Mystery Science Theater 3000: THE BATWOMAN

August 25, 2022 3:07 AM - Season 13, Episode 8

Originally "La mujer murcielago." A rich socialite lady decides to spend her spare time in a bat mask and cape, wearing a bikini, and fighting crime. She tracks down a mad scientist who is using pineal fluid from wrestlers to make fish people. Oh, she's a wrestler too. All of this takes place in Mexico. Other than being a blatant ripoff of them, has nothing to do with DC Comics characters. It's a fun episode, with a crazy movie and good host segments! Premiered August 19, 2022, in the Gizmoplex.

Episode 1308 THE BATWOMAN

Rotten Tomatoes (Critics N/A, Viewers N/A)
The movie doesn't seem to have a Wikipedia page, hm.
IMDB (1968, 4.7 stars)
"Batwoman is called to investigate a whacked-out scientist who is capturing wrestlers and using their spinal fluid to create a Gill Man."
Directed by René Cardona. Written by Alfredo Salazar. Starring Maura Monti, Roberto Cañedo, and Héctor Godoy.

IMDB adds in the usual DC Universe originated-bys for Bob Kane and Bill Finger, but other than ripping them off and Lady Ratmouse having a similar-looking mask, this movie is completely unrelated to anything they wrote.

René Cardona also directed Santa Claus!

posted by JHarris (4 comments total)

Every Thursday night we have MST Club, where we watch bad movies with good friends! You know what you should come too! It happens starting at 7 PM Eastern time at https://cytu.be/r/Metafilter_MST3KClub; the main episode begins at 9 PM, so if you don't care about other movies or stuff you should show up then.

Even though we aren't officially showing Season 13 episodes yet, people who show up this week for the main show will probably not be too disappointed.
posted by JHarris at 3:13 AM on August 25, 2022

Reptilicus!
posted by Servo5678 at 7:57 AM on August 25, 2022 [4 favorites]

I liked this a lot. In fact, I really like Emily's cast. I think since they were on the road together doing MST3K live, they have a real rapport with each other that Jonah's cast doesn't have as much. It also helped that the movie itself was bonkers and entertaining.
posted by wittgenstein at 2:08 PM on August 25, 2022 [1 favorite]

Pretty much the only thing tying this movie to the Batman TV show is Batwoman's costume being the bikini version of Adam West's. Meaning this is the most accurate by far of the two Batwoman movies MST3k has done. (The other one feels more closely related to the 1940s Batman serials, but that's probably just be because of how generic the 1940s serials are.)
posted by ckape at 5:38 PM on August 26, 2022 [1 favorite]