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Weekend Discussion Thread: Worst MSTed MovieOkay, let’s settle this one: What is the worst, the positively worst, movie ever featured on MST3K?
My vote is and will always be “Red Zone Cuba.” To paraphrase Mike, it is not only the worst movie they ever MSTed, it is not only THE worst movie ever made, it may well be the worst THING ever made. Slipshod and impossible to follow, mean-spirited and soul-deadening, it is in every way the anti-movie. It makes you want to swear off movies forever, and perhaps even renounce the existence of a higher being. It’s that bad. What movie would you pick? And show your work. 254 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Worst MSTed Movie”Commenting at Satellite News
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I was pleasantly surprised reading the summary of HOBGOBLINS by Paul Chaplin that he thought it one of the worst. Thank you, thank you fellow haters, I thought I was the only one! To those of you (including some at Best Brains) that thought it was camp and sincerely meant to be funny, WRONG! I think Rick Sloane and Co. were being a little playful with their cheap Gremlins knock-off, but truly amazing to get all those people together to make a movie and no one has any brains, sense, taste or moral fiber or dignity, and has now robbed us of ours. Fie on you!
I must add — on of the reasons i watch MST is because I feel comfort when the bad movie is morally offensive, and the bots are offended too; just a reminder we still have some standards. HOBGOBLINS is so far over the fence in the insulting our morals and intelligence category, It should be jettisoned to the moon. or neptune.
This topic brings up some interesting issues. Some people can’t even watch the misted version of Red Zone Cuba, while that is one of my favorite episodes, and I’ve watched it over 20 times. Same for Creeping Terror, Manos, and Skydivers. They are plainly awful, but I love watching them. On the other hand, I could barely get through Castle of Fu Manchu and Hamlet once. Maybe this could lead to another thread: what movies are unwatchable, even with misting?
As I believe Sampo has said before, “Lightweights!” I can’t even imagine not being able to watch any of the episodes more than once, much less not being able to finish an initial viewing. Although to be honest, I’ve never seen Beast of Yucca Flats, or Attack of The The Eye Creatures… :cry:
For my personal choice of worst movie MSTed movie, I just can’t make up my mind. I’ll give you my top four, the four that I wouldn’t argue with anybody if they said it was the worst movie ever made (all popular picks on this thread): Red Zone Cuba, Monster A-Go-Go, Wild World of Batwoman, and Manos the Hands of Fate. I choose them on the basis of (lack of) technical merit, i.e. editing, acting, dialogue, plot, dubbing, lighting. Basically, how difficult they are to watch, not emotionally but physically. The Creeping Terror, Castle of Fu Manchu, The Incredibly Srange Creaures…, and The Skydivers are just a step above (or below) them, IMO. I kind of enjoy watching Bloodlust, Girl in Gold Boots, Angels Revenge, even Boggy Creek II. I don’t really get everybody’s consuming hatred of Hobgoblins–the movie’s obviously terrible, but in a fun, 80s, Gremlins-ripoff kind of way. A little like Alien from L.A., only Journey to the Center of the Earth-type ripoff. Hamlet is just boring. The foreign-made movies like the Gameras and Pod People are only made watchable by the top-notch riffing. The sword-and-sandal movies like Hercules, Colossus and the Russo-Finnish troika are relatively well made, if far too goofy and overblown. Cave Dwellers is a special case, because I just don’t think the movie or the ep are very funny. High School Big Shot is my pick for BBI’s most depressing movie (outside of my top four above), but it’s not that poorly made. Overdrawn at the Memory Bank was at least ambitiously scifi, and tried to be satiric, although failing to be anything but stupid. Mitchell and Final Justice are lame attempts at buddy-cop meets Death Wish movies, but are still laughably watchable. The Ed Wood movies, although terrible on any technical scale, are very passionate and fun to watch, so I give them a pass.
Before I start, I should mention that I have not seen all the episodes, so I can’t really offer an opinion on three of the more oft-mentioned ones (RZC, Batwoman, and Castle of Fu Manchu).
The two Coleman Francis films I have seen are truly wretched, but to be honest, there’s also something intriguing about them. Skydivers in particular has a kind of interesting story buried under the incompetent direction, jump cuts, reading of stage directions, and really bizarre extras. I think if you redid it in the style of something like Mad Men, you’d actually have something of merit.
Starfighters is an abomination, but I can’t honestly believe it was meant as anything but an Air Force propaganda film. In that respect, I tend to consider it just a long “short” in which absolutely nothing happens.
Invasion of the Neptune Men is actually goofily entertaining up until the stock and/or recycled footage starts piling up around the 3/4s mark (which is about where M&tB start to lose it), at which point it becomes nearly unwatchable save for the Hitler Building. It’s bad, but at least at first it’s kind of an amusing bad.
Creeping Terror is one of those movies that I really can’t say anything bad about because it’s so bizarre. Of all these, it’s the one that, if I had never seen it before and caught the first 10 minutes at 2 AM, there is no way I would turn it off before it was over.
Manos, in terms of actually making a film, is the most incompetent production I’ve ever seen besides student films (hell, Final Sacrifice was a student film, and it was 300,000% more competent than this). However, the story isn’t that bad, and it’s one of those that’s so bad it becomes fascinating to watch. I refer to it as a “NASCAR Fan” movie; you don’t want to admit it, but you like watching it crash and burn.
Which brings me to my two choices: Hobgoblins and Monster A-Go-Go. Hobgoblins is the only movie that I’ve ever believed actually hated me and wanted to cause me physical pain. Monster A-Go-Go is the only movie where, were I a religious man, I would have left the theater questioning a God that would allow someone to waste 75 minutes of the precious time He bestowed upon us with such empty nothingness. Of the two, I would have an easier time sitting through Hobgoblins without the riffing, so I guess that makes Monster A-Go-Go my choice for Worst Movie Ever.