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Weekend Discussion Thread: Corman Movies that Deserve MSTingAn alert regular writes:
One word: “Deathsport.” Your pick? 31 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Corman Movies that Deserve MSTing”Commenting at Satellite News
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How about Galaxy of Terror (1981) in which a beautiful blonde women is raped in outer space by a giant maggot? Definitive Corman.
Attack of the Crab Monsters. Any time I see a bit of it, I think, “Wait, where are Joel and the Bots?” It’s one of those movies that seems as if it shouldn’t exist in an unriffed form. Stupid mutated crabs. Though Russell Johnson and Ed Nelson help a bit.
Jeez, where to start?
Just looking at his IMDB page gives me ample amount to work with. You could do an entire season of Corman films and not scratch the surface. Some I would suggest are ‘Not Of This Earth’, ‘Naked Paradise’ (Roger has a cameo in that one), ‘She Gods Of Shark Reef’, ‘Carnival Rock’, and ‘The Navy Vs The Night Monsters’.
A Tale of Two Cities (oh wait that Ronald Colman)
The Fast and the Furious (yes he did do a movie call that)
The Wasp Woman.
For a little flashback, here’s a weekend discussion where we talked about Corman films we thought were good (or at least qualified as guilty pleasures).
https://www.mst3kinfo.com/?p=15237
Battle Beyond the Stars! It’s probably my #1 choice after (non-Corman movies) Krull and Hawk the Slayer.
A Bucket of Blood. Not Corman’s worst, but definitely a memorable oddity. It would make a nice Beatnik trilogy when combined with The Rebel Set and (of course) The Beatniks.
Oh, man, the titles of these movies alone . . . “Attack of the Crab Monsters” & “She Gods of Shark Reef” are my personal faves.
Ok, really: is that one word, or two…? ;)
It did at least get a Cinematic Titanicing.
Ooh, so much to choose from. I haven’t seen the whole movie (all 63 minutes of it), but just from the trailer on Youtube — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G29_P8ar-xM — I want to see “Ski Troop Attack” (1960) riffed. It’s a black & white movie about white guys wearing white in the snow. So much snow. I keep hearing Joel’s “Snow Thrills” riffs in my head. Since it’s barely over an hour, there would be room for a decent-sized short too. Bonus!
I love Bucket of Blood just too gosh darn much. It’s really funny in ways it intends to be, and often, funny in ways it doesn’t even intend. I included that and three other Cormans in my list of 500 favorite films of all time (Intruder, Masque, and Death Race 2000): https://mubi.com/lists/my-500-favorite-films-as-of-now
I’m a huge Corman fan, his autobiography is one of the best in the business, but I’ve mostly just stuck to the good ones. Just going off of what I know of the rest, though, I think that Creature from the Haunted Sea might be the best bet (even if the monster doesn’t show up until the last five minutes).
I’ve got to second The Wasp Woman. I have it on one of those cheap, one dollar disks and it’s Mst3k perfect.
Yeah, the Karloff thread was fun, but I’m beginning to sense a basic problem with this week’s thread–
“Which Corman movies would you like to see, BESIDES the ones that have been done for CC, Titanic, and Netflix?”
(Hey, you said it, and I’m gonna quote it–Learn to live with people agreeing with you.) ;)
Now that Netflix has opened up the New World/New Concorde half of Corman’s career, there’s not as much that’s fun-bad about Corman’s later ex-producing years:
Even the Amer. Int’l years could raise some goofy homemade affection for “Teenage Caveman”, or sense that he was at least trying to put some dramatic meat into “Gunslinger”, but when you get into the producing years of Wizards of Lost Kingdom I & II, he….just didn’t care.
(Aside from “How many times can you hear the Battle Beyond the Stars theme?” jokes. And no, Battle was a cult classic, like all the other John Sayles scripts, so hands off.)
And the Epix/Showtime/SyFy years of “Sharktopus” and “Attack of the 50 Foot Cheerleader”? No. For the sake of his legacy, those never happened.
Of his directing years, “War of the Satellites” is a distinct possibility, and a local Saturday-host favorite.
Once you know Charles Griffith was TRYING to write a satire on pretentious Beatnik culture, Bucket’s intentionally hilarious.
Julian Burton’s beatnik-poet guru (“I speak to you of art, for there is nothing else…”) is so perfectly obnoxious for his time, you can’t for a moment think you’re watching a deliberately serious or accidentally funny one, but it doesn’t go full-on goofy like the similar storyline of “Little Shop of Horrors”.
And some of Griffith’s detective narration in Creature From the Haunted Sea sounds like Leslie Nielsen could be reading it deadpan in a Police Squad movie. (“It was evening…I knew, because the sun was going down.”)
“Movies directed by Roger Corman that deserve the MST3K treatment”
Easy-peasy.
All of ’em.
ALTHOUGH I would have put it this way:
“Movies directed by Roger Corman that would flourish under MST3K’s attentions”
DIRECTED by Corman? Well damn, I was going to say “Death Race 2000” (David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone based on a story by Ib Melchior) or “Grand Theft Auto” (Directed and starring Ron Howard) but those are produced by Corman. Or is that too nit-picky?
How? What would be left to riff after being edited down to TV14?
Two words: Allan Arkush.
(Yes, the handicap for only the Corman-directed titles leaves out a lot of good favorites.)
Considering DR2K was Paul Bartel’s (even if it were remotely MSTable), maybe….Dang, this’s a tough one!
Battle Beyond the Stars is the only non-MST’d or RiffTrax’d Corman movie I own and would love to see it riffed.
The Man With X-Ray Eyes.. A wild movie made riff-better.
Just think of all the jokes they could make just about other acting roles of some of the stars. The Waltons, The A-Team, The Man from UNCLE, Superman III, etc.
And one that Rifftrax has done, but not MST3K proper: The Little Shop of Horrors.
I think I’ve only seen The Raven. Don’t know if it counts but how about The Fantastic Four ? I actually haven’t watched it in its entirety just the Redlettermedia episode with it, I know he didn’t direct it but it seems the Corman-ness is all over it. Looking up his filmography, one (many, actually) title caught my attention : Gas-s-s-s, just watched the trailer, it looks greaterrible!
I second Carnival Rock.
The most bizarre notion of “carnival” and “carnival entertainment” since “Incredibly Strange Creatures.”
Susan Cabot is always a plus, and the cast on this one is mind-fragging, but the highlight is the single most WTF ending imaginable. No, really. I can hear Kevin Murphy now, “WHAT! WHAT! JOEL, they can’t do that!” After a long period when this movie existed only in a rarer-than-rare Teen-Age Theater VHS, joy of joys, its both on Amazon Prime AND ON YOUTUBE.
Well, sticking to ones that Corman directed, that’s kind of tough.
He did direct some good movies, like the Poe films and “The Intruder” (with Shatner as a rather scary white supremacist). And others have already been done, like “Teenage Caveman”. So, what’s left?
Sticking with the ones I’ve actually seen, I’d put aside “Little Shop of Horrors”, since it’s been run into the ground. CT already did “Wasp Woman”, though it’s good for a re-riffing. My choice, though, is “The Day the World Ended”. It’s definitely riffable, and, since it was only used for the MST “Home Game”, there’s still possibilities there.
A lot of good choices have been mentioned already. How about Von Richtoften and Brown or Frankenstein Unbound just to be different?
Though it could be argued that it’s still the best film adaptation of the Fantastic Four.
Well, “Von Richtofen & Brown” stars John Phillip Law as the Red Baron, while “Frankenstein Unbound” has Raul Julia as Baron Frankenstein. At least we wouldn’t be dealing with strangers.
“How about Galaxy of Terror (1981) in which a beautiful blonde women is raped in outer space by a giant maggot? Definitive Corman.” JaySchiavone
Oh man! I saw this movie when I was in 7th grade! I had no idea it was a Corman movie. It scarred me for life!!!
Riffable, but still a watchable film. Ideal conditions in my opinion.
Little off topic, but here goes:
I don’t know if they got my email. but I suggested a WDT about riffs that made you laugh just by the mental image.
For me two examples would be Santa Claus:
Mike: Why’s Santa have an Air Force star over the door?
Crow: Santa flew 23 missions over North Korea.
Track of the Moon Beast:
(Paul leans against his pet lizard’s cage, which is as tall as he is.)
Mike: He sure gave that lizard a lot of headroom!
Crow: Maybe he has a trampoline in there.
Hopefully they see it and it can be used next week.
Good Lord, people, how can you forget THE TERROR (1963)? The movie whose principle photography took all of four days? The movie that starred Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson because they still had a few days left over on their contract for Corman’s THE RAVEN? (I don’t think Karloff has ever been MSTed, has he?) The movie whose climactic scene includes a flooding cavern complete with floating rocks? (Possible riff: “They must be in the styrofoamium mines.”) If that’s not good MST3K material, I don’t know what is.