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What did you think? An open thread for your comments on tonight’s RiffTrax show.
There was a very small crowd at Dickson City, just north of Scranton. But I laughed a lot. Fave lines from the shorts: Fave lines from the movie: 27 Replies to “What did you think?”Commenting at Satellite News
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There were 20 strong here in Flint, MI. Everyone laughing. This one to me was much better than Mothra (although the movie tonight without riffing is totally unwatchable.) Thanks Bill, Kevin and Mike for a great night of entertainment.
I was in a theater in Utah with a small but spirited crowd. A lot of laughs but also a lot of nothing in the movie so I was actually fighting to stay awake at points courtesy of a long week at work. Still worth the trip also despite having a knucklehead projectionist who didn’t start the slides, jumped to the gas station scene, went back to the start of the slides, fast-forwarded through the slides, and started the show 12 minutes early!
Favorite riff: “A Utah church? Assume it’s Baptist.”
Fill it up!
I actually really enjoyed it. It was much funnier than the original riff. There were about 50-60 people where I was and everybody seemed to be having a good time, I just wonder why everybody around me laughs at what I consider tedious riffing, but I’m laughing at weird, more obscure stuff?
Good crowd in Tulsa and we laughed all the way through it. At first, I thought for sure they would rip up another Herk Harvey short, but the two they selected were great. The best story however, happened when I picked up the tickets and the guy in the booth asked me what Rifftrax was all about. Well, unless you see it, there’s really no way to describe it.
A fairly sparse crowd in Paramus, NJ. (I imagine the cold, heavy rain didn’t help.) Carnival Of Souls is absolutely a lousy movie but, to me, not particularly good riffing fodder. Far too tedious, repetitive, and just plain dull. But that said the guys did fairly well with what little they had to work with. I’d rank it down there with Notzilla as a bit of a disappointment, but for different reasons. Still, an agreeably pleasant way to spend an evening. I’ve watched the earlier RiffTrax a few times, (as well as as Mike’s old pre-RiffTrax commentary for Legend Films) but would never have known if they didn’t change a single riff. Carnival Of Souls just evaporates from my mind within hours of viewing it. I’m amazed it developed a cult reputation. It’s not nearly incompetent enough to be amusing, but not atmospheric enough to be creepy. The movie commits the cardinal filmmaking sin of utter blandness. Leaving the theater I overheard some young audience members: “…That’s what RiffTrax does. And MST 3000. They get BAD movies. That’s the point.” “But NOTHING happens. There’s literally nothing to make fun of.” There is wisdom in youth.
Stray observations:
-Herk Harvey started out as an actor – it’s how he first got involved with Coronet before moving into producing and directing – and it’s obvious that was enjoying the hell out of his scenes as the head ghoul.
-The movie needed way more of Greasy Sexual Predator Neighbor Guy. His scenes were easily the brightest spots of the night, along with “I’m just so excited to be in a movie” Landlady.
-Every time I see Carnival Of Souls I’m surprised by the doctor’s “I’m not a psychiatrist, but…” What is the point of that line? For the purposes of the film that’s EXACTLY what he is. Just such an odd little bit of pointless dialogue. It’s as if the guy in the garage said “I’m not an auto mechanic, but I can take a look at at your transmission.” That was my biggest laugh, by the way: Mike’s reaction to them actually showing her get the car serviced.
-And I suppose it goes without saying that the whole premise of the movie makes absolutely no sense, right? She’s dead the whole time, but is physically interacting with real people? Except when she’s not. I’ve already put more thought into this than Herk.
-I hope they never run out of batsh*t ACI shorts. They’re riffing gold. But to ask the question surely now on everyone’s minds: Can you make stupid, ugly masks out of CORN?
-On the fence about going to the holiday double feature. Both are Xmastime traditions, but I dunno if it’s worth the time and expense. If there was a guarantee of a good turnout, it would be worth it; there’s nothing like seeing gut-busting comedy with a raucous crowd. Maybe if I can convince some friends to come along. Or if I didn’t have to drive an hour both ways.
AMC Clifton, NJ- First Rifftrax Live we ever missed. The theater told me the show had been “cancelled” at the theater last wk. Oddly, they are reportedly running the rebroadcast on Monday, which is Halloween.; Was this an all new riff or redux of the three man riff they already did? Any extras? I won’t ask for the “goodies” passcode, since I didn’t buy a ticket…
It’s an all-new riff, plus two crazy new shorts. It sucks that you missed it, but if you’ve got plans on Halloween night, I wouldn’t cancel them to see it. You can always buy it on VOD later on. And I’m sure you can guess the goodies URL if you try. ;-)
Alderwood 7 in Lynnwood, WA. We were a mostly full theater. I felt like this was an example of the shorts way overpowering the movie. The two shorts were absolutely hilarious and slightly disturbing–the best kind of shorts for Mike, Kevin, and Bill. The movie was…it was all right. There were really funny parts. But the lulls were serious lulls. It didn’t help that there were people having audible conversations in the theater, as well as some amateur riffing which was kind of annoying.
I mean, I had fun, but I definitely felt this was the weakest live show this year.
After seeing it happen to other people on here in discussion threads, it was only a matter of time before I had a power outage during a Rifftrax Live show. Right when the preacher was yelling at the heroine for her blasphemous organ playing, the power went out in our theatre and the emergency lights came on. This is what a light rain in the SF Bay Area does! I was willing to wait it out a little while but an usher came in and made us all leave. Anyway, the part of the show I saw I thought was really good and the riffing I think was a lot stronger then the original version they did. Maybe they will release it on the site so I can see the rest :-(
Nearly full theater at the Celebration Cinema in south Lansing, Michigan. I was sitting up near the top of the theater where, I discovered after the show, I could have stood in the projector beam. Yes, after everyone had cleared out of the theater, I did the Joel Point.
We got in just as the show was starting, the closest we’ve ever cut it. The automated kiosks weren’t taking my reservation codes for some reason and of course the slowest people in the world were in line ahead of us at the ticket booth proper.
Favorite riff from both my love and I: “NOTES!” It had that wonderful silliness that makes so many of the best riffs.
My love and I finally saw Carnival of Souls without riffing for the first time on Monday; we’d wanted to know what it was like without riffs competing for space. I had thought the movie plain was slow-paced, yes, often coming to the brink of being boring but not making it. It was very atmospheric, though, and, yeah, languid. But that worked for giving it a creepy, strange atmosphere. So we have to disagree with the Riffers about how much nothing happened in the movie. I mean, yes, a lot of nothing happened, but it was effective nothingness.
The DVD we saw had the original black-and-white and we were skeptical about the colorized print. Still are. But we must admit the colorization did help bring a couple of pieces out, including making it easier to see the interesting Saltaire pavilion. Also it made us notice in the bar/restaurant/whatever from Protagonist Woman’s date with Oily Creepy Guy that there’s a pinball machine in the background. Low-Life Friend plays it for a while, then seems to go away and play again. (We’re pinball aficionados. My love just this week broke into the top-1000-ranked competitive pinball players!)
The shorts, now. The ACI one was bizarre as ever. My love and I do like these shorts in sincerity, as showing ways to make some potentially interesting crafts using no budget and not requiring anything that any kid couldn’t reasonably expect to have. Trouble is that, like, poking a stalk of grass into every hole in a piece of corrugated cardboard? They were badly overestimating the patience and mechanical ability of kids. An adult could do a great job with that, though.
The Dirt Witch or whatever she was … what happened there? The short seemed to miss its conclusion. It logically ought to have ended with the demonstration that being clean is a choice and is within anyone’s power and it makes your life better if you choose to be clean. And that was missing. What the heck? Was the discipline of the Mental Hygiene short breaking down entirely by the time of its making? I understand thematic or structural sloppiness like that for the earliest of that grade of short. By the 60s-or-70s they shouldn’t be making sloppy mistakes like that.
We were seated next to a guy who had to cry out “Oh God” or “Oh my Lord” or “They didn’t!” or such at every even slightly risqué joke. My love decided a half-hour into the movie to count every time the guy cried out “Oh God” and got to thirteen. And that’s after the first half-hour. You like to be near someone having a good time but this got to feeling forced.
Afterward we played two rounds of the Star Trek pinball machine. My love got initials in the (recently reset) high score table. The game didn’t malfunction in any important way, for a change.
Back in the late 1980s, Carnival Of Souls was rediscovered, hailed as a precursor to Night Of The Living Dead (another Rifftrax). Let’s take a stroll down memory lane with Joe Bob Briggs on the topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUUyMsFU7ws
Not too big a crowd at the Regal Commerce in North Brunswick, NJ. (The weather was lousy.) But the show went fine. The riffing was great, and I think “Carnival of Souls” is a pretty creepy movie that still lends itself to jokes. As for the shorts…the Seventies were an odd time.
Oh, and a couple of the pre-show title cards were right: the thought of pushing the election back to January is quite horrifying.
A good crowd at the Cinemark in Merriam, Kansas. Of course the Kansas riffs at the beginning of the movie got a laugh. My favorite bit was the riffers’ impatience at the scene where the doctor turns out to be a zombie (“We can see the top of your head”). Few things in a movie are more annoying than a plot twist that you can see coming a mile away. When the horny neighbor and his pal were talking about sex at the jukebox, I was expecting a Billy Bush/Donald Trump joke, but perhaps they were hesitant about doing anything that smacked of partisan politics. I liked the shorts, although the dirty witch seemed to cut off before the end.
Fairly full theater in Sandy, Utah. Crowd really enjoyed the show, as did my kids and I. The shorts were a lot of fun, I thought, although I agree with Joseph Nebus that the Dirt Witch short ended abruptly.
We all got a good laugh off Grass Masks short when the narrator said, “We’ve all made masks,” and someone in our theater said out loud, “We have?”
Being in Utah, the Utah jokes got the best laughs. I think the biggest one was in the bar with greasy stalker guy when they said something along the lines of “You don’t drink, you don’t dance. You’re in the right state.” Utah has a history with that as it was the location where Footloose was filmed.
All in all a pretty solid show. Great Riffing (I loved the Strega Nona riff, although I think I was the only one in our theater who laughed at the original riff), pretty horrible movie (not quite Manos bad, but pretty close). We all felt like there was a whole lot of nothing happening in that movie, and the “reveal” came about a mile ahead of the ending.
Our theater (Showplace 8 in Carbondale, IL) has had the replay listed since late August (actually a couple days before Mothra), but didn’t have the first showing listed until Wednesday morning. I’d been prodding them for weeks to find out what was going one. Heck, they even had the poster up in the lobby advertising both showings since the start of this month. Very weird this time around.
So I went to the live show and, despite the audience laughing through a few jokes, it was a heightened experience. It is especially entertaining to watch the guys alot more, see their reactions to the parts of the movie when they are not riffing. Also met Bridget and, gentlemen, let me say that she is easy on the eyes.
Every one of these I’ve seen in south Austin TX, the theater has muted the sound (or forgotten to turn it on) for 5-10 miniutes until an audience member literally goes out in the lobby to tell them to fix it. Is this a common pitfall for Fathom Events? I’d try a different theater but there is usually only one in my area. PS you know who you are, Cinemark Southpark Meadows! Get it together!
So although I missed whatever was the deal with Bill’s zorro mask (due to no sound) it was a great show after that. I actually like the movie, but it was still a lot of fun to see it roasted.
Very small turnout at the Showplace Icon Chicago, probably 1/4 full, but huge response to the Cubs love in the intro as well as both shorts and the movie. I have to disagree with several here, this was one of their best shows this year. The movie was watchable and easy to follow, and had quirky characters and more than enough breathing room for riffs. All things that, in my opinion, make for a good show. Several lines got big laughs, including “fill it up” and the follow up to the same riff, the doctor office scenes, the greasy guy, the bizarre church cleaning woman and the drinking fountain guy. Looking forward to rewatching this one.
Pretty good size crowd at Randall 15 in Batavia,IL.last night.
To anyone that was there, I was the guy who yelled “MSTies HOOOO!!” when they finally let us all in.
Ah, Carnival of Souls, the only movie that’s both on Rifftrax AND the Criterion Collection!
Is the CHRISTMAS show in December just a rerun of previous shows? “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” was a bit controversial at the time, given that it had already been done on MST3K AND Cinematic Titanic. I thought they did well with it, but I don’t want to pay to see it again in a theater. URGENT PLEA TO TRACE & FRANK: Please riff “March of the Wooden Soldiers” (Babes in Toyland 1934), which is in PUBLIC DOMAIN already. We’ll come to NY to see it.
Carnival of Souls is such a boring movie that a Lifetime Channel movie starts to break out.
Just caught the replay in Oxford, MI with 5 other diehards with no kids. Even with a quiet crowd I was chortling like one of the Dirt Witch victim’s sows! My friend almost choked on popcorn 3 times during the grass mask monstrosity! Two thumbs up!
Did anyone else notice that the first gas station attendant (who points to the inky void) in COS is one of the wobbly, mushmouth speakers from one of the speech shorts (as seen on MST3k)!?!?
Not so! Criterion also released a DVD of Armageddon. (Spine #40, so it was a while ago–back when DVD was young and Criterion didn’t know any better?)
I stand corrected. Still, there can’t be too many movies like that.