Movie: (1987) A young boy, alerted by Bigfoot that his forest ranger father is in peril, travels to the woods to save him.
Opening: Gypsy is working on some overhead wiring and is dropping objects on J&tB. Crow tries to catch one and fails.
Invention exchange: Jonah uses a theramin for Thanksgiving music; the Mads have rotating Carvel Ice Cream characters.
Segment 1: The bots are laughing raccoons and Jonah is a laughing dad
Segment 2: Jonah explains how the movie got made
Segment 3: Brain Guy, Bobo and Pearl visit Kinga and Max
Closing: Crow & Tom, wearing a Red Hawk disguise, try to trick Max into giving them the keys to Jonah’s ship.
Stinger: Big game hunter guy chows down.
(59 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
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• Jonah explains that he is required to act out the show open each time. I have to say I don’t really get it, but then I don’t really get the whole “liquid video” thing.
• This episode features the first appearance of Rebecca Hanson as Synthia, the clone of Pearl. She was a big hit during the 2017 live tour.
• Interesting riff: “This looks like a state park.” In the ACEG, Mary Jo denigrated this very type of riff. Did Joel and the writing team know that?
• There is a long quiet space of no riffing during Red Hawk’s monolog
• Increasingly obscure riff: “I also have dental practice in Minnesota.”
• Callbacks: “Rowsdower?” (Final Sacrifice), a mention of an interociter (This Island Earth).
• This film shares a writer and several cast members with the 1977 Brigham Young biopic “Brigham.”
• The film was Jay Schlossberg-Cohen’s only full feature. According to his website, he once served as director of the Maryland Film Commission and now works as a fine artist.
• Puppeteer Grant Baciocco shared a story about a connection to Cry Wilderness on the MST3K Discussion Board:
“When we were filming this, I instantly realized that the cinematographer listed in the credits lived upstairs from me in my first apartment. By chance, I saw him walking down the street a couple months ago and told him they’d be riffing this film and he flipped out. He said, “I didn’t think anybody remembered that film.” He said it was the first project he worked on in Hollywood and the whole crew thought that the director was going to be the next Spielberg … until they started filming.
Grant also revealed he was Kevin’s virtual hands in the grooming of Patton.
• Fave riff: “Wikipedia, the print edition, at last.” Honorable mention: “Let’s head out to supercuts, son. I’m buyin.’”
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This reminds me of Servo’s line over the flyby of gorgeous Vermont foliage in Time Chasers: Great scenery, crappy movie. (I might have gotten that slightly wrong, but it’s the basic sentiment in the line.)
Sounds like Cry Wilderness is much the same. Another parallel to past seasons!
Haven’t seen the Season 11 eps yet (no Netflix, sadly). But these Season 11 ep guide draft discussions do make for interesting comparisons to past episodes. Nice to see an eclectic mix of movies.
Not that the SciFi era was boring with its focus on sci-fi. But a broader mix of genres means a broader potential new and renewed fanbase. Come for the crazy movie you once caught, stay for the riffing and the heart.
After seeing this, I have a better appreciation for Charles B. Pierce’s much more effective and convincing Bigfoot. The riffing is too fast at times, as others have mentioned, but it’s still NEW MST3K! If only the tiger had gotten hold of Mr. Raccoon-strangler…then I’d bump up the movie’s rating.
The Run DMC bit, closely followed by the cursed bear plate, is the hardest I’ve laughed at a riff in a looooooong time.
Yes. I was flabbergasted when they went from snowy forest in one scene to green forest in the next scene to literally what looked like the American Soutwest in the next with the tiger going into the ghost town/mine. Just another example of the movie’s sheer insanity.
Joel said in an interview that two of the movies they did in Season 11 made him genuinely upset. I’m certain that this is one of them. The loathsome hunter strangling the raccoon for real is a disturbing moment in an otherwise baffling-but-harmless movie.
I haven’t been this angry with a MSTed film’s characters since Project Moonbase (they’re probably the only characters to act more juvenile than Paul). Everything about this asshole kid pisses me off. His disobedience, his racism, his insistence that everyone HAS to listen to him despite proof or logic (heck, what WAS the deal with that bigfoot that appeared outside the window and spoke perfect English?), there is NOTHING redeemable about the kid himself except that he lends to some terrific riffing.
1112 has to be the other. All the social media buzz was declaring this movie the worst of the season (and by the inverse ratio of movie to episode, the best episode of the season), but I think that’s because they haven’t seen the whole season yet. That said, this episode made me want to punch any prepubscent kids named Paul.
Huh, whaddya know. I thought it looked like it was the CA Sierras.
The new crew made a Top 10 of all time classic with their second episode! Everything works. I laughed so hard I cried.
The only thing I could complain about is the scifi era mads cameo.. Uninspired and I still hate Bobo.
This is the best movie riffing release by anyone since MST3K’s werewolf episode.
What really threw me off was when they had a mountainous background, and dubbed in the bird call of a loon. I don’t know much about bird calls, but being from Minnesota, I know that loons don’t live in the mountains.
Some random notes, considering various elements of the film:
-In addition to the surprise of having an Academy Award-winning screenwriter writing this, one of the producers won an Academy Award for editing- something that clearly was not applied to this.
-As noted earlier, it’s hard to take a film concerning the majestic wildlife seriously when you can see that half the animals in this are tied down with string.
-Paul, Paul, Paul. A case where a combination of a character that is really poorly written (basically, the sort of stuff you’d see in a child character meant to be obnoxious, only he’s our hero for some reason) and an actor whose performance is poor even by the standards of child actors makes someone utterly unbearable, and utterly fun to mock.
-Some sources claim that the performer playing the vet was married to Philip Yordan. It’s alarmingly plausible that this wasn’t a role hired on the basis of acting talent.
-On the one hand, the forest becoming the desert rapidly actually makes sense in the part of California it was filmed in- but the other lack of any sense of a real place doesn’t help any.
-While on the subject of location shooting: Is it just me, or did the early scenes seem to have been shot in Balboa Park in San Diego?
-Anyone have any idea what was cut? Apparently this was somewhat longer than the print shown, and it feels disjointed enough to suspect the possibility of cuts in a lot of places.
-On a similar line, anyone here familiar with the other late works of Philip Yordan’s career? What details I can find seem to suggest that a lot of them would make similarly interesting targets.
-Overall, the riffing for this showed clear improvement on Reptilicus- still some issues involving timing, but showing a better mastery than, say, the first national season, or even some of the early Sci-Fi episodes. This is the point where they confirmed that, yes, they have a grasp on it, and making one hope to see them further develop in future seasons. If you haven’t been able to see it, please do- I’d say your reaction to it should largely summarize what you feel about the season as a whole.
As for Jonah being forced to do the open every week since Kingachrome doesn’t record, this may lead to something if a season 12 is approved. If Jonah’s still “dead” when the season starts, Max would be forced to be the test subject. I suspect he’d do it for two shows, then decide he won’t recreate the open and shove Kinga into the SOL. Eventually they both get shoved into the ship thanks to the fed-up Skeleton Crew. Then Jonah would come back under improved conditions.
That reminds me, the little arsonist who gets Marysville wiped out in The Swarm is named Paul. …C’mon, Season Twelve, riff us some Irwin Allen!!
Thanks for the spoiler…
Manos: The Hands of Fate does a better job of impersonating a real movie than this. It’s like someone brought a camera on a camping trip, spliced in some stock footage and padded it out with some additional shots of a gorilla suit and a school and tried to pass it off as a movie. Did this ostensible movie ever show in a theater, aside from one showing in one theater owned by the director’s brother in law? If an hour and a half of exposed film is all it takes to qualify as being a movie then I suppose Cry Wilderness is a movie.
Yeah it really looks like the “school” setting is Balboa Park in San Diego. I believe the museum where Paul stares up at the replica Bigfoot is The Museum of Man in Balboa Park as well. My wife and I were down there about three years ago and I recognized some of the exhibits in the background of the shot. I’d love to hear the conversation convincing whoever needed to be convinced that a Bigfoot lumbering around at night in Balboa Park would bring in the tourists. :)
better than reptilicus but still not to my liking. a couple of cute jokes early on (they name dropped zach galifianakis at the beginning in the museum but it should’ve been when paul’s dad showed up. guy was a spitting image of ol’ galifianaf*k), but the only time i actually laughed was when crow made the observation about the song at the end (“so ‘give up'” or whatever he said). that “BANG” running gag that a lot of people really seem to love was awful and really forced. like it felt completely disconnected and was said way too many times to be effective, i hated it.
This movie is SO 1970s: back then, grade-z films cynically used counter-culture tropes like blunt instruments in an effort to appear “hip”. So, “Cry Wilderness” gives us a “cool” kid who’s wiser than all the adults and In Tune With Nature; he hangs out with Cool Adults Who Really Get It, but he’s smarter than they are, too, so he has to save them … ; … from Bad Guys who are walking caricatures of machismo and corporate corruption; oh, and then there is a stereotypical Native American wise man In Touch With Nature who is the only one worthy to bond with the “cool” kid (plus, he’s a ghost, which proves he’s really into New Age spirituality). Slop like this came out every week back in the day, and it made me want to cut my hair, eat lots of red meat, and strew garbage all around the forest preserve. You have no idea how exhilarating it was for me to see Jonah and the ‘bots rip ’em a new one in Episode 1102!
I’ve watched five episodes in the reboot so far, and I’m very happy with what they’re doing. I love Jonah, and am getting comfortable with Crow, Servo and Gypsy 3.0. Love the new mads, too, but they aren’t getting enough to do: Felicia and Patton are too talented to just stand stiffly side-by-side so much. In the end, though, I’m just overjoyed to be watching brand-new MST’s again!
I thought that was disturbing too. I’ve never before seen a real animal in a movie treated like that.
No, the Sunn Classic Grizzly Adams and Wilderness Orphan movies that came out in the 70’s were the early “Mollywood” industry, where Mormon film companies wanted to set up their own “family-values” studios in Salt Lake City, doing Biblical epics and scenic-Utah-wilderness adventures. (And the Donny & Marie show.)
This is California, so this would be the late 80’s, right at the end of the B-movie days (and after “Harry & The Hendersons”) when post-E.T. Kid-meets-Bigfoot movies stopped playing small theaters and started going direct to Blockbuster…Sort of the evolutionary missing link between the Grizzly Adams movie and the Talking-Dog video.
Just how we got the “mysticism” nonsense in it, with psychic links and magic pager-medallions, was the kids’-direct-video need to install a sense of Magical Wonder on the cover, not unlike Merlin’s shop.
Okay, I’ll bring it up. Did the show get a product placement/mention kickback from Supercuts?
Just as an aside, I’m hoping that in future seasons they keep going back to the Bigfoot movie well. This and “Boggy Creek II” have just scratched the surface. There’s a LOT of awful Bigfoot movies. Hell, if they want a prime example, I’d suggest 1979’s “The Capture of Bigfoot,” which (a) rips off “Jaws” right down to the “evil authority figure puts profits over lives” subplot and (b) is directed by our old friend Bill Rebane (“Giant Spider Invasion”, “Monster A-Go-Go).
FTW I was at a con this weekend and this has been my first chance to respond.
Cry Wilderness fails the Bechdel Test. Helen and the mayor’s good time gal are the only female characters, and they don’t so much as share scene.
Possibly the real reason Kinga has the opening sequence reenacted every episode is because she enjoys treating Jonah like a bank deposit slip.
While Paul insisting to his ridiculously cantankerous teacher that Bigfoot was real is obnoxious, threatening him with expulsion over it seems rather extreme.
So are the actors portraying Jim and Red Hawk of genuine Native descent? IMDB didn’t offer anything concrete.
It’s nice to see that Pearl is just as callous to Kinga as she is to her son.
@ #20: Technically Jim Mallon was with the show just as long as Kevin. He just got less involved in the creative end during the Sci Fi years. Also, the line you referenced was, “Still think I shouldn’t play with dolls, DAD?!”
@ #30: Or you could say Max like everyone else. :P Also I think this movie came out at the same time as New Coke.
PLEASE, let’s not discuss the later episodes in these threads! I’ve avoided spoilers this long, I kind of want the surprise! We’ll get to those in a few weeks, until then, let’s just talk about one at a time. I don’t want to know what happens later in the season yet!
(over on the ForrestCrow boards, there’s a thread for each new episode. So if you gotta talk about them now (and I get it, it is exciting, and you want to discuss), those boards are your best friend!
BTW, this one is awesome! A bit disturbing in parts, but overall another instant classic.
The Carvel gags in this episode and the last one seem inspired by a bit from Patton Oswalt in the early aughts about Tom Carvel’s gravel-voiced commercial voice-overs and the “one pan” that Carvel would rotate to produce “different” cakes. “Feelin’ Kinda Patton” is the album, if you’re curious–NSFW language and content throughout.
Gotcha. I think, though, that we may both right: you’re right in the specific history of this film and others like it, while I’m right in connecting it with the ’70s-era counter-culture rip-off dreck with which it is generically~generally similar. Kind of like Billy Jack with noxious kid and lots of cute critters that don’t really want to be there.
No no no no,
he’s outside,
looking in …
So this episode had a reference to my other favorite show, “Entourage.” (as you may have noticed by my handle…)
Crow asks why the Entourage movie was made. I have an answer. Same reason MST3K got season 11, it was for the fans. For someone like me, the Entourage movie was the perfect love letter to die-hard fans of the show. It’s still my favorite movie of 2015.
Very awesome to hear a reference to Entourage on the new MST3K. Kind of mind-blowing.
Not sure why all the fan boy love for this one — I’d rate it a solid six for sure (out of ten) but not as good as they will get later on (so better than the first, although this one doesn’t have the epic song of the first one).
The movie isn’t as much of a hot mess as folks seem to think, either — they make good use of some animal footage but also some real animals in it (so overall the FX are much better than Reptilicus).
I would not at all compare this to some of the classic MST3K, even those which superficially resemble it.
…You lost me.
Making him travel through the chute every time back and forth, like if you’re using one of the drive-up teller windows at a bank, but not the one closest to the building.
Good thing they weren’t inspired by Piss Drinkers. If they decide to, however, then they MUST tackle Waterworld. It just makes perfect sense.
MST3K Tomfoolery Level: over 9000!
Well, the whole “subjectivity” thing aside, I think part of it is that you’re probably in the minority as to how much that movie is a hot mess. It’s a *hot mess*. I wouldn’t compare it to classic MST3K either, but it’s pretty darn close!
lol don’t watch crocodile
The guy playing Sheriff Joe Fuzz is the late Tony Giorgio, very well known Vegas gambling expert/card magician.
They’re in sort of a middle ground, where they want to make mischief on the movie, but are stuck with a generation of new writers raised on the SciFi years of just fetishizing HOW strange the movie is, by chanting actors/characters’ names and catchphrases from it to reproduce the experience.
Still, I’ll give the new season points for intent, and expect that the riffing may sort itself out with a little practice by next season.
I sort of put S11 in the same category as Curly Joe of the later Stooges: He’ll never be THE Curly, but he’s not Joe Besser either, so we just give him credit for trying to play the role of the original.
#70: I’m impressed. I thought this was a 70’s movie. Being an 80’s film makes the racism and animal cruelty even worse since these things were far more socially unacceptable in the late 80’s and thus can’t be dismissed as artifacts of a less enlightened age as much.
EricJ, the depth and breadth of your knowledge is impressive. Posts such as the one above are not only a pleasure to read but so different in tone and substance from your other kind of posts that I’m sure that I’m not the only person here who has wondered if there are two different people that post here under the same name. The EricJ that is present in this thread could easily be one of our best and most liked regulars if it wasn’t for that other guy that keeps giving your name such a bad name around here. Peace.
Yeah, that’s a good way of putting it (and, yes folks, I know that agreeing with EricJ doesn’t make me one of the cool kids here, but while he’s definitely prejudiced for Joel the more I study MST3K the more I think he’s right about Mike not being as good. And I used to think Mike was the best).
DW and I are five episodes in so we see improvement, but I am now doubtful this will ever rise to “classic” levels. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. One thing I will say is there is a charm to these that kind of reminds me of those earnest fans who labor to make “Star Trek” sequels on their own. You can tell everyone involved really loves MST3K and wants to do it right, even if they don’t *quite* get there.
This film was definitely a mess, with one of the biggest problems having to do with the failure to properly set up the basic premise of Paul befriending Bigfoot and receiving the amulet. This is a big example of the importance of “show, don’t tell”, as the film really needed to have a scene (be it a prologue or a flashback) of this incident happening.
By negating this scene to just some exposition at the start of the film (and a huge hints when the group arrives at the place where Bigfoot is living), it, along with other key characters showing up without any set-up, makes the film feel disjointed, causing first-time viewers to feel like their missing some major details (i.e. they may think that this film is a sequel to a film that they don’t even know about).
Brother, this movie is a SUPERHOT mess. It is, structurally speaking, completely wrong – Paul’s backstory with the yeti or whatever it was should have been the movie, not some tossed off bit of exposition (I’m not arguing it would have made a GOOD movie, since I think it’s a dumb premise – but it would at least have had the functional dramatic structure necessary for a competent story.
One additional thought: does the final sketch remind anyone else of the “TV’s Frank Shopping Network” bit from Being from Another Planet (in particular, the attempt by the ‘Bots to trick the assistant of a Forrester to bring the SOL out of orbit)?
Oh my, do I have some DELIGHTFUL Italian cannibal movies to show you…
Alien from LA was a sequel?
But yeah, I spent more than enough time trying to research the film that precedes Cry Wilderness. Methinks a prequel film is in order.
@ #81: You kids with your loud music and your hula hoops and your online banking. As noted in Post #82, I was alluding to the vacuum tubes used in the outer lanes of bank drive thrus.
Yyyep: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097630 That’s how we were supposed to know Kathy, like we were already supposed to know Paul.
Never finished/released, though, because of Cannon’s ’88 studio/budget troubles, so AfLA went out on its own and Journey was later reassembled for video, so not sure which one was trying to quasi-sequelize the other.
lol. I do know what a bank deposit slip is, I’ve just never used one other than by walking into a bank and filling it out with that pen on a ball chain. I’ve seen drive-thru ATMs but never used one. Makes (some) sense now.
Huh…well how about that? Y’know, any filmmakers who deride MST3K for mocking movies and the like should realize that moments like these prove the show gives these films more attention than they ever would have. Manos: The Hands of Fate is the poster child for this, but holy cow! I never would have known.