Mystery Science Theater 3000: LORDS OF THE DEEP

December 12, 2018 7:11 PM - Season 12, Episode 3

"The ultimate underwater adventure!" Under de sea... there's scary psychic stingray monsters that control people and turn them into goo! But hey, everything's better where it is wetter, right? Not a film to show to marine biology students. It's episode three of "The Gauntlet," and a weird movie. The SOL has issues with psychic sea monsters and Kinga and Max stage a morning talk show. For fun! Episode 1203 is available on Netflix.

EPISODE 1203 LORDS OF THE DEEP

Fandom Wikia - Episode TVTropes
The wiki page notes this is the first MST movie directed by a woman.

Movie
Rotten Tomatoes (Critics N/A, Viewers 0%!) - Wikipedia
IMDB (2.7 stars, 1987)
Directed by Mary Ann Fisher. Written by Howard R. Cohen and Daryl Haney. Starring Bradford Dillman, Priscilla Barnes and Daryl Haney. Produced by Roger Corman!

posted by JHarris (16 comments total)

I actually really liked the movie. Had a Stuart Gordon vibe, but like a campier version.
posted by runcibleshaw at 8:09 PM on December 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

Throughout this whole movie, I kept thinking of the Ghost Leviathans from Subnautica.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:06 AM on December 13, 2018

Tonight (Thursday), once again, it's MST Club, our weekly viewing of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Our preroll movie begins at 7 PM Eastern/4 PM Pacific, and the episode itself starts at 9PM/6PM. The show, as usual, is at http://cytu.be/r/Metafilter_MST3KClub. If you think you can take us, then go ahead on!
posted by JHarris at 9:31 AM on December 13, 2018

You are the true Lords of the Deep
No matter what those idiots at work say
posted by kyrademon at 5:41 AM on December 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

No longer must I wonder; "What if SeaQuest was a community access TV show?"

One of the great questions of my life answered, I can rest easy.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 12:36 PM on December 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

My favorite moment in this episode is when the movie is tripping out and Jonah brings out his sitar, and they start singing:
"Check
out those lights!
Yeah the sky
is a blob!
In your mind
is the blob
inside you!

You are blob!
Blob is you!
Wow!
WOW!
Holy cow is that my blob?
Looks like gum
I'm the gum!
Could be cheese.
I like cheese!
Wow!
WOW!
I think I'll go to sleep for... a... whi-le...right...here...."
posted by JHarris at 10:09 PM on December 14, 2018 [8 favorites]

Oh man, this was a slog for me. It reminded me of Being From Another Planet way back in season 4 - just deadly dull.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:30 PM on December 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

This week MST Club is resting as we prepare for the Christmas Marathon starting on the 23rd. I will still be in the cytube room though, and I'll be open to suggestions for things to show.
posted by JHarris at 11:27 AM on December 18, 2018

I thought it was kinda nice to have an honestly bad movie after Mac and Me and Atlantic Rim which felt more like cynical knock-offs.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 12:12 PM on December 20, 2018 [3 favorites]

Amen to that, GNPE.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:18 PM on December 20, 2018

Isn't Lords of the Deep literally a cynical knock-off of The Abyss, though?
posted by Chrysostom at 12:53 PM on December 20, 2018

Well, that was the theme for this whole season. This one didn't feel like as much of a direct lift to me, though maybe that's just because I haven't seen The Abyss recently enough.

(I'm not sure what The Day Time Ended is supposed to be a rip-off of, TBH.)
posted by tobascodagama at 1:03 PM on December 20, 2018

Lords of the Deep felt a bit like it was imitating too many different things at once to be a direct rip-off of The Abyss. The evil megacorp, the homical command officer, and the unhelpful computer were straight from Alien, the transformation stuff is The Thing, what if the sea monsters are nice is The Abyss,, what if they're really aliens from another world taps into two decades of ET ancient-astronaut psychedelia including 2001. The extremely weird thing where almost everyone lives at the end is just weird.

SFF cinema does have bandwagons, but jumping on a bandwagon isn't necessarily a knock-off. (Arguably Marvel Studios ended up hijacking a bandwagon led by Warner, Fox, and Sony.) And writing this, I find that it's a Roger Corman production which explains why it didn't piss me off to the same extent as Mac and Me (wrapping plot beats from ET and Starman as marketing vehicles) or Atlantic Rim (beat an original to video and syndication).
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 2:10 PM on December 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

I was a little disappointed at the lack of riffing on this being Terri from Three's Company, and the bad guy looking so much like Larry.
posted by condour75 at 7:08 PM on January 2, 2019 [1 favorite]

I know historically they've purposely tried to avoid that kind of super easy reference - like they only made one Mike Brady joke in Bloodlust!

On the other hand, they made about five thousand Lovejoy jokes in Code Name: Diamond Head. In conclusion, MST3K is a land of contrasts.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:18 PM on January 2, 2019 [1 favorite]

This really felt to me like a Doctor Who script that was just waiting for some incarnation to come out and start waving a sonic screwdriver about. Total "base under siege" plotline, mysterious corporation, overly dramatic costuming...

The soundtrack needed more synthesizer for that to work, though. Maybe this was a fanfic with the TARDIS parts hastily removed and replaced by a Roger Corman cameo.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 11:44 PM on January 2, 2019 [1 favorite]