I remember that the “Amazing Colossal Episode Guide” had a list of things from the movies that really disturbed and stuck with the writers. I think unusually disturbing movie moments or plot content would be a great discussion topic. The thing that I couldn’t get over was the project featured in “Parts: The Clonus Horror.” The concept of clueless people being lobotomized and/or used for live organ harvesting bothers me more than most topics covered in MSTied films.
Oh, I’m going to have to go with the melting man in “The Incredible Melting Man.” Gross.
What’s your pick?
(Keep those topic suggestions coming!)
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EricJ disturbs me. End of list.
Any kind of sexual assault, rape, or child-bride situation is disturbing. Consider Debbie in Manos, the new caretaker at the end of the movie is her own father and even if the Master is the only one ‘having’ brides the father must know what’s going on.
#128-If the female rapist gets pregnant (just like in that movie) you might get hit with a paternity suit and likely ruin your existing relationship. A typical judge wouldn’t care that your defense is having been a rape victim so it wasn’t consensual. I’m not minimizing the problems women still face but the ‘system’ is typically stacked against men. Even **** donors get sued for child support, although in some cases they actually win the case against the woman demanding child support payments. One last thing if this scenario happened today-the female rapist could have an STD, even AIDS. Not worth it.
The only MST stuff that I find upsetting and don’t care to watch is the animal abuse in Catching Trouble because it’s real. As for the rest, “It’s only a movie… only a movie… only a movie…”
That said, although I grew up severely depressed and was almost impossible to gross out, in more recent years I have come across some things in Asian Extreme films and their ilk that made me want to pour bleach in one ear and scrub out the inside of my skull with a toilet brush. I still have a high tolerance for yucky But I have discovered some limits.
And for anyone with any sensitivity, for the love of God do not watch Human Centipede. That movie made me think that maybe Cannibal Holocaust wasn’t so bad.
Way late on this discussion board. What I find disturbing is the overt sexism of the films. it saddens me because people of that time actually behaved that way in real life. Project moonbase is a good example. Great film for riffing, bad film for women. There are other films on the show that were dreadful in their treatment for women, while I don’t care for protrayal of sexism at all it does in fact make for loads of laughs when riffed upon.
#83
yeah, i guess that whole Berlin Wall coming down was a real kick in the pants for you. Well, you do still have China, Cuba and North Korea to support so don’t get too down. as far as the instructional shorts go, you’re absolutly right! nothing brings a family together like bailing the son out of jail for the 3rd time.
baby oil.
you know what i’m talking about…
@Cornjob #153
I watched The Human Centipede expecting the worst, but I found a silly mad scientist movie with an absurd premise and a Japanese guy who would not stop yelling.
@46
Jer, I’m well aware that they are married in real life, but it still DOES NOT change the disturbing factor of having to watch that LOL.
Interesting, nobody mentioned Steve and his baby shrimps, I didn’t find it particularly grossing, but I can understand someone who does.
I find nothing in the MST canon (which, admittedly, I have not viewed in its entirety yet) really disturbing or hard to watch.
HOWEVER
Post-MSTK, specifically Rifftrax:
I was really liking “Warriors of the Wasteland.” It was a fun, frivolous, post-apocalypse-on-the-cheap with admittedly super-cool custom vehicles…UNTIL…suddenly, our main man, Scorpion, is, uh…getting stung in the tail, if you catch my drift, by evil badguy (played by George Eastman, of “Anthropophagous,” uh, fame).
What I’m saying is, that kind of scene (even though it lasts barely five seconds in the movie) always bothers me (perhaps from accidentally tuning in to THAT part of “Deliverance” as a child).
But anyway, if you have to, uh, have that done to you by anybody, I guess it probably ought to be George Eastman.
#160: What about the drill-car sodomy scene near the end? Or Kevin’s excercise routine? Or the shoulder pads?
“The Brain That Wouldn’t Die” has a pretty morbid premise, that is, a woman being kept alive against her will, and is nothing but a dismembered head.
As someone with mild apiphobia, the scene in “The Deadly Bees” where the woman gets stung to death by tons of bees gives me the willies.
Wow….161 in the thread count!
#59 agree completely, “Tormented” I watched only once, it was waay to depressing.
“The Thing That Wouldn’t Die”…..what a way for Mike to start…. His #1 riff of that movie; “This is sick!”
“Squirm”… No single desirable character in that movie…
#162, I have a bit of melissophobia myself, and have completely avoided “The Deadly Bees” for that reason.
For anyone who asks, there is a difference. Melissophobia is fear of bees, and apiphobia is specifically fear of bee stings.
My vote’s for that little exchange at the end of “The Pumaman.” Jane says she’s never made love in the air, and Tony tells her, “But that’s how you make little Pumamen!” Ick.
I always thought melissophobia was the fear of Emby Mellay.
Grandma repeatedly meathooking the deputy’s lifeless body in the stomach on “Touch of Satan”. I’m no stranger to senseless violence in horror movies I’m just not used to it in my mst movies. Servo’s reaction to the scene summed it up for me.
“The Leech Woman” was the first MST3k movie that actually creeped me out quite a bit. I think the killings, and the method of them, was just too terrible to comprehend for long.
I’ve found this thread fascinating. Hearing just what set’s off peoples pop and folk sensibilities. I’m a little phobic of flying stinging insects, so parts of Deadly Bees creeped me out for that reason. Snakes I can handle. Wasps are another matter.
166: Who would have a phobia about her? I thought she was good looking ;)
If you find Squirm disturbing, don’t watch it un-MST’d, you’d be much more disturbed. You graphically get to see Roger become da wormface. It does have a unintentionally funny scene that was edited out because the scene previous was also pretty graphic and disturbing. Roger bites Mick and Mick proceeds to smack his own hand repeatedly with the flashlight as though he was hitting Roger. On the plus side, you do get to see some nudity by Geri. Its a surprisingly good movie when not MST’d.
Like many others, I’m disturbed by heavy handed misogyny, and particularly the scene in Project Moonbase where the General threatens to spank Col. Briteis.
Nine times out of ten, when someone says “political correctness” they really mean “Why can’t I use the N-word, when THEY can?” or “Why can’t I beat up (homosexuals)? Dad got to!” Ultimately this whiny, oblivious tirade leads to “I AM THE VICTIM HERE! THE ONLY VICTIM OF ANYTHING, EVER, IN ALL HISTORY!!!1”
(cf. “You’re intolerant of my intolerance! That means you’re as intolerant as anyone else! …Maybe even worse!”)
Naturally, whenever such a yo-yo does get his way, the “correctness” of what he’s doing will not trouble his pointy little skull one bit; he’s too busy guffawing Beavis-style.
#171: Somebody comes, begins to rant, uses caps locks, gets caught in the Wheel of Fortune, then leaves, hearts remain untouched. Flag on the moon, again!
Wow, that was quite comical and pointless, Happenstance! Now please finish your juice box and go take a nap.
The way Lee Van Cleef is holding the gerbil at the beginning of “Master Ninja II”.
Baby oil + Mitchell = horror!
“Laserblast” is disturbing to me. Creeps me out what happens to the characters on film and in real life. Plus the grainy print ’70s vibe doesn’t help either.
So i will go on the record with agreeing with Jan in the pan, the concept of Jan is Sick- but Also how SLEEZY Bill Cortner is- picking up and seducing old broads with friendship- or money- especially damaged face girl who seems to have been burned by men- but i digress
What really bothered me from any episode is the touch of satan, as Mike said in the intro “its more than a touch of satan’ The part when Lucinda sells her soul to satan, and Lucinda’s lurking and killing- creeps me out still. It creeped me out when i was 17, i watched it 2 years ago (about a 10 year gap) and it was still creepy. Perhaps its my protestant upbringing that just makes stuff like that bother me alot- i dunno- or even if satan wasn’t involved- Lucinda is still nightmare feul.
#177 – that’s the sign of a well-made horror movie. The Touch of Satan is not a very impressive film overall. Clunky dialogue and slow pacing really tend to bog it down, but the way they show killer gramma sneakin’ up on deputy ManWoman is as simple as it is smart. It creeps me out because I can see it coming, but I can’t do anything to stop it. One of the few disturbing moments that has been brought up in this discussion that I actually think is pretty cool!
Melting Man is an utter nightmare…on top of the sloppy gore, grainy ugly print, and total lack of any likable characters (and their pointless deaths by the end of the movie), the host segments are a bitter and unfunny parody of the movie industry. All through the episode, I felt like I was being punished for something I didn’t do.
My second vote would be the “lake” Dr. Z swims through in Bloodwaters of Dr. Z …it looks like he jumped into a wastewater treatment pond by mistake!
Jeeze Soooo many!
My vote is for the totally unnecessary and pointless (in terms of plot) strangulation murder of the young woman in “Beast of Yucca Flats”,It didnt affect the plot and it just made areal awful tone to the movie. “flag on the moon”?
You know what’s disturbing?
The fact that there is 180+ comments on this discussion thread. Don’t you people have lives? Families??
Nah,
I kid, I kid..you’re all a good bunch of knuckleheads. I’ve enjoyed reading all these comments and such, even the ones from/to EricJ. Maybe we should stop fueling his fire of hate, though. I mean, it’s pretty apparent that it burns unmercifully, so lets stop tossing logs on there, maybe, you know?
Although,
In about 3 months, the weekly Episode Guide entires are gonna get up to the Mike episodes, and all hell is gonna break loose..
Dear Beavis (@173) and Butt-Head (@172):
I was going to be angry, but quickly realized that anyone so frustrated and flummoxed by such a straightforward statement (which was a response to EricJ’s tirades, by the way) that they forget the difference between (1) a brief all-caps to express a third party shouting, and (2) a complete ALL-CAPS rant, has to be a person of “special needs,” and more deserving of my sympathy than my ire.
Oh dear, I’m using words of more than two syllables, which can only be aggravating your confused states. Permit me to dumb it down for you:
*ahem*
Sorry I hurt your butts, doods.
Point taken, Snakes; we better behave ourselves or Sampo might just pull the plug on the whole “Episode Guide Update” project… :pain:
Sure we have lives! Ever hear of Facebook?
The vast majority of MST3k films are so poorly made that I can’t take them seriously enough to find them disturbing. Even the blatant misogyny doesn’t bother me because it’s usually so absurd.
That said, the one thing that I don’t like is the scenes in the second half of Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders where the doll is slowing killing off the family. Unlike most MST3k films, it is actually done quite well and in that 1970s – early-1980s style of realism that I find most disturbing. That sequence of the kid on his big wheel nearly being hit by the car is the reason I rarely ever rewatch that episode… The fact that the place looks a lot like where I grew up doesn’t help.
Blood Waters Of Dr Z.
The villan wanting to turn every one in to fish people. Not disturbing because of what he’s doing but because he’s quite obviously completely rubbish at it.
‘Hey guys keep coming, I’m sure I’ll work out how to turn you all in fish soon and not kill you all’.
“Riding With Death”
The squelching hell of those brakes during the runaway truck scene.
@Happenstance: All done knocking down those pesky strawmen? Good, because I just wanted to say that you’re a painfully obnoxious and absolutely insufferable pseudointellectual and we want you to go away now. Heh heh, yeah.
On topic? I’d have to go with Hobgoblins, easy. I don’t care if he was trying to be funny or not, Rick Sloane’s movie is basically a cheap porn flick without any porn.
Stuff like Debbie becoming Manos’ bride didn’t disturb me too much, because I think it’s meant to be seen as a Bad Thing, and so at least the director seems aware that it’s gross.
What really icks me out are the things that you can tell are meant to be funny or ‘wacky’ but really aren’t, like spanking the woman in Project Moonbase or the weird vibe between Roxy and her dad in Eegah (In the latter movie, the extreme oiliness of almost everybody in it made me want to take a shower, too). Hobgoblins was particularly awful in this regard. Tee hee! The prudish girl secretly wants to be a stripper! Isn’t that just hilarious?
I guess I don’t understand why one would post in this thread simply to criticize others for responding to the question? The actual question is “What did you find disturbing?” If you didn’t find anything disturbing, that’s great! But clearly many did. I love these discussions each week because everyone is so articulate. People aren’t just saying “I find X disturbing/I liked Y/I didn’t like Z” but actually explaining the reasons why. I’ve loved learning about what others did or did not find disturbing. (For example, Manos’s ending never bothered me, but I saw that ep when I was pretty young, 10 or so. I didn’t understand the implications! If I was watching it for the first time as an adult, I’d be more upset. I appreciate knowing how others react to that ending.)
Movies are meant to affect us. That’s why we laugh, cry, etc when we watch them. If they don’t affect us in any way, why bother? And movies (and other media) both reflect and shape our culture. It can be disturbing to see sexism, racism, homophobia, whatever, because it’s a reminder that those ideas were very real, and sometimes still are very real. In the same way, we live in a violent world, so seeing that violence, even if it’s fictional, can be disturbing.
I tend to empathize especially hard with fictional characters. I don’t mean to, it’s just how my brain is built. So seeing violence or abuse of a character I like is disturbing to me. I really enjoy Warrior of the Lost World, but Natasha’s brainwashing/torture is very hard to watch, as she’s a character I like and I feel bad that she’s being treated badly, even if she’s fictional. I’m not saying the movie should be banned or anything, and I can understand why others wouldn’t feel so strongly.
There’s nothing wrong with the fact that individuals are affected differently. But it seems odd, to say the least, to have commentators trying to shame others for their feelings — especially when that’s the entire point of the conversation!