Movie: (1971) An aimless young man encounters a rural family that seems to have some secrets.
First shown: 7/11/98
Opening: The bots seek wassail from Mike
Intro: Mike finds a wassail loophole; Steffi the babysitter is left in charge
Host segment 1: Mike learns that walnut ranching is hard work
Host segment 2: Crow tries a test to see if he’s a witch
Host segment 3: Grandma Servo attacks
End: Crow sells his soul to Stan; storytime with Steffi
Stinger: “This is where the fish lives.”
(295 votes, average: 4.52 out of 5)
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• This is a pretty unremarkable and meandering movie, and it’s one of those episode that I remembered as being kind of dreary and not terribly funny, but on rewatching it I found myself laughing quite a bit. The segments are mostly the usual random silliness, but of course they are livened by the appearance of the totally awesome (and deadly) Beez.
• Paul, who at this time was doing a lot of the writeups, offers his thoughts.
• References.
• This ep was included in Rhino’s The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. 5
• The movie is directed by a guy named Don Henderson. The director and star of the movie “Billy Jack,” Tom Laughlin, occasionally used the pseudonym Don Henderson. Because that, a number of MSTies, including our own Daddy-O, became convinced that Laughlin was the director of this. I was never convinced, and more than a little uneasy about his claims, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Laughlin passed away a couple of weeks ago and I scoured the obituaries about him and found zero evidence to back up this belief. We have removed any reference to it in the page for this episode in Daddy-O’s Drive-in Dirt.
• On the Rhino DVD, Mike does a little introduction and calls it “A Touch of Satan,” and makes a little riff on that. But it’s THE Touch of Satan. Kinda ruins the joke.
• Beez’s stint as Steffi the babysitter had a huge reaction from fans, especially young male ones. There was much hopeful conversation about whether she would be a permanent cast member.
• You sometimes wonder what sparks a segment. How did “wassail” come up?
• In segment 2, Mike climbs a ladder and we can see that he is wearing some pretty fruity sandals, if you ask me.
• Several shots of flowery meadows sparks an attack of Tom’s hay fever. Kind of reminds me of when Josh sneezed in the theater back in season one.
• Callbacks: “Stay!” (The Undead) and “You been hittin’ the BOOZE again!” (Giant Spider Invasion).
• In segment 3, Mike, who last week was reading “Bleak House,” is this week reading Henry Kissinger’s “Years of Upheaval.” Where is he getting these books?
• That’s Paul as the voice of Stan Johnson.
• Cast and crew roundup: Special effects guy Steve Karkus also worked on “Parts: The Clonus Horror.” Makeup guy Joe Blasco also worked on “Parts: The Clonus Horror,” and did special effects for “Track of the Moon Beast.” In front of the camera, Robert Easton was also in “The Giant Spider Invasion” and did voices for “Invaders from the Deep.”
• CreditsWatch: Directed by Kevin. This was Dan Breyer’s and Scott Bowman’s last episode as interns, and Nick Prueher’s first.
• Fave riff: “Get off the road, mangoat!” Honorable mention: “I sure hope he said peanuts.”
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Who is Beez and how come everyone seems to know who she is but me? :x
Beth “Beez” McKeever – she was Magic Voice & “prop diva” in the Sci-fi seasons.
“The theology of this movie is confusing. As I pointed out in last weekend’s discussion, Satan’s voice changes gender, it’s never clear why Melissa’s grandma-sister is so long-lived when it was Melissa was the witch. (Or were the townspeople right and the sister was a witch?) Why did doing the nasty with Melissa cause her to show her true age?”
The Satan’s voice changing thing is one of the better aspects of the movie. The voice is that of the actor/actress talking to him adding a very creepy aspect to it.
And the true age showing at that point, I assumed, was because she killed her sister. The timing of it was to coincide with giving Jodie a reason to sell his soul.
I’m with Sampo on this one. The first time I watched it on tv I caught after it started and it didn’t catch my attention. I watched it again later and was immediately hooked with the “sight see on your own time beelezebub” and “get off the road mangoat” but I did an actual spit take when crow says “I sure hope he said peanuts”. Horrid movie excellent episode. :lol:
I think Melissa aged-up because she had given herself to Jodie in an act of true love, breaking her commitment to Satan. The old fairy tell bit of true love breaking the spell. At that point Satan is no longer held to his end of the bargain and she goes all elderly on us.
Oh, cool, thanks. She’s a cutie!
Boy, now I’m hungry for some CARNATION ICE CREAM! This is one of those eps that I wouldn’t count as one of my favorites, then I watch it and I laugh out loud. For some reason, it just doesn’t stick in my memory, though that may be a self-defense mechanism at work trying to get the imagery of our two leads going at it at the end of the movie. Love how Observer continues to be stripped of all dignity even though he is arguably the most intelligent character on the show. The delivery on “not because I have to, but because I WANT to” kills me every time.
I actually saw this movie on Shock Theater as a kid. The part where the farmer is killed was terrifying! I don’t remember much more so maybe I was too scared to watch the rest.
This is an enjoyable episode for me. I’ve grown to like it more with each viewing, but the slow pace of the movie keeps it from really hitting the highest marks. Still the pauses seem tailor made for riffing and Mike and bots do a great job with it. Slow movies take a lot of energy in the riffing to keep them interesting and I think they did a great job with it. I give it four fish out of five.
Check out my full review here by clicking on my name.
“One of the episodes that makes me think the Brains are of the school of thought that confuses witchcraft and related pagan religions with Satanic beliefs and practices. Blah blah blah…”
They’re not taking my watered-down Crowleyism seriously! They must be fundie Bible-thumpers! Uh-huh.
This episode peaks early for me. I’m a Rush fan so the squeaky rendition of “The Trees” cracked me up but I don’t remember many laughs afterward. I don’t remember even finishing this one, actually.
What’s a “prop diva”? :???:
I agree with #54 about the opening scene where the farmer is killed. Really frightening and very effective. The unseen killer, the hand that lunges in to grab the doll (MAMA!), it all works really well…except they really could have held the suspense a bit longer instead of having Gramma Kramer falling through the screen door immediately after. Sort of just whizzes the creepiness down the film’s leg, for me anyway. I do also find the scene with the cop getting killed IMMENSELY creepy. I didn’t notice the first few viewings just how long Gramma is there lurking behind the tree…
I had always understood that Tom Laughlin of Billy Jack fame directed this movie under an alias. That is right, isn’t it?
“This is where MY TONGUE lives!”
If I may be so bold, Sampo, I have a suggestion for a weekend topic. MST3K did so many “horror” movies that were anything but. However, was there ever a movie that actually creeped you out a bit? Maybe not full-throttle horrified you, but definitely gave you the shivers at some parts?
This was one of those movies for me. As hilarious as it is, certain scenes from this movie gave me the heebie-jeebies, and I don’t even scare that easily. Lucinda the Grandma is seriously freaky. (“I haven’t been this upset since McKinley went down!”) The “Satanic credits” at the end that rewound themselves kinda creeped me out; I don’t blame Mike and the Bots a bit for running out of there. But the REALLY scary part for me was when the cop is on his CB, and the grandma sneaks up behind him and kills him. What’s unsettling is that you can actually see her in the distance over his shoulder when he’s making his call, and she sneaks up on him and asdfdsafdsfads it creeped me out. Even the opening theme on the DVD is sort of foreboding.
Servo’s grandma, on the other hand, is ADORABLE. (“Isn’t she spry?”)
Oh, and random trivia: .za is the Internet country code domain name for South Africa. (Kind of like .uk for the United Kingdom and .fr for France.) And as I learned from my friend’s Scrabble-addicted mom, “za” is also a word that you can use in Scrabble; it means “pizza.” So remember that, the next time you’re deadlocked in Scrabble!
Other good lines: a bunch mentioned here, especially “I love the yelling channel!”, “I sure hope he said peanuts,” and “What do you get when you fall from grace…”, not to mention the rest of the opening drive. I also liked “Kramer Grandma!” and another line from the opening credits, “Well he must be Satan, he didn’t signal his left turn!”
Although The Touch of Satan is a ‘bad touch’, it’s a pretty decent episode. The movie, what the hell? That’s all I have to say about that. The host segments were good, lots of fun stuff going on there, especially with Beez as Steffi. She’s always a lot of fun.
“Touch Conners of Satan.” How’d they miss that one?
Zaa!
Boing!
Adjka!
Staaaaaaaaaaay!
Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep!
And it just goes on like that.
monoceros4 says:
March 11, 2010 at 3:12 pm
“They’re not taking my watered-down Crowleyism seriously! They must be fundie Bible-thumpers! Uh-huh.”
+ 10 points for having an idea who Aleister Crowley was.
– 5 points for not quite understanding my previous post.
Look, MST3K Mantra aside, there are multiple episodes featuring what can be construed as a fundamentalist attitude towards this subject on their parts. However, my intention was not to accuse the Brains of being such or put them down for it; but to express my hopes that they really are not and let it go. Afterall, despite the initial annoyance I feel when the subject is brought up in an episode it in no way detracts from my love for them and all that they have done. All I’m looking for in them and others(thanks touches no one’s life, then leaves: Post #19) is a better understanding.
Explanation ends.
Oh, just remembered possibly my favorite part of the movie!
Melissa: “Would you like to come and see it?”
Jodie: ” …the ranch? Why?”
Mike, quietly: “Smooth.”
I also really enjoy this episode and gave it 4 stars up top. Many of the great riffs have already been mentioned, but the one that always floors me is:
“Walnut ranch?…How many head?”
This is the first time in weeks I didn’t rewatch the episode before our disscussions, so the quote may be paraphrased.
I’ve always been thankful that this was a Rhino release so that we get easy to navigate chapter selections, because this episode contains my favorite host segments (not counting the perplexing wassail nonsense).
Brain Guy and Bobo’s reactions to Beez as Steffi are hilarious. “Brian”, “Cow” and “No chew!” are just classic bits. I never realized until that other poster mentioned it, but the absence of Pearl really upped the comedy levels (no disrespect to Mary Jo). Bobo and Brain Guy sending films might have been much more enjoyable.
But truly it is Servo’s Grandma that sends me into hysterics. The weak pokes with the pitchfork, the incoherent mumbling, her designation as the “Grandma that kills people”. The portrayal of her behavior as a minor nuisance just puts it over the top.
So much fun.
I’m glad you mentioned the intro, cuz, yeah, that bugs me, too. I think it’s the only one of these little intros I always skip. But that’s a minor quibble. I really love this episode. The riffing, the host segs; heck I even kinda like the movie itself.
Fave riff:
> “What brings you out here?”
“And if you say, ‘My squad car’, I’ll chainsaw you in half.”
The host segments are hilarious, and Beez is terrific. The movie is almost impossible to get through, and this is another one where I’m assuming people fawn over it because it’s a relatively newer movie, and they haven’t seen the CC episodes for comparison.
I LOVE this ep!
For me, the is the “Manos” of the Sci-Fi years. I watch it over and over, head falling off every time.
The movie is icky and evil in a “Manos”-y way, and the riffing hits the bullseye again and again.
Flies high on the MST freak flag.
#34 Melissa and the fish became lovers and he sold his soul to the devil. When they broke up he moved to Florida, changed his name to Devil Fish and was hunted down by Europeans pretending to be Americans.
Ah, The Touch of Satan…one of the first episodes I ever remember seeing as a kid, and it’s still, usually, the first one I show to my friends who are new to MST (and it always wins them over. I had one friend who went around the rest of the day Zaaa!ing everybody). I’d probably rank it in my top 5 favorite episodes.
The movie is dull and poorly acted with a baffling plot, but for whatever reason, it’s not that hard to watch. I always appreciate it when the audio, film print, etc. is clear. This makes it a lot less of a chore trying to follow the movie. Note- at the end, I’m a little confused as to why Mellisa turns old. I know the Devil tricked her, she says he cheated her (prompting Mike’s “Man, if you can’t trust the devil!…”) She thought if she could find someone to love her…meh, never mind, I don’t feel like figuring out this plot.
But it’s not really the movie that I’m interested in, of course. The riffing in this episode is top notch.
The last days of Edgar Winter.
Odd, disturbing score co-written by Mike Post and Igor Stravinsky.
I think it’s Tony Musante as a kind of hip Satan that solves crimes.
Well, the plot isn’t gonna unfold itself!
Oh, bosh!
Oh, Hieronymous!
And the host segments are pretty good too! I am not the biggest fan of sci-fi era host segments, but the wassail bit killed me. Mainly because my friends and I already had some in jokes about wassail.
Oddly, I don’t remember the other host segments in this episode that well. I don’t know if that means they weren’t memorable because I didn’t like them, or what. But now I really want to go watch this one again – it’s been a while!
All in all – like I said – this is one of my favorites.
I made Wassail this past Christmas in tribute to the episode. It was in no means skunky.
I’ll agree that this is an episode that kind of sneaks into your favorites list. It’s kind of odd how this has held up and gotten stronger with repeat viewings, while Puma Man has gone down in my rankings. It’s the quiet, less obvious films that stand the test of time.
As I understand it, the Stricklands are the grandchildren of Jodi or an unseen sibling of Jodi. It’s never explained, but that’s the only reason I can think of that they’d play this role. It’s the dirty little family secret that they house two witches.
“No madam, I am not cranky; I am overtired.”
The “Green Eggs & Ham” bit is one of the funniest host segments I can think of. Cracks me up every time. Brain Guy’s best moment.
I love this episode. “This is where my TONGUE lives.”
And I also always appreciated the wassail song, with the legalese lyrics.
Semi-obscure Monty Python reference: “Melissa ‘Two Sheds’ Strickland” and “I guess now she’s Melissa ‘No Sheds’ Strickland”.
One of my favorite riffs:
“Uh… uh… we was just uh… burnin’ the uh… uh… YOU tell him!”
@ #6 (fellow car-nut, I presume?) …the ‘Grabber’ edition Maverick was pretty cool in the 70’s, prices are climbing on that car now.
I may be a poor judge of ‘cool’. I’m posting online to a cancelled ‘puppet show’.
I do know I love the Screwtape & Wormwood reference early on during the opening credits. I always laugh at something new on this ep.
So, how many head o’ walnut do you have?
My prize walnut died today.
If you’re lucky, you can help calve a walnut!
Great episode. One thing that really struck me was how really terrible the print they had was. There’s dirt and scratches all over it, and of course the bit during the aborted end credits where it suddenly runs backwards for a second. Satan’s evil must have been causing the film to deteriorate.
Our male lead here was in desperate need of Chinderwear. He could probably get crumbs caught in his chin-cleft.
When Jodie is looking at the bookshelf, Servo says “there’s a copy of the NecroMONicon,” mispronouncing NecroNOMicon. It isn’t a real book anyway, but still. Ah, well.
Melissa is actually kind of cute, sort of a rarity in MSTed movies, but far better is The Deadly Beez as Steffi. Saaay!
Robert Easton shows his facility with dialects and accents again. There were a lot of movies in the MST canon that could have used his input as a coach (The Atomic Brain leaps to mind.) He was memorable as the Klingon judge in Star Trek VI. When that guy sentences you, he damn well means it (even if you get out of prison because you’re the heroes.)
I, too, loved this episode. I actually didn’t think this movie was all that bad, even though Servo thought someone dropped a grape Nehi on it. And Emby Mellay is cute!
I also liked that Jody drove a Maverick. I was born in ’76, and one of our cars was a blue four-door 1974 Maverick.
Really really really love this episode. Up to now I haven’t shared a “grew on me” experience with the MSTies on this site, but THE TOUCH OF SATAN did just that with me. One of the great Sci Fi-era episodes. Though I tend to prefer the CC era over the SciFi era, this episode is part of the most solid all-around MST box set.
So many great riffs in this one, but my favorites are those involving “Grandma Kramer” Lucinda:
“Good day today; took a walk, got that dress sewn. Killed.”
“I suppose you’re gonna blame this on me!”
“I prefer the left side of the bed.”
Usually the movie itself doesn’t make much of a difference to me as long as the riffing is good, but there is something really watchable about this horrid piece of crap film. The story, while preposterous and full of holes, is oddly compelling.
And what happened to Emby Mellay? She obviously didn’t have a lick of acting skill, but you’d think with her looks and a handle like that she’d at least have a few hits on Google that weren’t related to TTOS/MST3K.
Great ep!
Fave riff: “Man, the walnuts are tearing through the hay!” In fact, I loved all the walnut ranch jokes. “How many head of walnut do you have?” “Look out! Walnut stampede!”
My parents were both philosophy majors and my dad taught philosophy for 2 years at Fullerton. This background gives me a keen apreciation for absurd logic (anything I don’t believe exists doesn’t) and goofy theology, like in Soultaker, Pumaman, and this movie. I got the impression that this was intended to be a pagan movie and someone in marketing slapped satan on the title either because they didn’t understand the difference between paganism and satanism, or they figured the audiance would be more likely to go see a satan movie than a pagan one.
Gorgo Mormo 1000 faced moon is a pagan thing. But the christians often took pagan gods ands recast them as demons (Ishtar to Astaroth, Pan into a cloven hoofed devil), so maybe the filmaker was himself continuing a previous confusion/conflation of dieties. Gorgo Mormo is never identified directly as satan, and I’m not sure the name satan is ever even mentioned outside of the title.
I always was unclear what Gorgo even wanted from the bargain. “Recognize me”? What? In a line up? Diplomaticly? Why the brunette and her parents(?) didn’t age but her sister did never made sense. Or why she killed her sister after saving her and making her live as a horribly burned rotting homicidal prune for more than a century. I think this movie was made by one of a breed of passionate ignorant monotheists who don’t understand their own religeon let alone others.
#72 I agree. This is way up there on the icky scale. I’ve found that I can’t eat certain foods while watching certain episodes of MST3K just because movies like this make my stomach crawl. Manos is probably the only ickier one in my book ( I can’t drink soda crackers and Sprite during Manos)
I really enjoy this movie+episode, but i didn’t see it until it came out on DVD. After a while i realized the Brain Guy/Steffi interaction really reminded me of Stewie on ‘Family Guy’; and was several years ahead of its time! Very good.
Another question I have about the deal-with-the-devil is why was Lucinda killing people? Were they more blood sacrifices to keep the sisters alive? Or are they random acts of madness? The cop killing seemed to be to keep the authorities off her trail, but it really only raises more attention to the ranch. She repeatedly says “No” to Melissa, as if she wants to prevent Jodie from becoming ensnared in the curse, but her craziness makes things worse for him. Lucinda was scarred by the witch-burning but is kept alive, in an aging body. Melissa got to keep her looks, and though cursed, seems OK with it.
Maybe Lucinda has been “acting out” in order to force Melissa to finally free her from the deal that she got the bad end of.
I agree with Medium’s theory @ #31: the “parents” were actually offspring of Melissa. Or victims, like Jodie.
And I disagree with Mike’s theory @ #71: I have watched every episode of this show, start to finish, a number of times, and my love for this episode has only increased over the years.
Kevin – No one I knew ever bought anything there because the mark up was something like 50 percent higher than the supermarket in Solvang. The little store in the movie was actually run by two Native American Lesbians, believe it or not.
“Pretty car.”
“Mind if I skip rocks across it?”
Maybe I just have a soft spot for this early-Seventies badness, but this episode is definitely one of my favorites. Nice to know that I’m not the only one who thinks that 1) Melissa is pretty dang cute (Probably one of the hotter MST babes, in my book) and 2) Granny is genuinely creepy (The deputy-killing scene that CG mentions back at #63 still gives me the willies.) Given how thoroughly most MSTed movies fail, one that succeeds in any way (no matter how small) deserves some credit. Speed up the pace and recast Jody and they may have had something.
Trilaan: If you want understanding, try a little bit harder not to flatly insult the beliefs of roughly 85% of the US and over half the world population next time. It makes people not really care what you choose to believe when you call their deeply-held beliefs “outdated.”
“If there’s just a touch of satan in your heart.”
One of the many lines I repeat to this day.
#91- It’s 24.54% of the world population. You’re giving Christianity WAY too much credit.
Time to face facts, nobody can say anything about another person’s religion and not be insulted, that’s just how ridiculously sensitive we are about it. and like major religions of the past most likely even the widespread Christianity will one day all but disappear just like the ancient Greek or Egyptian religions.
Amen.
Since MST3K poked fun at just about everything, why wouldn’t religion be one of them. Hell, I was raised a Catholic and I didn’t get offended by the jokes. I thought they were funny. In fact, I think the show has always been very nice towards religion, especially Christianity. If you watch the early seasons, Joel had the bots praying at times. And in Santa Claus Conquers The Martians, they had a manger set, with Jesus, in Gypsy’s mouth. About the only show in the last 20 years that made the religious connection to the Christmas celebration. One of the great things about the show was that they understood different ways of thinking and told jokes from different perspectives. How many other shows would actually care about ALL their viewers?
As for The Touch Of Satan, not bad, but not one of my favorites. Beez the babysitter is my favorite moment.
I had a totally opposite reaction than Sampo (and everybody else, apparently) upon rewatching this. I remember watching this back a few years ago and thinking it was great funny stuff, but on the re-watch, it kinda fell flat for me. Damn, I don’t want to piss in everyone’s lunch pail here, so I will admit there are some chucklers within the riffing (Get off the road, mangoat!) and the Wassailing is good, but the Host Segments are really only 1 out of 3 funny (Servo Grandma is fairly funny) and the Steffi babysitter stuff is only half good. I love Beez, she’s a cutie, and I love her chemistry with Brian, uh Brain Guy, oh Observer, and think they’re great. But the stuff with Bobo being treated like a dog. . . .ugh. Not funny. As far as the movie, damn, you’d think it’d be right up my alley. I love 70’s films, I was born in 1980 so I love color movies, and I totally dig horror movies, and this was a 70’s color horror movie, so hell, I should been all for it, but I found the movie frustratingly bad, sorta annoying, and the riffing was only hitting for me half the time. I guess the speed of (or lack thereof) the film is what did me in. That and the vapid, bland stupidity of all the characters. Don’t totally vilify me, this episode is still better than both British movies this season and The Space Children (maybe) so it’s not like I hate this one or anything. I think it’s just overrated.
There. I said it. Sorry.
What can I say.. probably my favorite episode. SOOO many classic riffs. One of the most consistent episodes in the shows history. Starts a little slow and then never looks back. This is where my tongue lives!
For me, Hell’s Granny is the glue that holds this movie together. Without her, it’s just a boring story about two bland people hooking up. And I agree with #69, the Nana Servo segment is pure gold, what with her pitchfork poking, elderly mumbling and darling nightgown. And am I mistaken, or is that rubber cement all over Nana Servo’s face?
And Cornjob, I believe Satan (Or the Devil) is mentioned pretty explicitly. Melissa says she has the Devil inside her, Jodie says he doesn’t believe in the Devil, etc. It’s hard to get a pagan interpretation out of that.
On this viewing, I definitely enjoyed the episode more than I had in previous viewings (or at least more than I recalled enjoying it). This one is a very good example of the Brains doing something with nothing as this film just takes forever to get going.
In that vein, I really enjoyed the jokes related to pauses–Servo’s impression of a train driving through the pause, and Crow actually counting seconds in between were aces. I don’t think anyone actually said it during this film, but my inner monologue definitely said “Take your time, movie” a few times.
On the host segments, just the way Observer said “Steffi” kills me. I was also pretty amused by Grandma Servo and the way you could tell her voice was Kevin making high-pitched psycho granny babble.
On a separate note, this episode is a good example of why I hated the Rhino packaging, as most of my disks from this volume won’t stay in the case (the prongs popped out of the center). Not exclusive to MST sets, as a couple of my Rhino sets from other shows had this problem (I totally lost an SCTV disc that fell out).
Well, keep on truckin’, you do your thing, I’ll do mine, Whip Inflation Now.