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Weekend Discussion Thread: What Movies Should the Reboot Riff?Well, what a week it’s been!
The news we got this week is causing all sorts of speculation…so let’s do some more! What movie(s) do you think would be good fodder for the new MST3K? Obviously they won’t be doing big blockbusters, so keep in mind that the movies will be a lot like the ones they did on the old show. Have at it! 203 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: What Movies Should the Reboot Riff?”Commenting at Satellite News
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A.P.E. would be a good choice, as would The Video Dead and A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell. I’d also love to see re riffed Supersonic Man and Megaforce.
“Night of the Lepus” lepus to mind.
The Devil’s Rain would be a *perfect* movie for the show! Ernest Borgnine! Ida Lupino! Eddie Albert! Keenan Wynn! Tom Skerritt! John Travolta! Anton LaVey! And even… William Shatner!
I wish I had more details, but I stumbled upon a perfect short on YouTube at one point. It was a ’50s era anti-pornography piece, narrated by a very wooden Jack Webb type who went on and on about the dangers of dirty pictures and magazines. The main focus was how the horror of pornography was not just in smut shops and peep shows, but being sold right a your neighborhood drug store! One notable thing was the narrator had far more knowledge of naughty pictures than his puritanical manner would suggest. The ‘bots would have a ball with it.
The short you’re thinking of was narrated by George Putnam and titled Perversion For Profit. A little known piece of Putnam perversion is the fact he actually wrote several porno novels before making that short and after. I’d like to see that one along with Pharoah’s Curse, The Vampire, Daughter of Dr Jekyll
Night of the Ghouls & Queen of Outer Space
I remember two old black and white films that were related – Billy the Kid Meets Dracula and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein. They should take care of two weeks and they can’t be that expensive to get.
I had feared that Rifftrax had taken care of all of the rest of the “bad movies” out there, but there’s some good nominations here…I for one hope they don’t do any films that Rifftrax has done. That’d be like when Cinematic Titanic did “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians”…
On the other hand, people keep bringing up the KTMA episodes. Just like they revisited Gamera and “Time of the Apes” in Season 3, maybe they could revisit some other KTMA episodes?!? I’d love to see a more professionally done version of “The Million Eyes of Sumuru” or “Superdome”…
I’ll throw in…
Surf Nazis Must Die! (1987)
Spaced Invaders (1990) I paid actual money to see this back then, wasn’t really worth it.
Grizzly (1976, aka Claws, haven’t seen it but it looks to be appropriate)
Two suggestions that will air tonight on TV:
Abar, the First Black Superman (Turner Classic Movies), where a Black scientist makes a superhero to fight off bigots
The Alpha Incident (Off Beat Cinema), alien disease threatens mankind, and how that happens is embarrassing. Made by the same guy who made “Giant Spider Invasion”
YouTube, of course, has clips of both.
I’ve recommended most of these over at Rifftrax, but here are a couple of classics I’d love to see get the MST3K treatment:
Top of my list would have to be I, Monster— a cheesy 3D Hammer style horror movie… minus the 3D.
I, Monster was not a highlight of the late, great, Christopher Lee’s career. The movie was a well-meaning attempt by Amicus to cash in on the popularity of Hammer horror films by hiring most of the same cast and crew (Peter Cushing is in this one as well), and then as a special gimmick, shooting the entire film in 3D.
Unfortunately for them, nothing went as planned… Apparently, the rights to Jekyll and Hyde were still owned by another film company, so they had to call the character “Marlowe” and “Blake” instead, and use makeup effects that could in no way be mistaken for those used by Universal or Hammer, so Lee’s monster transformation consisted entirely of giving him a unibrow, buck teeth, and a terrible wig. And to add insult to injury, the production team ran out of money for the 3D process partway through the movie, so it’s got all sorts of weird gimmick shots… minus the gimmicks. (Lee loves to throw stuff and wave items in front of the camera for no logical reason, and the climactic final fight scene is quite literally obscured by a brick wall)
This one would be ideal for the MST3K team to tackle for a number of reasons. It’s a pretty PG-rated horror flick without much in the way of on-screen violence or blood, but plenty of scenery chewing and long dramatic pauses between dialogue. Plus there’s plenty of skit fodder. The monster makeup is pretty easy to replicate, not only for humans but bots (just add a unibrow), and there’s plenty of fun to be had with fake 3D, and discussing public domain versions of classic monsters.
If anyone’s interested, you can watch a very blurry trailer here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LopmHe1wNoo
On the off chance that anyone involved with the KS is actually reading this, IMHO, it’s incredibly stupid to lock updates behind “backers only”. You’ve already got their money, you want to get money from people who haven’t pledged. And it’s really doubly stupid to do that when it’s questions about the show that might determine a pledge (like is it family friendly or not).
All in all, really a poorly run KS, which seems strange since apparently they hired someone to help run it.
A few other family friendly recommendations:
The Gypsy Moon and Menace From Outer Space aka Rocky Jones Space Ranger II and III.
Manhunt in Space and Crash of the Moons were two of my favorite MST3K episodes, but there are still plenty of Rocky Jones “movies” left to riff, and they’re all perfect bridge material between the old and new series. (Plus an excuse for Mike Nelson to show up as a hexfield guest star.) Probably the best one to kick off with would be The Gypsy Moon, which occurs before the events of Crash of the Moons and features everybody’s favorite gregarious alien… John Banner!
There’s also plenty of Winky (some might say far too much Winky), Cleolanta, space friars, and an extremely early version of Google Translate that only works on John Banner.
You can watch a copy of the entire “movie” here: (though the sound isn’t great)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lneQhOXPj5w
Both The Gypsy Moon and Menace from Outerspace have been released on DVD, and as far as I know, are now in the public domain.
– – –
Another Amicus classic worth riffing is the 1974 film The Beast Must Die, aka, the only movie in cinematic history to come with its very own “Werewolf Break.” check out the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klfE_nescX0
Essentially, this film is an attempt to merge a werewolf movie with an Agatha Christie whodunnit, The Most Dangerous Game, and Shaft. If that sounds like a train-wreck waiting to happen… you’d be right. The so-called “plot” involves a wealthy big game hunter who really likes running around in a leather bathrobe and no shirt, deciding he wants to kill a werewolf, so he does the obvious thing, and invites six people he suspects *might* be werewolves to his country estate, where he politely announces that he intends to track and kill one of them. Oddly enough, the guests don’t seem the slightest bit shocked by this behavior and take the whole “I’m holding you hostage and planning on murdering one of you” thing in stride.
The werewolf, by the way, is played by an adorable looking German Shepard who occasionally wears a clown wig. Nope. Not making that up. Luckily, their clever use of day for night filming, lets you really drink in those subtle details you might otherwise miss with proper lighting, editing and special effects.
Again, this one is perfect for the MST3K crew because it’s a comparatively tame horror movie with (as far as I remember) no nudity, swearing, or excessive blood, but plenty of skit-fodder. It has an incredibly cheesy looking “monster”, and features a cast of surprisingly well-known British actors all slumming. Also, did I mention it has a Werewolf Break?!
I think I saw Star Crystal on HBO, but all I remember is a guy with a faux lightsaber. I barely remember Battle Beyond the Stars any better. I was so young I really couldn’t tell how embarrassingly inferior to Star Wars these films were at the time.
And not just Ernest Borgnine, but Ernest Borgnine in ridiculous yet surprisingly high-quality goat-man make-up.
There are some great suggestions here, but how did we get this far without anyone suggesting:
“Q: The Winged Serpent”
I suggested additional Russian Finnish films… of course I forgot that many of those are subtitled only, so that would present a problem. In a perfect world, the MST3K guys could get Sandy Frank to work his magic on the whole series and then do it! How much more would that be…? Would probably max our credit cards…
Oh, add The Last Dinosaur to my list. What a great one that would be!
1- SSSSSSSSSSSSSS
2- Equinox
3- Exorcist 2
4- CC and Company
I saw the movie She (1982). Another post apocalyptic film with lots of quirky characters. Also the other Ator movie would be another suggestion…..
Ator 3, a.k.a. Troll 3, would be a fantastic riff. Especially because of the Rape Horn.
Gonna add some of my personal favorite, er, shall we say… iffy giant monster movies to the list. Gotta go with Reptilicus as PERFECT riffing fodder. The creature is goofy as all get out, the acting is priceless, and the effect (not so special, mind you) of the creature spitting it’s acid vomit… simply amazing. And not in a good way. They’ve gotta do this one. Plus, Shout! just put out a Blu-Ray of the film, so rights should be no problem!
Plus, the late seventies were full of giant ape movies designed to cash in on the 1976 King Kong remake. It’s been mentioned here before, but A*P*E would be insanely perfect. Don’t believe me? Watch the first three or four minutes on YouTube. You’ll be a believer, too… Also, Queen Kong would be a great one, but man oh man, should they do The Mighty Peking Man. I actually really enjoy it as grindhouse/exploitation fare, but the thought of it being riffed is too exciting for my brain to wrap around.
I hope Joel is checking out these comments, this thread is full of awesome suggestions. :-)
Though highly unlikely, it’d be interesting if the reboot tackled the in name only remakes of classic MST3K titles Cinemax did. These include “She Creature”, “Earth vs The Spider” and Larry Clark’s “Teenage Caveman”.
I think not only should they avoid things done by RT and CT, but those reviewed in depth by folks like Brandon Tenold, Nostalgia Critic, Cinema Snob and similar popular online people. This still leaves plenty of choices, especially in the foreign offerings. The Philippines have so much to offer, like “Biokids” & “Alias Batman and Robin”.
I’d really love to see a riff of the movie “The Mangler”. Nobody ever so much as acknowledges that this movie exists, even though it’s probably the FUNNIEST performance by Robert Englund there ever was (and that’s saying a LOT). It has a ton of really terrible, corny lines. What’s even better is it’s based off a Stephen King short story, so there’s plenty of room for Stephen King jokes, considering how terrible it is.
And I mean literally, nobody acknowledges this movie. I’ve never seen a critic review it. I’ve never seen anyone riff it. It’s even hard to find clips of it on youtube. It’s the perfect specimen for the experiment.
“Earth Dies Screaming”. An old British sci-fi movie with robots. Seems custom made for MST. Especially after how well they did with Projected Man and Deadly Bees.
For every bitter post on this site, the Kickstarter goes up another $100. It’s fun!
Obviously they need to tackle the “best” worst example in Blaxsploitation. That being “Tales from the Quadead Zone”.
A couple of movies that I cut my teeth on when getting into riffing myself was an 80’s dystopian future movie called Solarbabies and the 70’s eco-horror flick Frogs. Both are gold.
STAR TREK V
I thought the best worst Blaxploitation movie was supposed to be “Blackenstein”!
Starcrash!! An Italian Star Wars ripoff from 1978, with bad dubbing, lame effects, Christmas lights for stars, and the cast includes Marjoe Gortner, David Hasselhoff, and… Christopher Plummer (he must have been desperate!) Oh and the plot is pretty incomprehensible.
I actually saw this one when it was in theaters.
If possible, I’d like to see them do God of Vampires and Neowolf. God of Vampires is very dry, boring, and not funny when it tries to be. The only thing is that it runs 3 hours and 10 minutes, so probably way too long for a rift. Neowolf was suppose to be about werewolves, but they seem to function more like vampires. It was a very pointless movie with edits that make me wonder if they really thought they could fool the audience. In the first death scene, the girl is topless. Then it cuts back to her for a split second and her top is on again before cutting away and then showing her again without a top.
This reboot is the perfect time to finally riff “Child Bride”, obviously.
Another great choice, if they could get it, is the super-cheesy, made for TV “Captain America” movie from the ’70s starring Reb “Big McLargeHuge” Brown.
Or how about “Crack In The World”? In this stupid movie from 1965, underground atomic tests cause an ever-growing crack that eventually circles back on itself. When the circle is completed, the subterranean pressure blasts a gigantic chunk of the Earth into orbit, where it forms a second moon. As I recall, the hero and his love interest observe this while standing, unharmed, a few feet away from the crack!
I prefer the old classic bad movies, particularly horror & scifi of ’40s-50s.
Inframan. Obviously.
But getting a bit more obscure, City Dragon. Anyone who loves bad movies needs to track down a copy of this no-budget kung-fu rap movie. It will make you very happy.
Sonny Boy. David Carradine leaps through a glass window in slow motion wearing a dress and wig. This scene alone makes the film worth watching.
Roller Boogie. Savage Streets. Hell Night. Basically anything with Linda Blair.
Zontar: The Thing From Venus. The bots would go insane…
Another that crossed my mind, Octaman! Cheesy movie with a guy in a rubber octopus suit!
9 Death’s of the Ninja. The silliest movie Sho Kosugi made in the 80’s. The opening credit have a bunch of ladies in leotards dancing around Sho while he swings a sword in what looks like Ninjercize.
Solar Babies would indeed be awesome. My little brother fell in love with that movie back when it was running twice a day or so on HBO. Forced me to watch it (or at least hear it) so, so , so many times.
Oh, geeze, too numerous to list off the top of my head…
A few genre titles…
Killer Klowns From Outer Space
The Car
Tourist Trap
Superstition
Scarecrows
City Of The Living Dead
Grizzly
After Last Season(2009)
Night of the Kickfighters starring Adam West
Zyzzyx Road (2006)
Blackenstein
Velvet Smooth
Cybertracker 2
The Unborn 2
Demon Wind…….
It’s amazing that with all the ground CT and Rifftrax covered there are still a lot of great choices. (Rifftrax deserves some credit for doing Mesa of Lost Women, which was rejected by MST3k) I’ll just throw one out there, Monster Dog, which is a werewolf movie starring Alice Cooper. I hope they surprise us! And I hope people donate a lot so we get a bunch.
Yor: Hunter From the Future: A harmless movie with cheese, impossible plot, a link to Mst3k of yore (see what I did there?), and charm.
Battle of the Stars / Star Odyssey / War of the Robots: A bit of a personal wish here. I iRiffed “War of the Robots” and I thought it was a rather fun movie. I fear there might be too many dead spots in it for new-Mst3k, but here’s hopin’!
Zontar: Thing from Venus: I LOVE this movie! It’s (almost) a frame-for-frame recreation of “It Conquered the World” starring John Agar.
Not of This Earth: Roger Corman. Bev Garland. (Dramatic pause during which you approve).
Birdemic
Sharknado
Things (1989)
Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman
Night of the Lepus
Escape from Tomorrow
Reptilicus
The Corpse Grinders
The Psychotronic Man
Uwe Boll films
Burnt Offerings
Killer Klowns from Outer Space
The Cyclops
Attack of the Puppet People
The Boy and the Pirates
Picture Mommy Dead
Empire of the Ants
Pegasus vs. Chimera
Night of the Bloody Apes
Colin (2008 film of only a Budget of 45 euros)
Atlantis, the Lost Continent (1961)
Evolver
And oh so many more… especially Plan 9 from Outer Space
GIRLS TOWN!!!
How about the 70’s cheesy monster bear flick, Prophecy with Robert Foxworth and Talia Shire
Did the original show ever finish King of The Rocket Men? If not, they should…plus some others:
THE HITLER TRILOGY:
1. He Lives: Search for the Evil One (1967):-Hitler still lives, in a cave with some old pals, as good guys close in on him.
2. They’ve Saved Hitler’s Brain (1953?): Bizarre classic, made stranger by 10 mins of late 60’s footage that matches nothing else. How did they ever miss this one?
3. HITLER: Richard Basehart (Yes, THE Richard Basehart)stars as the crazed hun who loved to invade stuff. Over the top,comic book storytelling, which looks like it was shot on the Twilight Zone sets.
(My wife still thinks TOSH should’ve gotten the job.)
For those who don’t know, Zontar: The Thing From Venus is an Americn International TV remake of It Conquered The World with John Agar in the Peter Graves role and A Guy Who Played One Of The Pervy USAF Guys In Eye Creatures in the Lee Van Cleef role, and directed by Larry “Just Didn’t Care” Buchanan.