believe. A good choice for sure, but I believe Troma owns the rights now, seeing as they put out a collectors edition a few years back.
I would pick “The Crawling Eye” for Rifftrax. I know it was already done for MST3K. I’d just like to see a re-hash where the riffs come faster and funnier. For CT I’d pick 1971s “Fury of the Wolfman”. I think it would take all 5 of the masters to tackle it.
FROGS — from the early seventies….southern style plantation in the swamp, a shirtless Sam Elliott, owner [ray milland] abuses local ecosystem, swamp critters take revenge, people die, and all the frogs do is croak….*spoiler alert*….not one confirmed kill by the frogs!
it would fit perfectly in the LEGEND of BOGGY CREEK, TOUCH of SATAN, and SQUIRM style camp….episode #1014 anyone?
As much as I enjoyed it’s total cheesiness, I’m also surprised they never got around to “Megaforce”…
I would recommend “Atlantis, the Lost Continent” for CT. A Sword & Sandal with dopey sci-fi elements. This movie is interesting to look at and is prime for riffing.
For RT, I recommend “The People That Time Forgot”. I think Bill would have a field day with Doug McClure.
A tough one. There are so many titles to choose from. Perhaps the 1970 adaptation of The Dunwich Horror with Dean Stockwell. Or how about the live action Masters of the Univers movie from 1986. If they’re willing to tackle animation, there’s the infamous Ralph Bakshi adaptation of Lord of the Rings (if you want to call it that).
BTW, *thanks* for the worm scene….I can’t unsee that.
#5 I haven’t seen Frogs in years but I think it would be a good one. I would suggest Food of the Gods from the mid 1970s, featuring Marjoe Gortner. Also, there is a vast treasure trove of 70s and 80s issue oriented or disease-of-the-week TV movies to pick from.
They need to do Robot Monster again. This film was riffed early in the show’s history and at that time they weren’t firing on all cylinders. RM is the perfect 50’s B movie to be made fun of. Again.
I’m still holding out for either camp to do my all time favorite Star Wars ripoff: Starcrash! Cheesy effects, silly story. and “a weapon sooo vast that it takes and entire planet to conceal it!” Mwahahahaha!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzfuNSpP0RA
Two came to mind. First King Kong Vs. Godzilla (or the other way around), which is gloriously goofy.
Secondly, I Was A Teenage Frankenstein. I think that is the one I am thinking of at least. I saw a little bit of it on a middle of the night low budget monster movie program once and it was pure cheese. My kind of cheese though.
and A*P*E* looks amazing.
LOL. those are two great choices, btw, Sampo!
Some HAS to do The Brain from Planet Arous. A floating brain, another brain possessing a dog, and John Agar! Wow!
Alternate choice: Rollercoaster with George Segal and Timothy Bottoms.
TROG, anyone? Joan Crawford (though a classic actress) is at her scariest/oldest. And she’s in a monster movie! A very bad one, at that. *shudder*
Geez,so many bad movies to choose from,isn’t there? I could say NIGHT OF THE LEPUS for Rifftrax,since it was mentioned in Mike’s first episode of MST3K…I would like to see Cinematic Titanic do R.O.T.O.R because of its silly dialogue,cheesy effects and bad acting.But,then again,there is NIGHT OF THE GHOULS,which is another Ed Wood movie and I could see Rifftrax doing it.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
I had to go through my cheesy movie collection to find some. For Cinematic Titanic, I’d select “The Last Dinosaur”. When I first watched it, I immediately thought of them. Basically, some old guy yells and claps his hands a lot. And the “dinosaur” sounds rather like Godzilla. For Rifftrax, “Gappa, The Triphibian Monsters”. Probably the worst monster movie to ever some out of Japan. The dubbing in this cheap-as-all-get-out movie makes the dubbing in Gamera vs Guiron look well-done and polished.
@ Cornbred,
The subtitled version of “King Kong vs Godzilla” is the better version. I just can’t stand dubbing.
GYMKATA.
But of course.
I always wanted MST3K to do “Queen of Outer Space” – Zsa Zsa Gabor, costumes stolen from Forbidden Planet, dopey dialogue, brainless babes, 50’s goofiness, it has all the ingredients. There are two Japanese films I would love to see the guys do (either RT or CT) – “Frankenstein Conquers the World”, which is dopey as all get out, and “Attack of the Mushroom People”, which is totally full of itself in its eco-conscious badness.
Since someone mentioned Doug McClure, I would suggest for CT the 1976 classic, “At the Earth’s Core.” This is a cheesy movie starring Doug and Peter Cushing which chronicles their adventures in a strange civilization. Pure gold.
For Rifftrax I suggest “The Cyclops,” a 1957 film featuring Gloria Talbot from “I Married a Monster from Outer Space” (another good candidate) and James Craig, who was in the Doomsday Machine. Rounding out the cast is Lon Chaney, so you know it is cheesy. But, it is a Mr. BIG production, with all of his gold.
@21 – of course!
I have two. The first is MESSAGE FROM SPACE. Take The Archies, put them in a Kurosawa movie and film it in Legoland. There is one guy who I think would replace Cornjob as the goofiest character in any Mstied movie.
Then there’s BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS. A Sci-Fi re-write of 7 SAMURAI (Kurosawa again) You got some great 7o’s TV stars like Richard Thomas, Robert Vaughan, John Saxon and George Peppard and a wise-cracking spacehsip. The script was by John Sayles, even the best have to start somewhere.
I think ANY Doug McClure movie would work.
Ok,I thought of 2 more: FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND starring Katherine Victor from Wild World of Batwoman and John Carridine from The Unearthly for Rifftrax and for Cinematic Titanic I choose THE WEREWOLF OF WOODSTOCK,which is made for tv movie produced by Dick “American Bandstand” Clark.
I forgot one. 1967’s Night Fright for Rifftrax. This stars John Agar in the Gene Roth sheriff role, with a ton of thirty-something teenagers, a goofy monster and a bad plot. And it’s in color. Filmed in Manos territory.
I suggest the 1982 sword and sorcery…uhm…epic? “SORCERESS”!!!
I only saw the trailer but it looked absolutely insane and goofy.
For CT I’ll go with the biggest crime against the then recently dead Bruce Lee: Bruce Lee Raises From His Grave. A truely awful kung fu crapfest, whose beginning makes you think that zombie Bruce Lee is coming back to kick.
For Rifftrax I’ll go with It’s Alive by our good friend Larry Buchannan (sp?). Awful movie starring Tommy Kirk, featuring a force perspetive monster with ping pong ball eyes, and a long barely narrated flashback full of padding. I’d love to see them do Orca the Killer Whale, but they’ll probabily have to do a download for, if they didn’t already do.
Crap: It’s Bruce Lee Fights Back From the Grave.
1978’s The Swarm remains my choice for Rifftrax. Despite an all-star cast and a large budget the film’s staggering ineptitude exceeds the idiocy of even the worst modern-day blockbuster that Rifftrax ever tackled.
Cinematic Titanic should get round to Cat Women of the Moon. Film-buff Frank Conniff could no doubt supply us with many jokes at Sonny Tufts’s expense.
Hmmm…
It’s a tough choice, but I’ll pitch one for each of group. They can flip a coin to decide who gets which one.
The first is “Battle of the Worlds”, an Italian-made sci-fi movie about a rogue planet that’s going to collide with Earth. While the plot is nonsensical and the SPFX bad, the real attraction is Claude Rains playing a crochety, egotistical scientist. He’s pretty much Dr. House OF THE FUTURE (!).
The second is “Yongary, Monster from the Deep”. It’s pretty much your standard Japanese giant monster movie, except it was made in South Korea. It’s also got the single most annoying, anger-inspiring “monster child” in motion picture history. (Yes, even worse than those lousy kids from “Invasion of the Neptune Men”.)
Both movies would’ve been perfect for MST3K, and both would be perfect for CT & RT. And, so far as I know, they may both be in the public domain or, at least, easy to get, as both are readily-available in bargain-basement DVD sets.
Hey #17, I second the nomination for TROG and add Joan’s other “masterpiece” BERSERK.
“Baffled” with Leonard Nimoy and Susan Hampshire. This was a failed pilot for a TV series made movie of the week, so you know it’s good. Nimoy plays a Formula 1 racing car driver who walks away from a crash having obscure visions of the future, particularly the future surrounding the plans of a satanic cult in a quaint English boarding house. Hampshire is a rare books and antiquities dealer who becomes the Giles to his Buffy, the Mulder to his Scully, and the Diane to his Sam. It’s actually pretty watchable, but I would LOVE to see either crew let loose on this one. Maybe they could restrict themselves to one “Star Trek” reference, like they did with the “Brady Bunch” in “Bloodlust”?
If they could get the rights to do it, I would love to see ‘KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park’ get the treatment. A wonderful made for TV 70s stinker starring KISS and Anthony Zerbe.
Cinematic Titanic should do The Green Slime. I’m sure whatever issue kept them from doing it as a complete episode during the KTMA days wouldn’t be much of a barrier now.
Ok,ok,here are 2 more I just thought of: MIGHTY GORGA(1969) a goofy giant ape movie that Rifftrax could do.Then,there’s a movie called NUKIE(1988),which is a bad E.T. rip-off that Cinematic Titanic could do..@27 I take that back.I’d rather see Rifftrax do The Werewolf of Woodstock and Cinematic Titanic do Frankenstein Island instead…@36 Yes! KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park would be perfect for Cinematic Titanic to do,then Rifftrax could do SEXETTE starring Mae West,Keith Moon,Alice Cooper and Farrah Fawcett.. :-)) :-)) :-)) :-))
I just checked out the A*P*E trailer….
“Not to be confused with King Kong”…
Which riff would you follow this with?
A. …except maybe the Jessica Lange version
B. …yes, people compared this to the climactic Empire State Building scene from King Kong. They said, King Kong was great, this movie totally sucked.
C. …or even with Bonzo.
For Cinematic Titanic:
Night of Horror
SST Death Flight
The Giant Claw
Anything Jerry Warren
Night of the Leepus
The Last Chase
RiffTrax:
Dolemite
Weasels Rip My Flesh
Ax’ Em
The Lift
Death Bed: The Bed That Eats
The Mangler
Geek Maggot Bingo
Bigfoot
Honestly? I’d like to see a redo of This Island Earth, this time without half the movie being cut down because of MST3K:TM’s studio-required need to “cater” to test audiences. TIE is harmless nonsense by itself, and a redo from either RT or CT (though the latter would be more fitting to TIE’s history with MST) would likely be far, far better.
I remember a movie from 1974 called “Where Have All the People Gone?” that would be perfect for Rifftrax. It’s about lethal solar flares, animals going insane, people turning into nothing but white powder, and best of all, it has Peter Graves!
I can’t offer a candidate, but I’d like to see 70s made-for-tv pilots or maybe a bad sci-fi channel movie.
I have always wondered why the guys didn’t give “From Hell It Came” a going-over. It has soooooooooooooo much to skewer! An island prince condemned to die by a Chief with a thick Brooklyn accent. A hoard of ugly island girls who look more like men than the men do. And of course, the monster itself – a walking tree with a scowling face who drops people into quicksand. It was made for CT or RiffTrax!!!!
I have a couple including a short:
“Tomorrow Always Comes” http://www.archive.org/details/Tomorrow1941 : Promo piece for rayon lingerie which features a couple from the 1920s visiting the 1940s and a televised lingerie fashion show featuring themselves (!). Very Freudian.
(On a similar note, they should re-do the “lost” MST3k short: “What’s It To You?” http://www.archive.org/details/WhatsItt1955 )
For the feature, this would work for either Rifftrax or CT: Cosmos: War Of The Planets http://www.archive.org/details/CosmosWarofthePlanets
Italian sci-fi film from 1977 that seems vaguely about a man fighting against a computer ruled planet, but the thing is complete incomprehensible mess, filled with cheap sets, ham acting, and dialog non-sequiturs. Oh, and there’s a vampire in there for some reason.
I’ll second #33’s request for Yongary. It showed up on the Ed the Sock movie riffing show, and while I still found that episode pretty funny, I still wanted to see it when the riffing masters would get a hold of it.
And holy cow, did I want to punch the kid in the movie. He made Bobby from the Rocky Jones movies seem completely tolerable.
I think Humanoid Woman is another movie from the early days of MST3K that deserves to be gone over again now that the gang’s more experienced. It’s almost always got something totally bizarre on-screen, so I think it’s good riff-material, but the KTMA era crew didn’t take advantage of it as much as I know RT/CT could today.
In the horror genre, TROLL II is astounding, because each line is delivered as a read, with almost no acting attempted; another from the 80s is Ghosthouse, an incredibly boring movie about killer puppets in the attic; When I saw it first, just the bad acting and lame effects were enough that by the ending we were all rolling in laughter.
@12: I would also nominate “Starcrash” if it’s the same movie I’m thinking of: Italian, blatant star-wars scenes ripoffs, shiny killer robots, and the crew of the spaceship are all worried about who’s in love with each other?
I would also like to add that “Battle beyond the stars” is SO goofy and stupid that it would be hard to riff it up. The Man From Uncle battles John Boy in space in a spaceship with giant boobs. ouch!
This is my Idea:
Gamera Box Set Volume 2
Cinematic Titanic: Gamera Vs Viras (1968)
Rifftrax: Gamera Vs Jiger (1970)
Joel & Mike (plus one other person from CT and one other person from RT, picked by an online fan vote)
Gamera Super Monster (1980)
Once upon a time, there was a website devoted to movies that needed to be MST’d. I can’t find it now, but it took reader submissions. If anyone remembers the actual URL, http://wayback.archive.org/web/ may have a cached version; I assume it’s long gone from the current Interwebs.
In any case, let me second Battle Beyond the Stars, Message from Space and Brain from Planet Arous.
BBtS has an Andy Gritffith-esque space cowboy character named *Space Cowboy*, MfS was a total Star Wars ripoff (through a Japanese lens/filter), and BfPA, well, it had John Agar and a giant brain. They’re all really goofy.
Also, Slipstream (1989), featuring Mark Hamill. Post-apocalyptic film where the winds make ground transportation impossible, and air travel isn’t, because, um, shut up, said the movie. It’s pretty bad.
Also also, Krull (1983 sword and sorcery film). Liam Neeson’s in it, briefly, and it’s not actually bad, but really not good, either.
Gotta say, though– I’ve wanted Galaxy Invader to be riffed for a long time now, and Abraxas is *perfect* for the treatment, so I’m happy. (Too, it’s nice to see some movie I’ve never heard of get riffed.)