Movie: (1985) A smug professor and his students camp out in the rural Arkansas swamp, in hopes of finding a Bigfoot-like creature.

First shown: May 9, 1999
Opening: Crow and Mike’s Cub Scout meeting is crashed by Servo the Brownie
Intro: Now Servo’s a Flemish glass blower; Pearl has a potato-powered evil plan
Host segment 1: M&tB’s flashbacks get fuzzier and fuzzier
Host segment 2: Pearl cooks up a monster legend, complete with haunting, evocative folk song
Host segment 3: Tom takes up whittling in a big way
End: Crow’s tends to his fires; Pearl’s legend biz gets kicked in the ankle
Stinger: “I saw the little creature.” “Nooo!!”
5 Stars4 Stars3 Stars2 Stars1 Star (343 votes, average: 4.58 out of 5)

• In some episodes, the riffers need a little extra something from the movie to take their riffing from good to great. This is one of those episodes. It starts out as only okay. They keep up with the action with some funny stuff, but it really didn’t have me rolling. But when mountain man Crenshaw arrives, they really have something to work with and they take full advantage of it. The movie itself is stupid but at least it’s watchable. The host segments are mostly good fun. So all in all this one comes out a winner.
• Bill’s thoughts are here.
• References are here.
• This episode was on Rhino’s Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. 5.
• Mike gets the title of the movie wrong in his intro on the DVD version (as he did with his “The Touch of Satan” intro).
• It’s fun to hear Kevin and Bill harmonizing as the sing “On the Wings of a Dove.”
• Gypsy is acting weird again. Did Joel completely fix her?
• The whole IMF accreditation thing was created because the suits at the channel were pushing for a “story arc.” So I only give the Brains partial blame on this. But I have to say that with this episode (or maybe the previous one?) the IMF stuff really starts to feel very invention exchangey. Not sure whether that’s a good thing or not.
• Segment one is a clever idea, one of those segments that practically writes itself in response to something really stupid in the movie.
• Segment 2 is saved by Bill, whose delivery is pitch perfect.
• That’s Kevin’s wife Kathleen’s guitar in that segment. She gets a credit at the end.
• An “s-bomb” got missed by Sci-Fi censors, and Rhino left it in.
• Movie observations: What was that whole “let’s play this out” business when the girls returned to the camp? They walk in and you expect something to happen, but they just say hi and go on with the movie. Play WHAT out?? Also, during the yucky outhouse flashback, I need to point out: If you can hose somebody off, that means you have plumbing. If you have plumbing, why are you using an outhouse?
• I have to say that I don’t really feel the white-hot rage Bill feels toward Old Man Pearce. Yeah, his character is a bit of a jerk, but I just don’t find him that despicable. He’s certainly not the movie’s bad guy. In fact, one of the biggest structural flaws of this movie is that there are no real antagonists (except, perhaps, for the derisive locals).
• Segment 3 is also a lot of fun, a good example of a sketch where they take a simple idea and take it to the extreme.
• Riff that’s a bit of stretch: One of the girls is “Mark Knopfler” because she’s wearing a headband. Sheesh.
• We get another fire aboard the SOL. And not the last one this season.
• That’s Brad Keeley as a tourist kid, in a bit that really goes nowhere.
• Again, no cast and crew round up: nobody involved in this movie worked on any other MSTed movie.
• CreditsWatch: Directed by Kevin. For interns Erin F. Erskine and Josh Huschke, who started at the beginning of the season, this was their last show until they were called back for one more a few weeks later.
• Fave riff: “Why don’t you take the skin chair?” Honorable mention: “There’s a red scarf floating in the air!…oh, it’s her.”