So, alert reader Mark writes:
Have you thought about a short list of movies that deserved MST treatment but never got it? I was thinking about this over the weekend since I caught part of the 1973 stinker “The Neptune Factor.” The discussion would include a short list (3 to 5), and why it would make a good episode.
Give me time and I could list 50, but I’ll just pick the first three that come to mind.
I would pick:
A*P*E — a big stupid Korean monster movie.
Blood Freak — rivals Red Zone Cuba as the worst movie ever made. I almost hate to inflict it on them. Almost.
And, just to pick one bigger budget title: Mysterious Island, a weird and wonderful of tale of giant bugs and chickens and on a desert isle.
What would you pick?
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Other than Plan Nine from Outer Space, I wish they would have done The Giant Claw.
Earth is visited by a giant bird/buzzard with horrible special effects. I think it’s a great b-movie they missed out on.
Have a safe 4th of July weekend.
I have a few:
– Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster
– Chariots of the Gods
– Gallery of Horrors
– They Saved Hitler’s Brain/The Madman of Mandoras
I second the Giant Claw and would also add Konga off the top of my head.
When I was a youngster, I remember seeing the Giant Claw in the theater and the entire theater (NYC) was riffing and laughing at the Giant Claw.
I recommend Konga because it was english version of King Kong (on par with Gorgo/Godzilla). What I recall the most was the evil scientist actually drooling on some young chick he was trying to impress. Perfect riffing fodder.
In keeping with the classic sci-fi theme how about The Brain From Planet Arous, the Legend of Boggy Creek, or Reptilicus?
@klsich – It wasn’t necesarilly a buzzard but more like a flying battleship….
For modern times, how about Arena? It’s has moral messages, a dose of effort and a cast of Sci-Fi TV staples (Claudia Christian, Armin Shimmerman and Marc Alaimo, for starters.)
On a capricious whim (knowing that it will never happen,) how about anything Sci-Fi (SyFy) recently released. Please don’t tell me they would not have a field day with Komodo vs. Cobra?
I wish they had done more TV movies. Last weeks discussion thread introduced me to Werewolf of Woodstock, the title alone is enough for me.
I second the giant reptile films that have come out on Sci-Fi/SyFy.
Also, we never got a Shatner film.
Also, The Delta, the Starfighters of gay themed movies. Absolutely nothing happens in this film with a cast of amateurs. The director changed the script daily on whims that he would have. None of them good.
Dracula A.D. 1972. I actually like this movie, but it would be fun to riff the Count in a mod setting.
I’d go for the 1957 movie Night of the Demon. It has Dana Andrews as a total dickweed of a Designated Hero, rivaling any portrayed by John Agar.
The 1936 adaptation of Romeo and Juliet is ripe for riffing, primarily due to a bad case of Dawson Casting. It includes a Juliet in her thirties, a Romeo in his forties, and Mercutio is in his fifties.
Some Bert I. Gordon classics they missed:
“The Food of the Gods”
“The Empire of the Ants”
I’m impressed with how quickly others here suggested Giant Claw and Brain From Planet Arous. Those are two old favorite bad movies for me and they’d have been great on MST3K. Can’t agree with Mysterious Island, I love Ray Harryhausen movies too much to see them ripped apart.
Many really bad movies I enjoyed for their unintentional funny quality were actually done on the show, but here are a few suggestions for ones they missed and that were not suggested above:
– Cat Women Of The Moon
– Astrozombies
– Devil Girl From Mars
– Queen Of Blood
– Planet of the Vampires
Saturn 3. Big-name movie, lots of questionable science. Imagine the possible riffs!
For me, the biggest letdown ever regarding a movie that could have been riffed was Master Ninja III. When that was originally supposed to be a part of Season 6…I’ve never anticipated an episode more. And then…it was gone.
The scars remain…
Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo
1990: The Bronx Warriors
It would have made sense because they riffed the sequel to it: Escape from the Bronx!
A little dung heap of a movie called, Galaxy Invader. About a bunch of red necks chasing and being chased by an alien. The climax of this stink burgar is so oppressively cheap and hilarious it’s worth the previous 83 minutes. Apparently it was made by a bunch of amateurs in Vermont. Footage from it can be seen in the openning credits of Pod People.
I would like to see them tear apart any of those late 70’s Disaster flicks!
The Astounding She-Monster Frankenstein’s Daughter
British Biker flick Psychomania.
The Curse of Bigfoot, which is actually a 1960s film and 1970s film awkwardly stitched together. It alkways popped up on local TV when I was growing up and I’m amazed MST3K never tried it.
Also, while I know Best Brains tried to avoid riffing on comedies, the 1978 drive-in classic Record City was so patently unfunny that it’s ripe for a MSTing. Lousy acting, pointless cameos, a quintessentially 1970s video-to-fim look.
The classic Zsa Zsa Gabor move “Queen of Outer Space” which stole the costumes and sets of Forbidden Planet but none of the intelligence. (Actually, Forbidden Planet would work too; even though it’s a good movie, it’s campy enough to make good riffing fodder.)
There are two great, terrible Japanese sci-fi movies – “Frankenstein Conquers the World”, with its classic line, “Look, it’s radioactivity!”, and “Attack of the Mushroom People”.
The first “Star Trek” movie, with all its Spielbergian looking into the distance.
Of course, if MST3K were to ever make a comeback, they would have the entire library of made-for-SyFy movies (Dinocroc vs. Supergator, anyone?)
2012 and The Day After Tomarrow spring to mind. Though they’ll likely be on Rifftrax so it’s not a total loss.
Night of the Lepus is a good mention since it was used in Mike’s training as Servo stated in his debut episode, The Brain that Wouldn’t Die.
It would have to be edited for TV a little, but my vote still goes to PRISON SHIP (aka STAR SLAMMER). It’s a goofy Corman-esque mash-up of Star Wars, Conan, and women-in-prison films. The cast includes MST favorites Ross Hagen, John Carradine (in his pentultimate appearance), and Vivian Schilling. Also has Aldo Ray and Johnny Legend (as Tommy Chong as Gandalf the Gray). Directed by Fred Olen Ray (who rivals anybody for sheer direct-to-video output).
Sampo, I am pretty sure we had done this topic before because I remember you saying in the thread it would be nice if they had riffed one B-movie that the then President of SciFi said they did, but didn’t.
Oh, my; where to begin? As something of an afficionado of bad movies myself, I’ve probably got at least two seasons worth in my collection alone.
Pinata: Survival Island – Xander from Buffy and Joy from My Name Is Earl star as college students on an island scavenger hunt that turns murderous when a pinata holding the evils committed by the villagers of a south Pacific island washes up on the shore and is mistaken for the type containing candy.
Satan’s Cheerleaders – Cheerleaders run afoul of their school’s satan-worshipping janitor, who arranges for them to be sacrificed by his cult. Featuring John Carradine and two of the seven from “Angels Revenge.” It has one of the most hilarious endings I’ve ever seen.
Alan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold – Not a terrible movie, but it’s Golan-Globus’s approach to the pulp hero, with Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone. It’s largely forgettable, except in the ’80s, there wasn’t a video store in America that didn’t have a copy of it, which was always there because nobody ever rented it.
I Was a Teenage Faust – A teenager sells his soul to the devil (Robert Townsend) in order to be cool. Also, Morgan Fairchild and a genuine intentionally hilarious appearance by Joe Mantegna.
“Based on a Video Game” – I’ve got several in this genre, which tends to produce truly awful results. Street Fighter and Super Mario Bros. being the highlights.
Pre-Spider-man superhero movies – The superhero movie is experiencing a renaissance, but the gems are what came before. Reb Brown as Captain America is a personal favorite of mine, as was Dolph Lundgren as the Punisher (though the more recent Punisher movie, I’m told, was only slightly better) and Steel, starring Shaquille O’Neal.
Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter – This was a flat-out bizarre movie. A western crashes headlong into a monster movie and we get to watch.
I could go on, but that’s actually a pretty good selection.
Recently watched “Ssssssssss” and found it ripe for riffing. Plus it has Dirk Benedict, so there’s that angle.
Also, “American Ninja” was suitably competently-yet-badly-done.
I’m probably alone on this one, but ‘KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park’ is my choice.
I’d also would’ve liked to see them tackle ‘Santa And The Ice Cream Bunny’, but even I don’t think even MST3K could’ve survive that one.
I would loved to have seen more cheapjack fantasy movies. There were more “Deathstalker” and “Gor” movies and I can’t imagine they were that much better than the one we got. Not to mention other “Ator” movies.
Also, considering how many times the show referred to it, they really should have riffed Gymkata.
And if only they’d done The Swarm, but it would have had to been edited down badly for MST3K. Rifftrax should do it; it’s right up their alley, really the ’70s equivalent of all the overlong, high-budget, all-star rubbish that’s supplied some of their best material like Independence Day.
Arnold from 1973. Stella Stevens marries a dead guy and Roddy McDowall gets killed by an exploding suit.
I’ve encountered more than a few bad movies over the years that I thought would be good Bot fodder. One that I even suggested to Best Brains was Simon King of the Witches, which was made in the early ’70s and is a totally cheesy take on witchcraft to rival The Touch of Satan. Some other potential winners include:
The Devil’s Hand – a movie about a coven of Devil worshipers (including B-movie fixture Bruno Ve Sota) led by Commissioner Gordon from the Batman TV series
War of the Robots/Star Odyssey – a pair of Italian Star Wars ripoffs. (Actually, there were five made by the same group of filmmakers, but I’ve only seen these two so far.)
Werewolf in a Girls’ Dormintory – the title says it all
I judge a movie that is deemed unwatchable by either changing the channel or back in the day of tape, regretting ever renting it. So I my short list of movies I’ve rented but wasn’t able to suffer through it thus wasting my time and money:
1) House II- no comment needed
2) The Pillow Book- Siskel and Ebert gave it thumbs up but my oh my was it bad- Obi Won full frontal-egads!
3)Street Fighter (not the Sonny Chiba flick)- What was Raul Julia thinking? He was damn good in Presumed Innocent but how broke was he to be in this movie
4) Jaws 3- in 3d
5) Needful Things- book good, Stephen King movie bad, I mean bad
and finally
6) Cool World- an adult Roger Rabbit that stinks on so many levels
I agree completely about JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN’s DAUGHTER — it’s kind of like MANOS; weird enough to remain intriguing but incompetent enough to thoroughly deserve the riffing. But the one film I always wished they’d done was STARCRASH, aka THE ADVENTURES OF STELLA STAR (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079946/). The film stars Caroline Munro — so gorgeous and so hopelessly wooden — the most annoying robot in all of cinema (not excepting Twikki) — David Hasselhoff (imagine what fun they’d have had with him) — and, of all people, Christopher Plummer, who must have been having a bad, bad year. Plummer plays the Emperor of the Universe, who arrives as a deus ex machina and puts everything right by temporarily halting the flow of time — apparently something you get to do if you’re the Emperor of the Universe. You know how FX model builders in the 1970s would add detail to their miniatures with pieces from commercial model kits? In STAR CRASH the spaceship miniatures have model kits parts on them too — entire trees of them, right out of the box, tree and all, just glued to the side of the ship so it’s immediately obvious what they are.
One I’d pick is actually a pretty good fun movie,
and one of my favorites, The Vikings, starring Kirk
Douglas, Janet Leigh, Tony Curtis, etc. A big budget
film, made with some care, and with great cienmatography
and music…but highly riffable, starting from the
beginning where the Fat Man narrator talks of Europe in
the 8th and 9th century while they’re showing the Bayeaux
Tapestry.
Say, for example, Tom Servo: “You’ve got to HAND IT to the King, he sure
knows how to HAND OUT punishment” as Tony Curtis becomes
The One-handed Man.
#21- stole my thunder. Love the last line in the movie- “DAVID”
Another one is Tarantula with John Agar.Saw it on a late night “B” movie hosted thing down in Chicago recently. They ripped it pretty good during their host segments.
These come immediately to mind for me:
-The Devil Bat: Another 1940s Bela Lugosi vehicle from Monogram. Bela does his best, s usual, but the movie is ridiculous all the same, with Bela’s scientist using a trained giant bat to kill men who have been sprayed with a certain aftershave.
The Devil’s Rain: I’m still hoping Rifftrax or Cinematic Titanic will do this one. It stars Ernest Borgnine, Tom Skerritt, Eddie Albert, William Shatner, and features John Tavolta (in his second film) as a demon in ridiculous makeup. It’s a ’70s downer type of horror movie, but it’s utterly ridiculous, and the ending must be seen to be believed. If they had done this movie, it could have been one of the great ones.
I’d love to see them do some of the direct-to-DVD horror movies like “Uncle Sam” and “Jack Frost” (the one with the serial killer reincarnated as a murderous snowman). They’re so bad, they’re almost watchable by themselves. Almost.
There’s a really horrible Japanese monster movie called “Gappa, The Triphibian Monsters” which would have been perfect for MST3K. Bad costumes, bad dubbing, and just bad plot all around. Also, any recent SyFy movie. There was one last week with a giant snake. But the graphics were so bad it was laughable.
I’ve seen Uncle Sam. That was actually written by Larry (It’s Alive/God Told Me To/Q: The Winged Serpent) Cohen and directed by William Lustig of Maniac infamy.
Oh, I can’t believe I forgot The X from Outer Space, the only monster movie where a giant chicken creature from outer space is defeated by covering it from head to toe with shaving cream. From Japan, of course.
* Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf–starring none other than Dave Ryder himself, Reb Brown, and an slumming Christopher Lee
* The Howling: New Moon Rising
* Night of the Ghouls–Ed Wood’s quasi-sequel to “Bride of the Monster”. Look for a cameo from Tony Cardoza!
* Troll 2–They’re eating her, then they’re going to eat me. OH MY GOD!!!
* Return to Salem’s Lot
* The Stuff
My third recommendation is Conan the Barbarian. Ahn-Nold, Wilt, Grace Jones, Mako, lots of stretches open for riffing and a wealth of material for fuel.
Killdozer, obviously.
The Eliminators, a movie from the mid-’80s about a cyborg, an evil mad scientist who wants to travel to ancient Rome after he himself is turned into a cyborg. The movie has Denise Crosby, Tasha Yar from Star Trek: The Next Generation, as a scientist who invents a flying R2-D2 rip-off. There’s also a ninja and a sleazy boat captain played by that guy who worked with Dr. Hale in the movie Riding with Death.
I’d have to agree on Queen Of Outer Space and They Saved Hitler’s Brain/Madman of Mandoras, and Tarantula too. How about The Monolith Monsters too? I’ll second or third the motion for The Astro-Zombies and The Astounding She-Monster. Heck, anything from the Wade Williams Sci-Fi library would’ve been good, like The Hideous Sun Demon too. Part of me wants the whole Ed Wood experience with Glen Or Glenda and/or Jailbait, but I think Night Of The Ghouls would have been a fine addition during Season 6 or so. The volumes of Roger Corman-ized movies that they didn’t do that I would’ve liked to see is quite long. I wouldn’t have minded more episodes with movies done by Ray Dennis Steckler too. Even though Ray was less than pleased, MST’s take on TISCWSLABMUZ introduced me into Steckler’s catalog for better or worse.
That might be a good weekend topic sometime if it hasn’t been done already and it probably has: how has MST affected your love/hate of bad cinema? Did MST open a door into other bad films that you had to see? Or introduce you to directors/actors/genres/etc that you became fans of? Or did they provide a list of names/titles to avoid with all your heart?
Is the OP suggesting that a RAY HARRYHAUSEN movie (a Charles Schneer one, that is, not “Black Scorpion”) be riffed? Lesser men have died for that, friend… :evil:
(That’s like…y’know…saying Larry Cohen’s “The Stuff” should be riffed! :shock: )
And for those mentioning Jesse James vFD, if you haven’t tracked down the DVD with scene-specific (and otherwise straightforward) Joe Bob Briggs commentary, consider your MSTie-hood incomplete. (And if you’re mentioning it because you have seen it, oh please…)
I’ve seen Star Crash on the big screen, and I’ll second/third/fourth that one–
Christopher Plummer’s serene paycheck performance must be seen to be believed.
I’ll agree with Craig J. Clark (#33) on “The X from Outer Space”, if only for it’s cool soundtrack and utterly ridiculous-looking monster.
Here are two that they might have been able to get: “Yongary, Monster of the Deep” (a South Korean monster movie featuring the single most annoying “monster child” in the history of film) and “Bowery at Midnight” (a Monogram movie with Bela Lugosi running a crime ring, with zombies thrown in for good measure).
And, while they never would’ve gotten the rights to it, “When Worlds Collide” would’ve been good riffing fodder.
I just picked up a copy of Psychomania when my local video store went under. It would be a perfect candidate. Some others:
Hercules in New York – with Arnold Stang and Arnold Schwarzenegger, but please riff the print with his voice dubbed!
Rollercoaster is a great mad-bomber flick from the late 70’s starring the scene-chewing of George Segal.
The Love Bug or any of the sequels from the 70’s would be good too.
I am such a nerd. When MST3K was canceled, I made up a list of movies it should have done if it had gone on for 13 seasons. It all ended with the Green Slime. It included many of the movies already mentioned.
but,
Recently I saw Dinosaurus (1960) on Netflix. Eegah and Torgo have large parts in this movie. I am not kidding. Check it out. A must for MST3K fans.
For the “Deep Hurting” episode, how about the movie Omega Doom starring Rutger Hauer? It’s a combination of Terminator and The Omega Man, but on a really low budget; more than Future War but less than Space Mutiny.
The Jurassic Park bandwagon jumper known as Carnosaur is another good choice.
Since “Cave Dwellers” is one of my all-time faves I’ll happily second the nomination of all the other “Ator” films (those with and without Miles O’Keefe.)
Here’s a quick 3 from me:
1. “The Norseman” – This one has been suggested a few times and after looking it up in Maltin’s Movie Guide book I can see why. I mean c’mon: Directed by Charles B. Pierce starring Lee Majors as an 11th Century Viking who comes to America to search for his Dad. 2 words: COMEDY GOLD.
2. “Golden Needles” – I don’t think ANYBODY has seen this but apparently Leonard Maltin has. It’s about the wild & wacky hunt for a golden statue containing life restoring accupuncture needles. But the main reason I think this should be riffed is because it stars none other than Mr. “Go ‘Head On” hisself Joe Don Baker!! (and Burgess Meredith, btw.)
3. “Goin’ Cocoanuts” – A tough one because this sorta-kinda is a comedy. But it might be the easiest of the 3 for anybody from MST3K to riff because it stars Donny & Marie Osmond. When I was much younger I was taken to see this at a dollar movie theater as part of an “excursion” for the DayCare I was in. Thought it was bad then and definitely would love to see it riffed now. BTW Rifftrax riffed on another movie I saw back in my DayCare “excursion” days: Planet of Dinosaurs.
Aside from Blair witch and Alone in the dark….
The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978). Dull odd, stoned TV special that lacks tempo point and pacing as Chewies family await his return on life day. With Art Carney and Karvey Korman, Jefferson airplane.
The 3D holoplayer uses Realistic Cassette players and the wookie boy puts in a cassette. Check out You-tube for a viewing of this one. It was what msties were made for.
I thought we did this one too…oh well. For starters the rest of the Ed Wood catalogue (Glen or Glenda is just painful, it NEEDS MST TREATMENT). I liked The Last Starfighter but I would still love to se it MST-ed. Definately the Puppet Master Series, another one I like but they are just cheesy enough.
#45 I agree completely :mrgreen:
This list of movies they should have done just reminds me of what a shame it was that the show went off the air when it did. The list of bad movies is almost endless and would have given them enough material to stay on the air for decades.