…the strangest plot turns in MSTied movies. You know when the plot just takes a bizarre turn that makes you go “what the heck?”
My pick on this subject has to be the Incredible Melting Man from Season 7. It had not one, but four moments like that.
(4) When Dr. Ted Nelson tries to change the subject of the status of the Melting Man with his wife by asking if she bought crackers.
(3) The whole lemon theft scene.
(2) And the climax of the film where the two rent-a-cops gun down that dopey Ted Nelson instead of the giant, melty monster standing behind him for no logical reason.
(1) The iconic “Nurse running through a glass door” scene.
I once again have to turn to “Kitten with a Whip,” the quintessential “what the heck?” movie, in which an ostensibly intelligent makes a series of decisions no such human would ever make.
What’s your pick?
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“Secret Agent Super Dragon” where the bad guys try to take over the world through chewing gum? It’s like the movie was written by someone who watched spy movies and TV shows as a kid and took several elements from different sources and turned it into a movie when none of the elements make any sense together.
Robot Monster having been just a dream (I hate that particular trope).
The Violent Years and the largely unjustified lecturing by the judge.
Starfighters in the way it just stops with no real conclusion.
Adad’s death at the end of The Mole People.
The scientist chick going out to sea like a newly awakened Deep One hybrid in Blood Waters of Dr. Z.
Adad’s death was really offensive, especially because of the
racist rationale for changing the ending.
And anyway, I like happy endings. :)
I think it’s when the captain announces in “Women of the Prehistoric Planet” that Linda is his daughter and then we find out that the planet was earth in the distant past. As Joel said, “Holy Deus ex Machina!” :-D
I’m picking the climactic time travel chase at the end of Time Chasers.
J.K. Robertson & Pink Boy take Nick & Wayne Springsteen to the past to kill them and hide the bodies. Somehow other Nick & Lisa figure out where they are going and catch them in the act.
A similar thing happens earlier when J.K. Roberston shoots at their plane and kills Lisa. How could he have known “Where” they had time travelled to?
Also, when Nick jumps out of the plane and the fisherman help him into the boat, where does Nick get the gun from?
So many questions. So many ill conceived plot points.
The dune buggy scene in The Girl in Gold Boots just comes from out of nowhere. In fact, that whole movie is one strange plot turn.
Werewolf’s abandonment of the entire dig and focusing on the greasy guys instead of the sweaty guys at the dig site. Terrible waste of the talented Joe Estevez.
Without question Monster a-Go-Go, in which the ending reveals what we knew all along: it’s a movie without a plot.
Okay, so maybe Monster a-Go-Go DOESN’T count, and yet I think it does. I’m confused, and I blame it all on BILL REBANE!
I’ll agree with “Monster a-Go-Go”. That conclusion comes from so far out of deep roving left field that it’s just baffling. I mean, that’s the best the filmmakers (both groups of them) could come up with?
Ad to that the whole seance scene in “Wild World of Batwoman”. I mean, that’s the way they get more information to aid the investigation? And that’s not even mentioning the “Chinese”-speaking spirit. Ye gods!
Well, my favorite moment like this comes from a non-MSTed movie: the jump cut from the dog to the hippo in Indecent Proposal. To stay on topic, it’s a little like the cut to the whistle scene in Catalina Caper.
Then, there is the fish-arguing scene in whichever Gamera that was…
Oh, and I’m sure people will bring up Monster a Go Go, but since Herschel Gordon Lewis didn’t give enough rodent posteriors to hire good writers for the movies he did start to finish, how can we expect him to deliver a coherent solution to some other hack’s half-finished production?
EDIT: Dang, two Monster a Go Go mentions while I typed this…
Of course, it is a common characteristic of bad movies that they will take a head-scratchingly hard left (or several), either because the script is a mess or the editor drunkenly misplaced several scenes. In other words, the possibilities are endless here, so I’ll just site two:
Carrie-You’re-So-Very’s murder in “Girl in Lovers Lane” (which actually angered the writing staff, as we know). Given the general tone of the movie, it simply doesn’t work.
And then there is just the entire hallucinatory twist-o-rama that is “Red Zone Cuba:” Hey, let’s hitch our wagon to Griffin – he seems nice and smart. Hey, let’s all join the army! Let’s chuck this kindly old guy down a well! Let’s go be nice to Justine’s widow then shoot her! By the way, Landis, I’m now stealing that expensive ring you’ve been wearing this whole time!” As Mike says at one point: “I think my neck just snapped from that jump cut.”
well ‘Invasion USA’ ends up as a hypnotic illusion. then there’s ‘RZC’ where you have the brave trio go from drifters to freedom fighters to flying to hopping trains to driving a car to mining?
Detonating the atomic bomb on planet Nova in King Dinosaur.
(Thanks for annihilating everything I know.)
Since I just watched Time of the Apes the other day I have to mention the part where everyone is tied up to a tree, then they let them go and start shooting at them! I know the movie was made from a long TV series, and a lot was cut out, but why are they tied up then let go?
For MST-alum groups, Cinemantic Titanic gets it with Doomsday Machine where it turns into 2001 without the acid. For Rifftrax, The Apple must be seen to be believed. It ends with God showing up to take all of the hippies away and start a new world without evil record companies.
Giant Spider Invasion. I don’t think anyone responsible for that film knew how science worked; just how did they repel the invasion?
And really, the fire and brimstone preacher was out of place; how was he not killed by a giant spider? More plotholes in the film than on Dan Kester’s farm.
@14 (Kenotic)
Haven’t seen “The Apple” in years, but you’re absolutely right about “Doomsday Machine”. That ending can be looked at as the spiritual twin (both in-story and behind the scenes) of “Monster a-Go-Go”.
The elusive Robert Denby. I know the movie was two TV shows strung together- but, where did all the crackers, rednecks and Abby watching from afar come from? Makes no sense. Great on toast, however.
Rats, all my first choices have been mentioned already — Monster-a-Go-Go, Riding with Death, Red Zone Cuba, and Robot Monster. How about this one — the Balerians or Valerians or whoever the Stevie Nicks dancers were in “Space Mutiny” — what the Sam Hill did they have to do with the plot? Were they just there to play under Santa’s robes and to pretend to seduce crewmen and to romp with the Spencer’s Gifts static electricity ball?
Great choice of discussion topic, btw. :-)
As much as they set him up as the MacGyver of his time, Ator’s hang glider has always been one turn of the screw too many for me.
Also, any number of things from Santa Claus, but maybe that’s a cultural thing.
The finale of Hobgoblins. “I’m blowing up the title characters because I can now. I couldn’t then. No reason. Just couldn’t.”
@18 I think they figured “sexy lady Jedi” and gave it no further thought than ordering props to go to Spencer’s Gifts.
I know the bots point this out many times, but its maddening watching Corman’s “The Undead” and trying to keep up with the plot of where the knight and his girlfriend are at any moment. She hides in the house in the woods, then goes to the tavern, then back to the house;he goes to the tavern, then to the house, then to the jail, then to the tavern again… Almost every time, there is no rational reason for moving again.
Lydia lies to Pendragon to get him to go, telling him Helene was captured; he believes her even though he just left her five minutes ago. The stupidity of all the running back and forth makes me want to slap someone.
At least Bruno Vesota stayed put.
Just thought of another one: Prince of Space. The Chicken-men keep flying back and forth to Earth! They capture the scientists, then fly them back to the Chicken Planet, then fly back to Earth.
Bowler Hatted Man showing up at the end credits of “The Deadly Bees” complete with quirky woodwind soundtrack. Even Mike and The Bots were practically saying “WTF?!?”.
The ultimate, of course, is Monster-a-Go-Go, in which, unable to think of a proper ending, the writers declared that there was no monster….
In Teenage Strangler there were several. The biggest was the name of the film, which Mike and the bots even ponder at the end as it makes no sense. Also, besides Betty, who always seems upset, no one else in town seems that freaked out about the deaths. They’ll mention them, but they they start singing and dancing to that Yipe Stripes song. Then there’s Jimmy leaving his group, which results in a race, but then they are all friends again afterward.
For a rifftrax filled with plot twists and holes, Curse of Bigfoot is definitely full of them. It is more of a movie loaf, since it’s two or three films and some stock footage all mashed together.
Gamera vs. Baragon.
They do all this stuff that has nothing to do with Gamera. No cute kids. No space aliens invading. Just jewel thieves and monster eggs. And up pops Gamera twice to let people know this is still a Gamera movie, and then Gamera is gone.
Yes, Ator’s sudden hang gliderwas out of nowhere. While I believe that he could make a hang glider, he couldn’t have in the time alloted.
The sub-plots during the dance hall scene in The Creeping Terror come out of nowhere, but they’re most welcomed.
The Hellcats Moonfire Inn crew go from loutish bikers who
(apparently) rape artists models to heroes saving that Magnificent
Bastard Rommel (I mean Monte—Ross Hagen) from the official baddies.
Racket Girls went from lady wrestling to fixing horse races and back again a couple times and then to the Ukrainian-National-Anthem-scored-car-chase so fast one could get whiplash. And we still don’t know where the rubber band went.
How about Godzilla vs Megalon. Jet Jaguar changing himself to giant size isn’t so surprising considering it’s a Godzilla movie but the headscratcher is that his creators reaction is to chuckle and say gosh I had no idea he idea he could do that, it sure is a good thing that he can change his size at will. Any sensible person would be thinking how do we shut him down or to start building a temple in his honor and hope for the best!
Too bad they never did Ray Dennis Steckler’s “Rat Pfink a Boo Boo”. Probably the ultimate plot turn/film shift.
I agree with a lot of the choices mentioned above, but I have to go with Beast of Yucca Flats. For a movie that has absolutely no story, it has a lot of WTF? moments. Why did the lady get murdered at the start? Why was Tor Johnson hired to play a Russian scientist? Why did the kids get lost? Why did the cops decide to start just randomly shooting guys? Why did I keep watching the movie? Why won’t it stop? You know, stuff like that.
I’m probably stretching the topic more than a little, but I’ve always been struck by just how QUICKLY THE THING THAT COULDN’T DIE is defeated. He FINALLY gets his head back on his body (after getting carried around half the countryside like a bowling ball), and then clearly underestimates his opponents, since all they had to do was push him back in his coffin in order to turn him into a skeleton. He sure SOUNDED threatening, however. What a blowhard.
Wild World of Batwoman’s twist entails finding out the “super villain,” Rat Fink, is the boss of the atomic hearing aid company, which means the boss plotted to steal HIS OWN property.
It doesn’t get much stupider and weirder than that.
@Canucklehead
I was going to mention The Beast of Yucca Flats. It’s like they took random clips and pieced them together. It makes less sense than Plan 9 from Outer Space.
The Lost Continent simply because… Rock climbing people, so much rock climbing it was a wild turn when there wasn’t… rock climbing.
Well, MONSTER A-GO-GO’s problems stemmed from Herschell Gordon Lewis buying a half-finished movie from someone else and barely bothering to try to make it coherent. The reason the film sputtered out was that the original crew didn’t have the ending shot and Lewis couldn’t and/or wouldn’t shoot it himself.
I’m also amused by the folks who tell the kid to go upstairs and get ready and they’ll all go out for ice cream and then leave without him. I keep picturing the poor boy coming downstairs just in time to hear the car pulling out of the driveway…
Also fond of the evil scheme in OPERATION: KID BROTHER (AKA DOUBLE 007) where the squad of evil women steal a weapon from the army by wearing not just one but two completely different ridiculous assortments of showgirl outfits. While travelling through the desert, yet. The entire plan hinges on soldiers just assuming all showgirls travel in flocks and dress in sequins and feathers all the time as part of their normal lives… AND IT WORKS.
It’s probably just because I’m getting old and this was at the bottom of my screen, but the climactic hunt for the GINORMOUS MONSTER inside the Manhattan Tunnel in “The Deadly Mantis” was a jawdropper, what with its exposition-only set-up and smoke and hosed-down tarps and everyone creeping gingerly around in the dark like the GINORMOUS MONSTER might be hiding behind that crushed auto up ahead…and the biggest ‘danger’ is that the mortally-wounded creature might cause the tunnel to flood! Oh, teh huge manatee! Teh harrah! Teh harrah!
It was never a great film, and yes, the scene is professional-looking and ‘atmospheric,’ but the movie changed from mediocre Universal monster mash to absolute crap in an instant right there.
Agree about ‘Monster A Go Go’. That wasn’t a plot turn, that was a plot who-gives-a-f***.
My own choice goes to Akio from ‘Gamera Vs Guiron’ and his obsession with traffic accidents. Was his dad killed in one or was this just a PSA shoehorned in by the filmmakers?
@#24, “Bowler Hatted Man showing up at the end credits of “The Deadly Bees” complete with quirky woodwind soundtrack.”
The man in the bowler hat actually appears earlier in the movie in a very brief scene in a government office. Some other guy on the phone says he’ll send someone to investigate, and the joke (terrible though it may be) is that the government worker eventually showed up, but too late to help or do any good whatsoever.
Those wacky Brits!
I think the bowler-hatted man was supposed to be a reference to Steed from THE AVENGERS…
Have to agree with Sampo about Kitten with a Whip.
also, as far as the Melting Man’s status goes: Steve?
Steve had crackers!
Mitchell gets the girl. Habada-WHAAAA??!?!?!?
Like #8 said, there’s that stupid seance in “Wild World of Batwoman.” There’s more: Mole People! There’s also dancing and soup. Putting aside the obvious absurdity, I don’t know why the baddies didn’t provide spoons. If a girl tried to dance while holding the cup in one hand and a spoon in the other, trying to spoon it into her mouth, it would be even easier to disarm her.
“The Dead Talk Back”: The doctor explains that he’s got supernatural skills till he’s blue in the face. He explains it first to us, then he goes into great detail explaining it to the characters. But instead of doing some supernatural stuff, he puts on a magic show that even small children would find pointless and boring. It helps with the investigation, but it pulls a fast one on the movie-goers who really wanted a dead person to talk back.
I always like the “meanwhile in another movie” riffs in Pod People when the subject matter seems to change completely. “Is this movie A? It’s the Winter movie”. Similarly in High School Bigshot when the safe-cracker and his brother-in-law are introduced I agreed with the “I like this movie better” riff. I realize the above is more a matter of poor editing and storytelling than a plot twist, but it’s the first thing that came to mind.
“SAMSON VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN” – A straight forward vampire horror film suddenly introduces a masked Mexican wrestler superhero. Most unintentionally funny twist ever put on film. It just feels so out of place.
Well, my favorite episodes ever are the Master Ninja episodes. As we all know, these are not “films”….they are poorly edited, stitched together TV episodes. But, if one were to treat Master Ninja I or II as an actual “film”….the transition from episode to episode is off the charts random and hilarious. Joel’s riff in the second half of Master Ninja I, “wow, this movie’s gone off in a whole different direction!” is one of my favorite ever.
If I may add to that thought, one of my favorite types of riffs was whenever Joel would feign astonishment, surprise or admiration in a wondrous voice. It managed to make fun of the situation infinitely more than if he had openly mocked the moment. It’s also one of the reasons his delivery was so funny.
Oh, forgot the child bride of Manos. Maybe more disturbing than strange per se, but my reaction was basically the same.
Basically the entire plot for Santa Clause Vs. The Martians.