…the strangest plot turns in MSTied movies. You know when the plot just takes a bizarre turn that makes you go “what the heck?”
My pick on this subject has to be the Incredible Melting Man from Season 7. It had not one, but four moments like that.
(4) When Dr. Ted Nelson tries to change the subject of the status of the Melting Man with his wife by asking if she bought crackers.
(3) The whole lemon theft scene.
(2) And the climax of the film where the two rent-a-cops gun down that dopey Ted Nelson instead of the giant, melty monster standing behind him for no logical reason.
(1) The iconic “Nurse running through a glass door” scene.
I once again have to turn to “Kitten with a Whip,” the quintessential “what the heck?” movie, in which an ostensibly intelligent makes a series of decisions no such human would ever make.
What’s your pick?
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Both in K05 and 302-Gamera, after Gamera disappeared, they started talking about U.F.O.s and then Gamera reappeared. I will never understand that plot twist
OK, so maybe someone here can help me on this, ’cause it bugs me every time. In “Wahrwilf,” after Pan-Dripping Paul nuzzles Veronica to death in the mud puddle (after she flees from the safety of Redneck Reggie Mantle’s Jeep), pantsless real estate agent Carrie suddenly shows up in his attic (apparently skating past the watchful eye of Sam the Keeper … and Murderer), all worried and concerned about … something, I guess. And then he tosses her down the stairs (from which she was saved from injury by the cushion of her big hair) and she just sort of casually saunters out. Never occurred to her to call the cops or Animal Control or something? And why were she and her Maasai warrior neck there in the first place? Anyone with insight into the point of that sequence wins one free date with Joe Estevez.
Remember that in the Werewolf world you don’t call the police, you pray to them.
Of course the 2 episodes of a TV show jammed together lead to rather bizarre and abrupt changes of direction in plot. Master Ninja I being the best example.
I found it kinda strange that Jimmy in “I Accuse MY Parents” had no idea he was working for a criminal, and that his girlfriend was the said criminal’s main squeeze. That is one unobservant guy.
The heart is composed of a single cell??? What the cabbage?
#52: …pantsless real estate agent Carrie suddenly shows up in his attic (apparently skating past the watchful eye of Sam the Keeper … and Murderer), all worried and concerned about … something, I guess. … And why were she and her Maasai warrior neck there in the first place? Anyone with insight into the point of that sequence wins one free date with Joe Estevez.
This much I do know. A scene was cut from the MST version. You may notice that early in the movie Carrie invites Paul to a party, but in the MST version you never see her there. That’s because there was a bit removed from the party where it’s made clear that Carrie’s coming on to Paul, but Paul is not interested in her. In a complete huff, she storms out, leaving him high and dry, since she was his ride.
So later on in the movie, she’s stopping by to apologize. That’s why she’s there.
To this day, I still don’t know why all the action in Future War happened inside a cardboard box factory. I still don’t know why there are cardboard box factories. What do they ship them out in? Cardboard boxes? And the beginning of the movie being the sort-of-end of the movie was stupid too.
I just have a lot of anger at Future War. And boxes.
re: David Stratton in Kitten With A Whip:
Stratton may have been a really sharp guy in his own world, but in the world he was suddenly thrust into — with an entirely different set of rules, with characters behaving unpredictably — he was a total babe in the woods. Add to that the fact that his thinking was entirely inflexible, and entirely incapable of adapting, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
Still, the plot twist in the final scene, in the hospital, wasn’t really that bad as plot twists go, especially considering that Kitten was a total stinkburger, simply a vehicle for Ann-Margret’s scenery-chewing.
@54: Also in “I Accuse My Parents:” In the first courtroom scene the judge is warning Jimmy that he’s definitely facing prison without testifying.
But at the end, the judge says much of his story is backed up the evidence, so what’s point of him testifying?!?
Also, where’s the defense attorney and prosecutor in this case?!? PRC saving a few bucks?
And as Tom(?) says: “May be they should have sworn him (Jimmy) in..”
The plot twist at the end of Monster A Go-Go wasn’t so much a plot twist as it was the movie simply throwing up its hands and saying “d’ahh, screw it, I give up.”
The inexplicable reference to Robert Denby at the end of the first part of Riding With Death was a real brain-breaker for sure, but the fact that both parts ended with spectacular vehicle explosions was, for me, yet another example of how They Just Didn’t Care.
Project Moonbase always bugged the hell out of me, too; they manage to contact Earth, SPACOM starts sending the robot resupply craft, Bill and Breiteis get married, and… THE END? BOOOOOOOOOO!!!
I’ve heard all the explanations for the pointless tragic plot twist at the end of Mole People, but I still want to knee that movie in the groin, and snag on it, and give it a power sit-up.
“Critter” in Girl In Gold Boots annoyed me somehow throughout the entire movie, but his decision, in the end, to wimp out and report for the draft so that he could be sent off to die in Vietnam — but not before playing some stupid song on the beach while Michelle did her random convulsing and twitching dance — made me absolutely loathe him.
The nuclear bomb — oh, sorry, “nucleus” — detonation at the end of Cave Dwellers was a real head-scratcher as well. For an hour and a half, we get wall-to-wall swords, sorcery and foreboding dark forests of ancient legend and then, all of a sudden it’s Bikini Atoll. Then, back to Ator riding off across the 4×4 tracks to continue his battle against evildoers. If I hadn’t had Joel’n’the Bots to help me through it, I’d have been tasting metal.
And, how can we forget the gob-smackingly lame twist at the end of Women Of The Prehistoric Planet? “We name this planet: Planet Earth,” slurs Wendell Corey. Not kneeing that movie in the groin was a constant struggle.
Also, while it doesn’t really qualify as a plot twist per se, I still can’t help incredulously asking about the end of Robot Holocaust: In the name of all that’s holy, why an avocado?
Fred Burroughs says:
June 22, 2013 at 12:40 pm
I know the bots point this out many times, but its maddening watching Corman’s “The Undead” and trying to keep up with the plot of where the knight and his girlfriend are at any moment. She hides in the house in the woods, then goes to the tavern, then back to the house; he goes to the tavern, then to the house, then to the jail, then to the tavern again…
I took the easy way out on that one; I quit trying to follow the plot about halfway through, and simply took every opportunity to appreciate the dark-haired sorceress’ ample rack in every scene she appeared in. Like so many MSTied movies, I found I could enjoy The Undead more if I didn’t work myself to death trying to follow the plot and just sat back and enjoyed the ride.
Sugar Magnolia says:
June 22, 2013 at 2:06 pm
…For a rifftrax filled with plot twists and holes, Curse of Bigfoot is definitely full of them. It is more of a movie loaf, since it’s two or three films and some stock footage all mashed together.
D’ahh ha ha ha hahh. “Movie loaf”? B’wah ha hah, that’s rich! I’ll have to remember that.
Jeez, that sounds even nastier than “olive loaf”.
The twist ending to Radar Men from the Moon. Who could fave predicted that the film would break?
It’s been mentioned already, but I’ve seen Red Zone Cuba countless times, and I’m still dumbfounded by the whole “Restaurant owner with the blind daughter getting dumped down the well” sequence. I mean…. what the hell? Why? Where does it come from? Is the explanation left out of the MST3K version? The rest of the movie makes sense by comparison.
Red Zone Cuba unedited is apparently worse. I think someone here
said the blind daughter is assaulted and killed. Coleman Francis
may have loved to make movies but he had some dark visions.
Oh, and don’t forget RZC’s plot twist, the happy couple survive
a) the Bay of Pigs and being abandoned by the CF gang (actually not
all that a negative)
b) attempt by the CF gang to kill the wife after using her to try
to find gold (or whatever) in them thar hills.
Question: which is more iconic Coleman Francis:
1) “Guard. Sick man. Water.”
or
2) “Flag on the moon. How did it get there?”
In “Quest of the Delta Knights”, when we find out that Thena the prostitute is actually Athena the princess of the Tree People, and even better that T’s contact is Leonardo “from Vinci”, who also appears to have gotten the majority of his ideas from Archimedes. Great stuff.
@#56: Ahhhh, thank you! Much less “huh?” now. I’ll get on the phone with Joe right away. ;)
The strangest plot twist in this thread? That people thought Monster a Go-Go had a plot twist, to say nothing of a plot.
I couldn’t believe it when Troxartis shows up with his undead soldiers, kills the guys chasing the princess, and then says she’s his missing bride. I knew the two separate plots would crash into each other at some point, but a part of me kept hoping the scriptwriter would make the plot a *little* bit more interesting by making Elizena’s REAL fiance show up at some point.
Has this idea for a weekend thread been done before? Stupid MST3K movie plot points that, with just a little bit of tweaking, could have been anywhere from okay to movie-saving.
Stoneman says:
June 23, 2013 at 4:06 pm
In “Quest of the Delta Knights”, when we find out that Thena the prostitute is actually Athena the princess of the Tree People…
…and I was like, “D’ahh, man, c’mon, yer sh@ttin’ me, right? Gimme a friggin’ break, willya…?”
How the heck whats-her-face in ‘Warwilf’ became a…’Warwilf.’
That was an ending that just made no sense.
Or for that matter, the ending to ‘It Lives By Night.’ Then again, that film is one big goulash of ‘whuh!?’ regarding just how the guy became a bat-thing, or how his wife suddenly is drawn to him.
How the one woman in ‘Invasion USA’ seems to now become infatuated with the stupidly handsome and idiotic news guy, even though the relationship they had was all contrived based on hypnosis…yet she seems to feel that that’s more than enough reason to stay with him.
@71 There was scene cut out for the pisode to air that I heard about where Paul and the hot Eastern European woman had sex in one scene, but I never bothered to watch the uncut film on video to verify it. It would imply that lycanthropy is an STD as well as a curse that is bloodborne.
The trailer for Werewolf is on the MST disk. Some bits of nookie can be seen there.
There are so many…
The Undead- Why does the “STAY!” guy suddenly change his tune? He’s been fighting the whole movie to get her to go!
Riding With Death- the stupid “twist” that Cupcake was in on the whole thing. She was sleeping with Jim Stafford to coerce him into driving in a race so they could blow up the car? I think he would’ve driven the car anyway since his dream was to be a racecar driver.
Horror Of Party Beach- Why IS the heroine dubbed? Also, why the Hector Elizondo does it take them SOOO long to go buy sodium once they realize sodium kills the creatures?
Space Mutiny- It was nice of them to give that dead girl another chance!
Deadly Bees- So you’re a pop star who’s had a nervous breakdown. Why NOT recuperate at a bee farm?
The Sinister Urge- The smut racket- which is making men so crazy that they’re driven to murder- is almost entirely created by an elfin little old man who takes still pictures of women in diaphanous gowns. Scandalous!
The Giant Gila Monster- Yesterday she couldn’t walk, today she’s hauling furniture!
Jeez- too many to try and remember.
@ 60:
Critter’s accepting of the draft meant that he went through character development and decided to stop running, since he found something to fight for, basically “grew a pair”.
“Horrors of Spider Island” and its abrupt change to heavy fanservice: women dancing around in their underwear for no particular reason. Not that its a bad thing, its just a abrupt plot turn.
@20: The reason why the older security guard blowing up the Hobgoblins at the end of the film was such a “strange plot turn” was because the MST3K version of the film cut out all the scenes involving him and his boss. In these scenes, it’s revealed that the boss had not gotten insurance for the studio, making the whole “blow up the Hobgoblins whenever he wants” option for the older security guard impossible to do. It’s only when he realizes that the boss cares more for the studio than the safety of others that the guard finally does blow up the Hobgoblins as his way of saying “I quit!”.
@27: Yeah, it definitely feels as Gamera vs. Baragon was originally going to be a film featuring just Baragon, with Gamera being added to it late in its production in order to capitalize off the success of the original film.
@60: The reason Project: Moonbase ended so abruptly was because this was originally going to be a TV show, but it never got picked up. So, instead, they used the episodes that were already in the can and turned it into a movie.
I gotta stop showin’ up late to the party.
To me, a plot twist is something that both affects the story ( the guy in #906 Deadly Bees does not) and the audience doesn’t see coming. In the case of strange plot twists, it’s something that doesn’t make any sense or degrades the movie.
#421 Monster A Go-Go – There was no monster. – No monster?! So, I just spent the last ninety minutes doing what exactly?!
#908 Touch of Satan – Jodie gives his soul to Satan to save Melissa. – Girls are cool, but not THAT cool. Not even my wife is THAT cool.
#301 Cave Dwellers – The hang glider – Ummm, no. Not even in 2013. Tom covers this quite nicely in-movie.
#619 Red Zone Cuba – Too many to mention – Griffin is good. No, he’s bad. He’s good again. Bad. Aw, hell! I don’t know anymore!
#911 Devilfish – Dr. Davis is the bad guy, not Dr. West. – Not really a bad plot twist, but so what? All the reasons he gives might as well have been anyone’s. Just kill the monster!
#519 Outlaw – Watney turns everyone against the queen. – Hey, I’m all for an underdog, but not from a character I HATE! Also, this renders the character of Cabot COMPLETELY moot!
#817 Horror of Party Beach – Sodium! – Is this a monster movie, or a high school chemistry class? Okay, sodium is the answer, but unceremoniously lobbing chunks of it at the monsters is boring. What about arrows tipped with sodium and then do a “Predator”-type ending? Sweet!
Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders! What did the demon man-baby sub-plot have to do with anything? Grandpa Borgnine said he was going to tell a story about Merlin and the monkey and then THAT takes up the first half of the movie.
@ #78
Most likely, Grandpa Borgnine was so enthused that he had someone’s attention to tell stories, that he decided to test his strange ‘infertile couple with magic ‘gelled garden slug’ and selfish store-reviewer’ concept on an unlikely victim.
After all, his Grandson doesn’t look like he has enough smarts to say what Crow and the others are thinking (“You are sick, old man!”).
I vote for sodium!
73 – “The trailer for Werewolf is on the MST disk. Some bits of nookie can be seen there.”
Or wookie, as it were.
Who knew that the fates of Buffalo Bill, Lazy Rider AND Robert Denby were all destined to collide on a race track in Ontario?
If the Valley Lodge is sporting all these wives, how come the locals don’t seem fazed by the creepy weird disappearances that keep happening out there (side note: was one of them married to Torgo? For that matter, did she show up to the lodge married to a guy named Torgo??)
And Devil Fish – just what WAS the WOI shooting for when they made the first sharktopus?
Someone mentioned Curse of Bigfoot, so I’ll ask the question I’ve been asking of this movie since I saw it as a small child – why is there a grove in a desert?
I`ll go waaay back to KTMA days with ‘The Last Chase’…
So; the totalitarian government of the future has high-tech goodies that can spy on the populace and rules with an unrelenting iron fist…
But when a guy in a race car goes rogue; where are the more MODERN air force planes and pilots?… Is ONE wacky-doodle old jet pilot and ONE 1950`s-era jet the best they can find to send after him ??
…What? Did they sink all their bucks into circular control rooms and golf carts for the cops?
I wouldn’t count something like Fugitive Alien II, Mighty Jack, Riding with Death, etc. because two TV shows linked together is just too easy.
I’d go with Girl with Gold Boots. Starts out as road trip movie, becomes girl moving up the dancing ladder movie, becomes drug awareness movie, becomes heist film. What the heck?
In episode 610- The Violent Years what the hell was the point of wrecking the school? I mean, they never tell us why. They shot a cop and that Judy Jetson woman for THAT! Then the knocked-up girl says “SO WHAT” for no apparent reason after shredding her best friend in a plate glass window. Confusing.
Luther Heggs aka Number 6 #81 – I did it all for the wookie. C’mon. The wookie. So you can take that cookie…
In the Colman Francis movies all three end with the police going on a killing spree but in Sky Divers we don’t even know if it is the police just some people with guns going after tow people who were just in the area. In Red Zone Cuba we did not even know our boys were being hunted just some guy Named Kelly and his boys show up and start shooting and in The Beast of Yucca Flats the cops just shoot anybody
In Agent for H.A.R.M. the elderly scientist gives himself the antidote,saves our hero but dies anyway
In Monster-a-go-go we start off with one guy we believe is our hero then about 35 min in he disappears then anther guy takes over then he disappears finally a guy we thought was just a supporting player turns out to be the hero…but there was no hero…
@14 I don’t know if that was such a surprise in The Apple, because the name of the movie was a reference to the Garden of Eden story.
@83 The Last Chase was set in a “green” utopia where there were no more cars or planes. It wasn’t they couldn’t afford them, they just didn’t want people to be free to move.
In Girl In Gold Boots, I was actually on board with everything — criminally bad editing aside — until the heist. Why are Harry and Buz so buddy-buddy in Leo’s office, but at each others throats once the caper begins? Why does Harry keep needling Buzz and why does Buzz murder Harry? I mean, it’s actually a half-decent plan and everyone stands to make a lot of money, so what happened in the interim that shot everything to help?
@99
I knew you were going to say that.
The Bowler Hatted Man at the end of Deadly Bees is a government official sent from the office that sets up the premise near the beginning of the film. It’s a little poke at the british beaurocracy.
As for horrors of spider island, I argue that going from “sleazy dance recruiter auditioning dancers” to “heavy fanservice with women dancing around in underwear” is something to be expected…
Probably Hamlet… I mean the dead father coming back to haunt the son???!!!??
who saw that coming?
>>>>I once again have to turn to “Kitten with a Whip,” the quintessential “what the heck?” movie, in which an ostensibly intelligent makes a series of decisions no such human would ever make.
Actually, a quick glance at history proves that there is no such thing as a decision that no ostensibly intelligent person would ever make, certainly not when an attractive member of the opposite sex is involved.
Seriously, does the history of the human race really strike you as a series of SMART decisions, one after the other? ;-)
You could definitely see your enthusiasm in the paintings you write. The sector hopes for more passionate writers like you who aren’t afraid to mention how they believe. All the time go after your heart.