607 - Bloodlust!

Welcome to Death Island.

Ah hunting people for sport. The most dangerous game! Is there anything more exciting, rewarding or intoxicating? To take a life to feel alive. Sure, it’s a big business now, over commercialized, and some people say toned down for families and kids to get involved in the thrill of the hunt, like what happened to Las Vegas. But I say, the more people who get involved, the better. 

Huh? Hunting people is illegal? You sure?

Manhunting, the old way, before Disney got their hands on it.

Bloodlust! is an okay episode. Not bad, but not hilarious. It’s about as average and worthy an episode as it gets. Which means, still better than 75% of other forms of entertainment. Four young people (including Brady dad Robert Reed) out on a boat excursion end up on an uncharted dessert isle I mean accidentally land ashore on an island owned by reclusive big game hunter Balleau, who runs a nature preserve of endangered species and vegan farm and kitchen; the title “Bloodlust!” is how he refers to meat eating society. Yeah, no, he hunts people for sport. He also has a wife and best friend on the island, somehow, as well as a full staff who seemed to be dressed like pirates. The movie is also a little gory for a late 50s/early 60s flick, but not like Night of the Living Dead gory.

If that doesn’t sound too bad of a movie…you’re right. And that might be part of the problem. This is on the lesser-awful scale of movies they’ve watched. It’s not too painful or memorable in any way, really. Which, unfortunately, means the Best Brains don’t have a lot to work with. Whereas horrid characters like in Hobgoblins or weirdness like in Santa Claus can give them something meaty to pounce on, something to engage their comedic senses, here there’s…just a mediocre thriller form the 60s that seems to have the stolid staginess of a bad 30s or 40s thriller. Sure, there’s a joke about Robert Reed here and there, some sarcasm at the whole hunting-people aspect, and some jokes about the fey-ness of the villain, but most of the jokes are just okay. There's random silliness like yelling “surprise! Happy birthday to you” when a character opens a door or saying, “Boy, am I cheesed” when Robert Reed is told he’s gonna be hunted for sport. They’re fine, and some jokes about a loose madman looking like John the Baptist are great, but that’s about it. Still, Mike and the Bots riff frequently, which keeps the episode rocking along. 

What does shine, however, is the short they watch before, Uncle Jim’s Dairy farm. Two kids are left at their uncle’s dairy farm as a way to show kids of the 50s what a farm is like. Whee. It’s bland 50s wholesome infotainment. And man, can Mike and the Bots make a meal out of 50s era blandness. Examples: “Now it’s time for Uncle Jim’s fundamentalist dogma.” “Despair was the bumper crop” and “Nessie and I are in love and you can’t stop us.” There’s a strange aspect to the riffing of the show; how it imposes a superior, funnier reality on top of the one of the original film, in a Phillip K. Dick kind of way. And the more disparity between the two, the stronger the episode feels. And man, are 50s educational shorts great for that, especially in the Mike era of the show. The short even spawns a great skit, where Crow calls out a square dance that turns into a punk rock mosh pit.

"We'd like to talk to you about He Who Walks Behind the Rows"

Country Mosh Pit

There is another aspect that makes this episode special, however, and that’s the introduction of Mary Jo Pehl as Dr. F’s mom, Pearl. Though here she’s more of a goofy mad scientist-y mom, she already shows that spark of anger that would go on to make Pearl such a great character and villain. Though the skits around her are just mostly funny ones about Midwestern passive-agressiveness as she ignores Dr. F to hang with Frank.

Bloodlust!, meanwhile, only inspires one skit, the “murder mystery dinner” bit, which is over in 5 seconds and has a quick punchline. It kind of encapsulates the episode as a whole. Not a lot to it, a handful of hilarious moments, and done. I’ve seen less funny episodes, and better ones. I realize now why I watched this one a lot in my late teens when it came out on video: it was only one of a few episodes I had, and the episodes it came packaged with (The Side Hackers and Creeping Terror on VHS; Terror, Skydivers and Catalina Caper on DVD) were as good or better.  But, I still like this episode and am glad to have seen it again after a while. That said, it’ll be a while before I watch it again.

Episode in a Riff

“This would be really suspenseful but for the fact that it isn’t” –Servo

Random Asides

                

-The PKD/Alternate reality aspect of the show also plays into the ‘every episode is a new world” feel I love from the  show, and the movie’s island setting and semi-gory tone add to that. Watching it with Mike and the Bots, it’s like being on a bad vacation alleviated due to good friends. Adding to that, the Rhino DVD set comes with the unedited version of the movie. Watching a movie without Mike or Joel and the Bots it’s a weird experience, and is almost surreal at first.

-The moody and colorful lights on the SOL deck really differentiate the Mike from the Joel era.

-The bots need a lot more therapy than they give each other in the intro segment.

-Mike’s only been in 17 episodes so far, but his combative buddy/workplace sitcom relationship he has with the bots is already solidifying

-Mike’s disinterested reading of the kiss-ass lines Dr. F has him and the Bots read to impress Pearl is great, especially when he just tosses the written notes away like trash. But Gypsy’s reaction, telling Pearl how sick Dr. F is, is even better.

-Gypsy says “bitch” at the end of the bit, and the Bots make a big deal of it. Funny how that’s become almost not a cuss word now, and how little the show used language like that at the time.

-My first episode review that has a short!

-You can tell some of the writers on this show have been on a farm. Watching this reminds of my Dad talking about living on a ranch when he was younger. It sounded way more interesting than Uncle Jim’s place, though.

-The music for this sure sounded familiar. Turns out the composer, Michael Terr, did the music for MST-ied movies King Dinosaur, The Violent Years, The Sinister Urge, and The Unearthly

                                                                                           

-Both director Ralph Brooke and star Wilton Graff were dead before the 60s were out.

-I like Crow sticking his head behind the cow’s butt at minute 12

-Good Munch reference to the movie’s skeletal title card

-Exxon Valdez reference. 90s!

-I like how, at the start of the “Vegables Stand” skit, Mike goes off to be Kenny G somewhere. I think hosting skits is a part of daily life on the SOL.

-Mike has a snide/fey villain voice he uses for Balleau that crops up in other episodes. I adore it!

-So, this guy who hunts people for sport has both a wife and best friend who live on the island with him? What the hell did he say to get them there? “Fun, exciting! Like a never ending hunting trip.”

-After they betray him, he gets them hunted and mounted quick.

-I like how he details his plans to hunt and kill the four main characters while seated at his desk, they surround him, and there are weapons on the walls. And when he does hunt people, they tend to stand still or beg and move slowly. It’s like the male equivalent of the female “grab area”. 

Ballaeu, center, explaining to the people surrounding him and near the weapons on the walls how he's going to hunt them for sport. "We've got him surrounded. We're helpless!"

-There are some babes in this flick, especially for the time.

-How does Weeny McGlasses make it through this movie? If it were made even 5 years later he’d be the first to go.

-How does Ballaeu have like only 3 trophies but he’s been hunting people for years, and then kills like 5 people in one day? That’s just gluttonous.

-I’m amazed Crow and Tom even felt they needed an excuse to just throw a net on Mike at the end.

-I never saw Cliffhanger either, Crow.

Watch the Full Episode Here!

Additional Link
 MST3K Info Review
Annotations