Some of us could argue that a few of the movies covered on the show weren’t really all that bad. But what about individual scenes? What are some of the most surprisingly good moments in an otherwise bad riffed movie? For me, I’d vote for the “Bird’s the Word” strangulation scene from “The Crawling Hand.” The dappled lighting effects and the ironic song choice seem oddly ahead of their time.
I would pick the scene in Girls Town where Silver first arrives at the school and is menaced by her roommates. It’s actually kind of gripping.
What’s your pick?
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Going back to this week’s Rifftrax live there are admittedly two scenes in Santa Claus that I feel are done well enough to get me a little teary-eyed every time: The scene where Lupita mentions asking for a second doll to give to baby Jesus and the one where Santa allows the rich boy to see him.
i am kind of partial to the scene in ‘Girl from Lover’s Lane’ where big stupid is realizing that Carrie (she’s so very) really kind of liked him while being questioned by the sheriff. he almost let out an emotion there.
I’d almost nominate a scene cut from the MST3K version of a movie. In Eegah!, there is a scene after Roxy’s escape where Kiel is “telling” is mummified family that he has to leave them and go after her. He REALLY does a great job selling the scene, and it’s almost a shame they cut it, because it makes the character more sympathetic. Of course, they also cut the scene where he’s ripping her clothes off and about to rape her, so it balances out in the wash I suppose.
As far as an actual scene left in a riffed movie, I’d say the beach party scene in The Horror at Party Beach where the Del Aires are singing. I thought they were a genuinely good band and could easily believe kids of that era would be out there dancing and having fun. Compared to the 40-ish “teenagers” of Ring of Terror, or half the bands that have appeared in other riffed movies, the scene seems genuine and not forced. Although I imagine I’m in the minority here…
The scene in Tormented, where Sandy confronts Tom in the lighthouse after the wedding fiasco, is my choice. Susan Gordon turned in a very strong performance, and seems here as if the title could refer to her character. She loves Tom but can no longer trust him, even though she clearly wants to. As Crow says at the end of the scene, “Sandy’s grown up a lot this week.”
The scene in Giant Gila Monster when the little girl walks with her prosthetic legs for the first time.
The scene where Beverly Garland totally reams the monster in It Conquered the World.
The scene where Zack revives Natalie in Soultaker.
The scene where Rick proves he’s not a complete douche by allowing Tommy to keep Trumpy a secret. “All the monsters are dead, right Tommy?”
The scene where the a-hole reviewer accidentally turns himself into a baby in MSoMW.
I dunno, it’s hard to think of that many “good” scenes.
ooh, that’s a great one.
Tom “You aren’t afraid of me, are you?”
Sandy “I never used to be”
ouch!
The scene in Rocketship X-M where they discover the Martian ruins and realize it was destroyed in a nuclear war. Then trying to help the blind Martian girl and getting attacked for their pains. This would have made quite an impact on the original audience in 1950. Interestingly, some stories are showing up on the internet claiming that Mars was the site of a nuclear war. I wonder where these people get their ideas.
Tormented actually had a fair amount of good scenes and was one of their better films. Susan Gordon was great, even Mr. BIG had added nice touch: She kept getting magician and musician switched so he kept it in. For MST, that’s a nice character detail.
Master Ninja I and II – every scene.
OK, OK – that’s pushing it. How about the bar fight in MN1?
Joel: “Aw, it started falling before he kicked it.”
The Robot vs the Aztec Mummy was an extremely silly movie however I thought that one of the final scenes when Papoca(?) was given the necklace and bracelet back went very well. I liked both the dialogue, “…return to your eternal rest”, as well as Papoca taking the items with trembling hands.
Any scene with Gene Hackman in Space Travelers. He’s good in anything.
The scene in DEVIL DOLL where Vorelli talks Hugo into killing Magda. “Hugo… she said you were ugly.” It’s a good scene, marred only by the fact that the guy in the Hugo costume doesn’t look a thing like the actual dummy.
Design for Dreaming is actually pretty impressive. A weird paid advertisement, sure, but the main characters are surprisingly accomplished dancers and give it their all. It’s also great for see how we all thought the future would be.
I came across a criminally underviewed annotated version looking this up, more pop-up Video than the official MST3k ones on YouTube, but still shows how much went into this thing on both sides.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFuArgdm0ZM
Seconding the Sandy scenes in Tormented.
I’m also a huge fan of Beverly Garland’s performance in It Conquered the World. She gets seriously badass near the end. If you ignore the ridiculous monster suit, her “I’ll see you in hell!” is not only striking, but pretty progressive considering how old the film is.
In “Marooned/Space Travelers” when one of the wives (I forget which one) is talking to her stranded husband, she keeps talking about paying the insurance bill. She’s trying to make everything sound so mundane and normal when they both know he’s probably going to die.
Also, in “The Brute Man” when the blind woman is talking so cheerfully and normally to the title character. Very “Beauty and the Beast” and especially sad because Rondo Hatton was so disfigured in real life.
The opening sequence of Final Justice isn’t too bad. I have to admit that I take some guilty pleasure in “You have the right to remain silent (*WHACK*) and all that other stuff.”
#5
I don’t remember that part from Pod People. Is it in the MST version?
In Touch of Satan, Melissa says “Those “good Christian people” were singing good Christian songs while burning my sister!” I thought that scene was pretty strong.
The astronaut in Phantom Planet floating away from his ship to drift aimlessly through space and began to pray, was chilling.
The girl who died at the end of Mole People when the pillar fell on her. I mean, geez, I thought she was going to get away from those weird people underground and begin a new life on Earth’s surface.
In ‘Terror from the Year 5000,’ I always thought the scene where Bob Hedges gets his Phi Beta Kappa key back from the future with a message on it was well-played and kind of chilling: “This is impossible! It says, ‘save us.’” For about 20 seconds it’s a gripping film. (Cool sound effects on the transporter too.)
The scene in Girl in Gold Boots when Buzz pours a beer all over one of the biker gang’s motorcycles. That was a good scene because if that happened in real life, soon Buzz would be lying motionless in a pool of his own grease.
Since Tormented has already been submitted and seconded (and thirded?), I will go with the finale in the train yard from “The Rebel Set”. I actually like this movie, because it has a Hitchcock-like plot: desperate characters manipulated into a no-win situation by someone who is not what he seems. It may not be actually suspenseful, but they tried.
When I saw the category today, the first thing I thought of was the movie Tormented, which many of you have already got to. In addition to the Sandy scenes, which are really great, I also thought Joe Turkel as the blackmailer was excellent.
I thought Michael Landon gave a good performance in I Was a Teenage Werewolf. He did a good job playing the “angry young man” without going too far over the top.
I’ve always been touched by the scene in Gamera v. Gaos when Itchy defends his Grandpa against an angry mob of villagers by throwing his toy planes. Itchy’s old and mobility-limited grandpa then goes to pick up the broken pieces of Itchy’s beloved toys. It show’s Itchy’s love for his Grandpa and vice-versa.
I’ve also always liked the scene in First Spaceship on Venus when the astronauts realize the aliens’ intentions. Their conversation on whether or not to tell the Earth, possibly creating panic, is actually quite nice. I feel that everyone has input and uses their particular talents to come to a team decision. … I think I just held and HR meeting.
Probably of all the MST films, I’d have to say Squirm is the hardest for me to watch, especially the scene with the thousands of worms flooding the bottom of the house. I find that genuinely creepy.
You will smile, but I have always found Lupita to be the same compelling emotional register as the little boy in “The bicycle Thief” – really winsome, I second the poster’s comments. In addition, the opening sequence in “Soul Taker” is actually pretty good in its use of intercutting and editing, the change in sound quality between the girl’s hi-fi and the boys cheapo radio for the soundtrack song was a good touch too. However, saying Zepplin was wrong!….
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank actually isn’t all that terrible, and I do like the scene where Fingal talks to the simulation of his strangely white mother.
FINGAL: Mom… you died a long time ago. I haven’t seen you fifteen years.
MOM: … Better late than never, sonny.
That particular moment is actually very sad and sweet – sad because Fingal misses his mother, and sweet from the affection she responds with.
I think Michael Pataki knew exactly what kind of movie he was making in “Sidehackers,” and spent most of his time on screen gobbling up scenery to the point where he’s a riot to watch. By the time he’s punching out his own goons and ranting “MY OWN FLESH I DON’T LOVE BETTAH!” you just know he’s gonna get the snot kicked out of him.
The entirety of Magic Voyage of Sinbad is visually stunning, but especially the part where they’re taking the bird of happiness.
Leonard Maltin, yes, actually DID like Gorgo, and watching the DVD featurette now, I can see why. It’s not great, but it’s earnest for a British monster picture, especially at the climax, and the windbag reporter’s narration.
And Bert I. Gordon may not have had as much experience with ghost stories, as, say, William Castle, but Tormented seems to be getting most of the votes for effective scenes on a low-budget–The wilting flowers of the wedding fiasco among them.
And since it hasn’t been mentioned, and Beverly Garland in ICTW has, I’ll bring up, “What is someone like Little Richard doing in ‘Catalina Caper’?”
I actually began to respect Bert I. a lot more as a filmmaker after watching the interview with him on the Tormented disc. He did the best he could with what he had.
In ‘Manos’ (Yes, I said ‘Manos’!) Tom Neyman ‘The Master’ really puts some effort into his scenes.
The spaceship dogfighting scenes in Space Mutiny are very well done. 8-)
The “Man is a feeling creature” monologue at the end of It Conquered the World is rather riveting, and you can tell the show’s writers thought so as well.
I’ve always liked the last scene in Time Chasers where Nick is walking up to the girl in the produce aisle. It’s a simple wide shot with just the two of them. It mirrors an earlier shot and since there’s no dialogue you’re left to fill in what happens. Probably just the romantic in me.
Since no one’s mentioned it yet, I’ll toss in the “Home… I haf no home…” speech Bela Lugosi gives in BRIDE OF THE MONSTER. It’s a ridiculous scene with preposterous lines but Bela’s giving it all he’s got and actually makes it somewhat poignant.
People will laugh, but I actually feel something in Eddy and Moonie’s final confrontation in “The Beatniks.” Moon’s completely oblivious to how messed up he is, and Eddy no longer has any patience for it. “Y’know somethin’, Moon…you’re so sick you don’t even know when you’re lyin’.” It’s a bit screwed up by the Meet-George-Jetson music towards the end, and maybe Tony Travis could have been a little less stiff, but in general I tend to get wrapped up in it whenever I see it.
It’s a pity Tom Pittman was killed so early in his life; he had potential to become a solid actor, as he gave “High School Big Shot” more than it deserved. I actually like the scene with him and the two criminals discussing what they’ll do with the money once they get it.
People rag on Vivian Schilling, but she really does a good job radiating terror in the scene with Martin Sheen’s bro in the elevator.
Apparently that was how it went in the script. They may have even filmed her going off to marry John Agar, I can’t remember, but they say the studio was uncomfortable showing what they felt was an “interacial” couple. (Even though the movie makes a huge deal out of her being the same skin color as our heroes…) I can’t imagine that even the most conservative ’50s audience would’ve even considered it, let alone objected. Maybe Universal just felt a downer ending would lend the movie more gravitas, like the stupid lecture prologue. Down, down, down… What a great way to start a movie. “You probably won’t enjoy this film, but you’re at least gonna learn something, dammit.”
@Goshzilla (#36)
Wait, so “marrying John Agar” wasn’t the downer ending?
I remember there was a scene in The Incredibly Strange Creatures that I thought stood out pretty well from the rest of the film. I forgot all that happens but I know one of the riffs was something to the effect of “He won’t fall asleep if you keep hitting him with the Steady Cam!”
I’ll agree with that; Gorgo is a movie I could easily see unriffed. The people not knowing they took a baby, then an angry mommy comes for revenge, is a cool idea that I’ve never really seen before. Well, except for in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, sort of, but Gorgo did it first and, in my opinion, better.
@39 – The whole Leonard Maltin gag in Gorgo only came about to try and defuse some of the Mike-fanatic fallout of the “Leonard Maltin gave it two-and-a-half stars” gag to fill end credit time in another movie. Not to mention Mike & Kevin tastefully beating the cult-of-name ref six miles into the ground with the end sketch about Maltin liking Roger Corman’s “The Undead”, which is…ALSO a pretty imaginative movie for what it is.
Originally, Charles B. Griffith, the “good” tongue-in-cheek Corman writer (who wrote Little Shop of Horrors and Death Race 2000) wanted to script all the medieval scenes in Shakespearean pentameter–Corman obviously dropped the idea, but for all the public-domain Corman-bashing, it’s still a clever entry with the other Griffith-written Cormans. (Yes, Digger Smolken is supposed to be funny.)
The Rebel Set always puts me in the mind of a crap version of Kubrick’s The Killing.
You’d have to ask Shirley Temple.
“The creature’s design was Corman’s idea. He thought that since the creature came from a big planet, it would be designed to deal with heavy gravity and be built low to the ground. Corman later admitted this was a mistake, saying the creature would have been more frightening if it was bigger or taller. When Beverly Garland first saw the creature, she commented, ‘THAT conquered the world?’ and kicked it over.” — Mark McGee’s Faster and Furiouser: The Revised and Fattened Fable of American International Pictures
That’s the one. I can’t believe there’s a scene THAT good in a movie THAT drabbed awful.
For my own selection, I venture out of MST3K-covered territory, and nominate the “Garbage Day!” killing spree from Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2. Sure, it’s got Hidden Car-Flip Ramp Out of Nowhere, and the little girl on her bike must be stone deaf, and there’s Eric Freeman, but a casual neighborhood shooting spree is so sadly plausible today and when Ricky turns back and looks at the kid (and us), the music and his creepy smile turn the poop in my bowels to ice.
I really like the detail in “Touch of Satan” that the Devil speaks in the voice of whoever he’s talking to.
I find the “drifting to his death” scene in Phantom Planet to be compelling, if only for the enormity of what is happening. It resonates with some of my own experiences.
They got good riffing and a great sketch out of it, but I quite like the vacuuming scene inf Merlin’s Shop Of Mystical Wonders; he knows the monkey is evil, but does the monkey know he knows, and if not, can he keep it from finding out? It actually has some good tension in it. In fact, I find the second half of the movie, the part recycled from The Devil’s Gift, to be much better than the first half.
Yes, it gets silly, but I don’t think Parts: The Clonus Horror is as bad as MST experiments can get. I daresay the story is actually intriguingly creepy. The scene where the main character comes back and gets lured in by his lobotomized girlfriend absolutely terrified me as a kid, and now actually makes me sad. And then the very last scene, with the clone’s dead body after Peter Graves gets questioned about Clonus, is a pretty good ending, if a completely downer one.
Wow, you’ve been adrift in space? Are you Sandra Bullock?
As cheesy as it is, I’m kind of interested in checking out the unMSTed version of Cave Dwellers, as well as seeing the movie it’s a sequel to. It seems like it has some interesting ideas.
How many giant tree puppet costumes had to be made for Jack Frost?
Richard getting bagged and Paulette Breen’s creepy lobotomy stare in PARTS.
The “pointer scene” in Deadly Mantis, explaining how the Doctor got from spur to deadly-giant-mantis – it was logical and delivered with reasoned passion.
And yeah, everything that’s already been said about Susan Gordon and Joe Turkel in Tormented.