Mystery Science Theater 3000: THE THING THAT COULDN'T DIE
June 28, 2017 11:51 PM - Season 8, Episode 5 - Subscribe

"The Grave Can't Hold It... Nothing Human Can Stop it!" A psychic lady stumbles upon a Box of Evil on the ranch, evidently the cousin of Señor Wences' friend Pedro. It bends the very wills of the people there until it is reunited with its body... and then is instantly defeated, because apparently its demonic powers end at that moment. S'not alright! We just got done with The Beast of Hollow Mountain and now we've got another Weird Western! In subplot news, this is the episode that introduces the Observers, and one particular Observer as a regular character, played by Bill Corbitt. Episode 805 is unavailable on YouTube. Premiered March 3, 1997.

805 THE THING THAT COULDN'T DIE
Satellite News - Mighty Jack's Episode Review - Annotated MST3K - War of the Colossal Fan Guide - TVTropes

Paul Chaplin remembers the movie in its entry of the Amazing Colossal Episode Guide. His description of the movie is great:
Her husband having committed suicide (one presumes), a viciously greedy widow named Flavia (?) raises her dim daughter Jessica on an arid southwestern ranch. While out "dousing" for water one day, the comely Jessica stumbles on an ancient box, buried back in the long ago times. Nasal Flavia keeps bleating about "traysure," but instead the box contains the goateed head of a not-to-be-trusted Englishman. With the unwitting help of some dude ranch guests (did I mention Flavia also runs a dude ranch, and employs rock stupid criminals?), said head is freed from his box and uses about 14% of his other worldly powers to mind-control the majority of this wretched crew.
Within minutes he is connected to his also-buried body and is then knocked over and dies. Alternate title: The Thing That Died.
Movie
Daddy-O's Drive-In Dirt
Rotten Tomatoes (Critics N/A, Viewers 7%) - Wikipedia - TVTropes

IMDB (1958, 3.4 stars)
Directed by Will Cowan. Written by David Duncan. Starring William Reynolds, Andra Martin and Jeffrey Stone.

Notes:
It's another Weird Western, this one with a mind-controlling severed head. As Paul noted, once it and its body are reunited, the thing is pathetically vulnerable.

This is the first of three episodes where the usual end-of-episode stinger is replaced by the Observers. It's a weird intrusion of the MST story into territory traditionally reserved for the movie, and fans didn't approve. Fortunately it doesn't last long.

The copy on YouTube was taken down due to a complaint by NBC Universal. If you're a small company and the rights to an obscure ridiculous bad horror/western are your only intellectual property, maybe I could understand you petitioning YouTube to take it down. But if you're a ConGlomCo, it comes across as just peeing on our breakfasts. What I'm saying is, big companies make lots of stupid decisions, and this is one of them.
posted by JHarris (6 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
MST Club!

Every Thursday some of us MeFi MSTies get together to watch an episode (or two) on the internet. You should come with! The site this week is https://www.rabb.it/rodneylives.

Tonight's schedule:
7 PM ET/4 PM PT: 1112 CARNIVAL MAGIC
8:30/5:30: Intermission - YouTube Potluck
9 PM/6 PM: TBA - 805 isn't on YouTube, we will see if we can find a workaround
posted by JHarris at 12:27 PM on June 29, 2017


Is this the one with the TRAYsure?
posted by Chrysostom at 9:12 PM on June 29, 2017 [1 favorite]


It surely was.
posted by valkane at 3:17 AM on June 30, 2017


I'm going to watch my favorite Shakespeare play, Maysure for Maysure!
posted by wittgenstein at 5:56 AM on June 30, 2017 [3 favorites]




As a line, "Why don't you hit me anymore?" Is so wrong yet so perfect.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:18 AM on July 2, 2017


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