Tue 15 Jan 2008
9:54 am
The old school MST3K crew return to ripping bad movies a new one.
Being a longtime fan of the geek humor of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and having seen every episode except their UHF trial run, I never thought these talented people could be lured back to the world of making fun of bad movies. Yet in recent years, Mike J. Nelson started up Rifftrax, often joined by the newer voices of Tom and Crow, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, where they fill a downloadable track full of strange quips to be synced up with well known movies, both good and terrible (the movies, not the jokes). They've also done a series of DVD releases under the Film Crew, that returns mostly to the MST3K format with host segments and truly terrible movies to poke fun of.
Now the original crew of the Satellite of Love have gotten back into the action under the optimistic label of Cinematic Titanic. You've got your Joel "Robinson" Hodgson, "TV's" Frank Conniff, Trace "Crow with a dash of Forrester" Beaulieu, and the original smarmy voice of Tom Servo, Josh Weinstien. Joining these originators is the always radiant Mary Jo Pehl. Their first release has hit my mailbox in the form of the Oozing Skull, which is neither oozing nor particularly keen on skulls, aside from a few obviously fake skeletons in the closet. It's the sort of movie that Ed Wood Jr. would have been embarrassed being associated with, even when decked out in a matching dress. Seeing as this is a videogame related site, I wasn't going to comment on it, at least until the silhouette of Stephen Hawking rolled out during a typical mad scientist body switching scene, and delivered the following line:
"If this brain transplant works, I've got next."
If that doesn't rate a mention, I don't know what does. So what's it like? Well, imagine if you will one of the rock super groups like the Police or Led Zeppelin suddenly reunited long after their breakup and just started jamming together again. None have lost their talent for off hand remarks and crazy quips, but the timing and the delivery has gotten a bit rusty, especially for those that hadn't done much of this sort of thing before. There are no host segments. No puppets on strings. Instead, after a jazzy theme song they launch right into the movie, but there are occasional breaks where they pause the film for a few bizarre segments, taking advantage of their silhouette setup to throw in a few sight gags. I still find myself wanting some bits at the beginning and the end to make it a little more than shadows razzing a bad movie, but it still brought a truckload of laughs.
So if you're curious, give a peek at their site, read a few blogs, watch the trailer, and even comment in their forum. I hope their next release oozes along soon enough.
