I was looking through my MST3K collection and try to figure out why each movie was chosen. Of course they’re all bad on some level. I’ve tried to come up with some sort of categorization:
The 50’s: Most 50’s “monster” movies were churned out cheaply and quickly with one thought in mind: kids at the drive-in were, for the most part, NOT paying attention what with all the necking at all. The monster rarely appeared until the end and it was usually pretty damned bad even for then. Remember the artichoke monster from It Conquered the World?
Japanese monster movies: a genre all its own. Bad to us, good to them (I guess).
Backers who never read the script before coughing up the money. Anything with Joe Estevez would qualify.
“Just because you CAN make a movie doesn’t mean you should”: Manos, The Hands of Fate anyone?
Ed Wood: 'nuff said.
Coleman Francis: this man shouldn’t have been allowed to SEE a movie much less make one. “Flag on the moon. How did it get there?”
There are some who feel that MST3K is insulting to the people who worked hard on these movies. They can bite me :D. Face it folks, some people can make movies, some cannot.
The archaic instructional short - Funny and ironic enough to stand on their own. A female friend of mine still gets visibly angry to hear how the women in A Date With Your Family “owe it to the men to look pretty”.
The insular rah-rah corporate video - Like which capacity freezer is right for you, the ice cream distributor. Or how to sell specialty breads with Whitey breathing down your neck. Also fun to hear that wacky 50s corporate lingo (e.g. “selling helps”)
Misogyny a go-go - Most vintage sci-fi movies excluded or diminished the role of women, but a special few decided do go that extra mile to give a hearty “fuck all y’all” to the ladies: Horror of Party Beach, Wild Wild World of Batwoman, Sidehackers, and Eegah! to name a few.
Perhaps John Agar and Bert I. Gordon should have their own categories too.
Edited to thwart the Attack Of The The Typos --Alpha
Don’t forget the Hercules movies! My favorite was Hercules and the Captive Women. There were a lot of hilarious moments in it, and it was one of the few movies where Gypsy actually sat and watched it with them. Of course, she only lasted a few minutes before running out of the theater
Those were the best years of the show, with Joel, Dr. Forrester, and TV’s Frank.
I said it before, I’ll say it again: The Wizard of Gore
This is utterly pointless and may even be too bad for MST3K. It moves so slow and has so many errors it is difficult to understand how it was ever made. Bad, bad, bad, but not quite like and Ed Wood movie that has some quirk charm. Just plain unreedingly bad. Pretty much beyond decription how bad it really is.
Go rent it and experiance the horror for yourself. I apoligize in advance for your time wasted. (wasted is the only way to get thru it!)
sorry for the typos! the boss was lingering and although i know he knows i dont actually do any work around here, i still dont want him to actually have him catch me posting!
“Let’s see what Hercules says as he charges into battle.”
“I’m so tired, I can barely keep my eyes open.”
“Our Hurcules doll is so lame!”
Basically, they chose BAD movies. Why they didn’t just stick to Science Fiction, I’ll never understand. Sure, a bit of diversity is good, but the fact that Joel’s last show was Mitchel, and the final episode was Diabolique, I was a little hurt. Terrible espionague films seemed to be a good filler movie for them as well. Aside from the above mentioned, who can forget (no matter how hard we try) Skydivers, another movie made by the guy who did Manos, and, hard to believe, much, MUCH worse.
Bizarre Finnish folklore. But they turned out really good; The Sword and the Dragon, The Magic Voyage of Sinbad, and The Day The Earth Froze are some of my favorites.
IMHO MST3K was spoilt, somewhat, by the humourless profs back on earth. but then, i suppose, not everything can end up on the cutting room floor.
so, which movies would they have had to endure lately?
Don’t you mean “costume”, not “costumes”? As I recall, they only had one full-body monster costumes - whenever they had more than one monster shown at once, all the others would just be guys wearing black bodysuits with monster headpieces.
“What sins could a man commit in a single lifetime…” that would justify watching Manos or Yucca Flats without MST3K? If I was indepenently wealthy, I’d have paid them to continue that show, especially with newer movies.
