FanFare

Rewatch! The Asylum is an infamous studio I'm a bit conflicted about. It's true, I've seen a lot of their films, despite finding it challenging to make it through a lot of them. Many of them aren't what I'd call good. But they continue to make movie after movie, even after all this time, despite it being a difficult craft, doggedly doing what they want no matter what people tell them. I admire that. And they made Z Nation, which people generally liked. Well, this is more typical of their output: a movie based loosely upon, and named similarly to, a big-budget movie, released straight to disk. This one has pretty unlikable characters. It's the second movie of "The Gauntlet," MST3K's short 12th season. Previously.
posted by JHarris on Apr 6, 2023 - 1 comment

Rewatch! Yet another guy named Paul turns into a monster in this movie; it's the fourth such movie in MST's history! The others are The Crawling Hand, The Projected Man and Werewolf. Note that Cry Wilderness is not included, the Paul in that movie is just friends with a monster. Anyway, the episode is not on many best-of lists, but it's generally fondly remembered. Previously.
posted by JHarris on Oct 6, 2022 - 7 comments

Re-rewatch! Monsters created by radiation lumber ashore to attack the population of old teenagers. Their savior? As always, the magic metal: SODIUM. Previously and again.
posted by JHarris on Apr 14, 2022 - 0 comments

Rewatch! Because in the 50s even our creatures had to be obviously gendered. A lady is hypnotized and, as all hypnotized people do, summons a lobster woman. It's the last episode on Observer World before Mike destroys it. Oops! Previously.
posted by JHarris on Feb 10, 2022 - 2 comments

Rewatch! One of MST3K's Double Adjective Man movies, the others being The Amazing Colossal Man, Teenage Cave Man and Amazing Transparent Man. (There's also Indestructable Man, The Brute Man, The Projected Man and, of course, The Pumaman.) An astronaut returns to Earth and is affected by something that makes him kill people, kind of like a slightly more competent Monster A-Go-Go. In the host segments, Crow shepherds his movie Earth Vs. Soup to completion and through focus groups, a sequence inspired in no small part by Best Brains' experiences in getting MST3K The Movie made. Previously.
posted by JHarris on Nov 11, 2021 - 4 comments

n the quiet suburbs, while Dorothy is doing chores and waiting for her husband to come home from work, not in the least anticipating romance, she hears a strange radio announcement about a monster who has just escaped from the Institute for Oceanographic Research… [more inside]
posted by snerson on Dec 14, 2020 - 1 comment

Rewatch! From the depths of OUTER SPACE comes a deadly shed containing two walking dirty carpets each festooned with vacuum cleaner attachments. Featuring the most ridiculous monsters in MST history, and that's saying something. What. A. Movie. This is the platonic ideal of a superbad z-grade monster movie. Terrible effects, horrible acting, a nonsensical script and nearly entirely dubbed dialogue. (muah) Exquisite! Previously.
posted by JHarris on Jun 27, 2019 - 6 comments

"The Riding Moon Creates a Monster" From the depths of space comes a meteor, which konks a guy in the head, causing the most logical thing to happen: sometimes he turns into a lizard and kills people. A fun episode, generally enjoyed by the three main fansites we track. The movie, which contains a character named Johnny Longbow, was actually co-written by Batman co-creator Bill Finger. Episode 1007 is available on YouTube. Premiered June 13, 1999. Six episodes left. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Mar 29, 2018 - 10 comments

"No girl was safe as long as this HEAD HUNTING THING roamed the land!" An astronaut dies on reentry. Aliens are emerging from his skin, including one really big one that roams the countryside, stopping watches. Everyone wants to kill it except the astronaut, who is now not dead and full of shrimp. With short Once Upon a Honeymoon: More celestial interfering with mortal affairs, this time with an angel helping a composer write a jingle so he and his wife can go on their honeymoon. Roger Corman again, this is his next-to-last featured movie. Daddy-O informs us that the exactly same costume and location were used in 315 TEENAGE CAVEMAN. This is a weird episode because there are two sets of host segments. The first showing was on Turkey Day 1995 and an alternate storyline was written involving Thanksgiving dinner with many of the show's Comedy Central movie cameo characters, making this a nice retrospective on the CC years. Because this is the first episode of the infamous Season Seven, only six episodes long and the end of the show's run on that channel. 701 701T (1h32m) Turkey Day '95 extra bits & alternate host segments Premiered: 701T on Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 1995; 701 on February 3, 1996. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Apr 19, 2017 - 8 comments

"Fantastic! Weird! Horrifying!" "Alive...Without A Body... Fed By An Unspeakable Horror From Hell!" How gifted does a doctor have to be that, when his GF is decapitated in a crash, his thought is, "I can fix this!" Two-for-two on a bad idea streak, he goes out and tries to kill attractive women so he can get her a new chassis. This movie teaches us that not only are free-standing heads capable of speech, they can communicate with horrible monsters. It's Mike Nelson's first episode as host, and boy, they change a lot of things with this episode, including updating the set and changing the door sequence! It's a pretty good episode riffing-wise, too. YouTube (1h31m) Premiered October 30, 1993. Did you know there is a stage musical based on the film, "Head: The Musical!" (Vimeo 1h40m) [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Jul 6, 2016 - 6 comments

"The Towering Terror From Hell!" "SEE a Sixty Foot Giant Destroyed...in Color!" When we last saw Col. Glenn Manning, he was 60 feet tall and had fallen into the Colorado River, where we might presume his corpse would have stopped its flow at some point, or at least provided free sustenance for weeks to its aquatic wildlife. But they never found his amazing colossal body! Well that's because he survived, somehow, improbably, even though he was supposed to be close to death from his untimely embiggening. His sister (the first movie said he had no family but no matter) is determined to find out what happened to him. With the short MR. B NATURAL: A magical pixie that gives off mixed gender signals comes to visit a confused young boy and tries to sell him band equipment. The movie's another Bert I. Gordon monsterpiece, and a sequel to the movie featured in episode 309, THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN. It's a black and white movie, but it's color for the very VERY end so they could say that ad up above wasn't a lie. The episode's okay, but tends to languish in the shadow of the short which, in terms of concentrated riffing power, might be the funniest thing the Brains ever did. YouTube (1h37m) BONUS: A real rarity, Mr. B Natural (26m) on YouTube, un-MSTed! [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Aug 27, 2015 - 14 comments