Movie: (1961) An ancient tribal mask has strange powers.
Host: Jonah.
Opening: J&tB are trading scary Halloween stories.
Invention exchange: J&tB demonstrate their Multi Mask. The Mads then show off their Meji Boards, customized ouiji boards.
Segment 1: J&tB and The Mads have donned Halloween costumes, everybody except Jonah, that is.
Segment 2: J&tB update “The Monster Mash” with “They Can’t Come.” After intermission, J&tB switch tactics.
Segment 3: Crow gives Jonah noir therapy, then is joined by Gypsy.
Close: Gypsy is now wearing the mask. The log flume is next.
Stinger: The landlady screams.
Thoughts:
• This episode premiered on Oct. 28, 2022.
• Nice Barnes and Barnes reference.
• This week’s LOTR reference: “My precious!”
• I’d love to know how they pick which riffs are going to be delivered by Gypsy from on high.
• A dark, sticky movie, reminiscent of the movie in episode 806- THE UNDEAD, but not very riffable. I don’t blame the writers, I mostly blame the dull movie and the gimmicky effect.
• Fave riff “The film the lasik community does not want you to see.”
• Honorable mentions: “Down … low … too … slow …” “Yes, call that grown man’s parents right away.” “Good game … good game …”
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Canada is 0-2 for this season. Everything in the movie is just so blah and lifeless, which gets further emphasized by it being in black and white. Even the attempt at a Mole People-style prologue falls flat, as the guy they have narrate it is no Gesture Professor. The one exception to this tedium is the trippy 3-D sequences, which don’t come across as gimmicky the way these things often end up being.
Favorite riffs
“And I can tell you that even though I’m not superstitious, I wouldn’t put it on for all the wealth of the Indies.”
Or a Klondike bar.
“This is a living nightmare. And you don’t want to help me.”
Well, ya got me there.
Hey, you got your Carl Jung in my Lovecraft!
Well, you got your Neil Gaiman in my Freud!
You can’t handle the mask!
“What happened, Dr. Barnes?”
Something wonderful.
“You could do with some rest yourself. You look kind of tired too.”
You’d look tired too if you were Batman, I mean, a normal man!
“This is horrible! What will the neighbors say?”
Probably something about the smell.
“Did he have any friends or relatives?”
Does a Sailor Moon body pillow count?
“Would you be interested in psychoanalyzing a girl who’s madly in love with a doctor?”
Oh, I know this one, the doctor is his mother!
Dear Abby, I’ve developed feelings for my therapist. Would it be weird to mail him a cursed mask upon the event of my death as a token of affection? Sincerely, Lonely in Winnipeg.
Irises and pupils and cataracts, oh my!
“But he had no medical training.”
Oh, so you need a doctorate to navigate the realms of Hell!
And I hope you’re not going to embarrass us like this at the Graysons’ cotillion tomorrow.
Donna Reed is The Fugitive!
Okay, if I stole a cursed totem, where would I go?
I got me a car, it’s as big as a whale, and it’s about to set sail.
No Pokémons in here.
Mr. Snuffleupagus is real, and he’s dead!
He’s broken everything else, and now he’s coming for the fourth wall!
“Miss Albright?”
Depends. What did she do?
Oh, you found my Horcrux.
Pull the string!
Thank you for using Mask. Be sure not to operate heavy machinery after applying Mask. Do not combine Mask with alcohol or other masks. Mask is not responsible for any car chases or murders the operator commits. Side effects include greasy face and crunchy pants. Ask your doctor about Mask today!
“Yeah, but a hunch won’t stand up in court, will it?”
Thank God for bribes!
Let’s see what she’s won, George! It’s a greasy disgraced psychiatrist! Embarrass your parents and make your friends uncomfortable with this sweaty 1961 fiancé!
So what brings you to the River Styx? You know, the Styx isn’t the only river in the Underworld. There’s Phlegethon, Acheron, Lethe, Cocytus. Anyway, first time in Hell?
Yeah, that’ll happen when you put your occult alter right over a gas main.
Wanna know how I got these scars?
Turns out I can’t handle the truth!
For a review of this “MST3K” episode and others go to “Faith’s Take” on YouTube.com.
She reviews Rifftrax as well.
Warner Brothers? Are we in the right theater?
It certainly has been a very long time since we saw the WB shield in the MST3K theater, and this was an okay film in the vein of ‘Black Scorpion’ or ‘The Crawling Hand’. Sort of a right-down-the-middle film, just competent enough to avoid the ‘they just didn’t care’ label but not quite in the ‘what were they thinking?’ ballpark and those sorts of films don’t always lend themselves to top-notch riffing.
I did enjoy the host segments though, and really glad that Patton Oswalt finally got his own bit during the costume sketch, though I wish they’d done just a bit more with his Alfred Hitchcock homage before the Invention Exchange.
Fave Riffs
‘Show it to me.’
Excuse me??
‘Suicide…’
Do they know who did it?
The surprising conclusion to the ‘Three Men and a Baby’ trilogy.
A therapist couch in Hell, is this a ‘New Yorker’ cartoon?
‘I gave him a strong sedative…’
A relaxing croquet mallet to the skull!
Oh man do I enjoy this episode. The host segments all hit me in just the right way, especially the costume one. Tom as Pinhead, Crow as a cheap 80s-90s store bought costume version as himself, Max as Mad Max Headroom, and of course Jonah as a character actor no one knows making him prime for ridicule. And is this the first time since Time Travelers that we’ve had a visit from a character in the movie? The punchline of her knowing Tom Adkins is just perfect.
The movie itself also hits that sweet spot for me. Weirdly incompetent with the clear decision to have people stare down the barrel of the camera, and almost overly earnest. It’s also incredibly stupid with a cop who has absolutely wild hunches based on zero corresponding pieces of evidence, but is somehow always right. And very cool to get a Halloween AND 3D episode in one!
Cold Opening: This was a fun idea. Jonah and the Bots cut to the chase and tell the last line of horror stories. The lines they gave kind of reminded me of the story that Bill Murray’s character (Tripper) tells in the underrated 1979 classic “Meatballs.” Okay Tripper gets to tell the whole story but his last line would fit the theme of this segment.
Opening: Max comes out to my favorite “Halloween” ditty of all time. “Funeral March of a Marionette” by Charles Gounod and Lyn Murray. We are off to a strong start here. Then he professes his faith in the Great Pumpkin as he hasn’t seen the end of the classic 1966 Peanuts special.
Invention Exchange:
Jonah & the Bots: Mutlimask. I like this one a lot. Gene Simmons sure made it easy to fit the coffin theme as KISS has famously actually sold coffins and of course Gene was behind that. It was tougher to connect Wonder Woman to the concept. I admit I don’t get the reference there. Then having both Frankenstein and the Nerd Explaining Frankenstein isn’t actually the name of the monster was inspired.
Mads: Ouija board variants. This one was pretty fun as well. My favorite is the Luigi Board.
Host Segment 1: The trick or treating sketch was just plain fun. The costumes are all pretty good. Crow going as himself and wearing a cheesy “face on the torso cheap commercial Halloween costume” costume was inspired. I also loved how Max sold Mad Max Headroom. Jonah and the Bots even wear their costumes back into the theater.
Host Segment 2: The Monster Mash is rewritten so that none of the monsters show up. I really like this one. Like Frankenstein, I too have had to skip parties to finish up my taxes. But I have to say, inviting the monsters to Thanksgiving is the sensible solution of all sensible solutions to this problem. This is now my second favorite Jonah song.
Host Segment 3: Noir therapy. Once again, they hit all the cliches of the noir monologue without being over-cheesy and patronizing. It’s a very fine line and very easy to overdo it. But here they got it right! I loved Tom popping up playing the trumpet parts.
Closing Segment: We have a visitor from the movie. It’s the Mask and it is showing off Alternativerse’s own 3D host segment prowess. This was cute but probably the weakest segment. Yet it was still entertaining. I thought it was a nice touch how they put a still photo of Jonah and the Bots on screen after they finish their horror ride.
The Movie: It kind of reminds me of Episode 414 Tormented. The movie is almost good enough to watch unriffed. The story can be followed and actually builds suspense. There aren’t any horrible or unlikeable characters trying to pass themselves as heroes or protagonists. It doesn’t make me hate it. Its flaws are minor but that is where the riffing comes in. To me this movie is the definition of the best kind of riffing material.
This episode felt season 3 or 4 good to me. (To put that in context, that’s the high water mark for me. Your mileage may vary.) Hats off this this episode’s writing team!! They chose perfect riffing fodder and they were firing on all cylinders for this outing. This is my favorite episode of the revival era.
Favorite Riffs:
The hand of a corpse is shown. Jonah “Avenge me true crime podcast.”
A shot of the scratch marks on Michael’s face. Tom “Another victim of fun sized Wolverine.”
Lt. Martin “Did he have any friends or relatives?” Crow as Mrs. Kelley “Does a Sailor Moon body pillow count?”
Dr. Barnes puts on the mask for the first time. Jonah and the Bots sing “Magic Carpet Ride.”
Pam flees Dr. Barnes with the mask. Crow “My boyfriend is operating a medical practice out of residential building. To the zoning board.”
Dr. Barnes ransacks an office in search of the mask. Crow “He’s broken everything else. Now he’s coming for the fourth wall.”
Jonah “This movie is like a riddle, wrapped in a mystery seen through a migraine inducing idea of 3D glasses.”
Dr. Barnes stumble/trods from his office to the reception area: Crow sings in a slow manner “Let’s all go to the lobby.”
Lt. Martin “A hunch won’t stand up in court. Will it?” Jonah “Thank God for bribes.”
Pam walks in wearing a red checkered dress. Tom “Somewhere a Pizza Hut table stands naked.”
I’m not sure why we got The Mask AND The Bubble this season, if they only had a 3-D print of The Mask.
(And yes, the red-green version, for all you angry cheapskates who were fighting the “Greedy studio conspiracy!” of 3DTV twelve years ago, and saying you wouldn’t buy a new set until Samsung perfected “that new glasses-free set they said they were working on!”)
I’m assuming it’s because Mask already had a red/green print, from the 80’s days when syndicated stations told you to get your glasses at 7-Eleven.
It’s hard no longer being the “only” one to stick up in persecuted defense of Halloween III, now that it’s cool to watch it again.
(Oh, well, guess I’ll have to go back to being a persecuted defender of Airplane II, that movement’s still trying to catch fire.)
Yes, but they didn’t want to scare the audience with the TRUE pedantic horror:
The nerd who points out that the Monster in Mary Shelley’s book isn’t a lumbering zombie, but a ruthless “sharp-faced” character who argues about the meaning of his creation, and that Robert DeNiro in the Kenneth Branagh movie basically got it right, and–
(dragged away by security)
–And Mary Shelley was a feminist activist, and didn’t knit by the fire like Elsa Lanchester!….
Tom Atkins fan here, so I liked the references to him a lot. Fun episode. One of the season’s best.
Pinhead Servo is in the theater! Costumes and props from host segments was something the new version of the show had been missing.
Given how bad some of the movies looked in the original run, this movie’s print is *incredible.* I imagine being a 3D movie it was well cared for. It’s also the first black and white movie in the modern era of MST.
Kickstarter backers above a certain level were sent special KingaVision 3-D glasses which arrived in time for the premiere of this episode in the Gizmoplex, the only physical reward backers have received as of this post. (They’re coming, and they’ve apologized numerous times for the delays.)
The movie is available in 3D in the Gizmoplex. It premiered on Twitch this week in 2D, which I assume is also how it’s playing on the FAST services and whatnot.
“Okay skull, staring contest, you and me…..go!”
“Hey y’all, y’all making a movie?”
(in front of model boat) “They want us to ship these two?”
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dj_timmy_b:
Given how bad some of the movies looked in the original run, this movie’s print is *incredible.* I imagine being a 3D movie it was well cared for. It’s also the first black and white movie in the modern era of MST.
It had a professional restoration for Blu3D disk a few years back, so it’s had recent work done.
I’ll save the rest of the 3D fan-community nerding-out for when we get to The Bubble. There’s a lot to cover.
Ah! I’m so happy to see these recap posts continue! When I make my own recaps at Metafilter Fanfare I try to link to yours if I can find them!