320 - The Unearthly

Time for go to bed!

Titans of character acting, together on screen.

There’s a fine line between mystery and horror. The search for answers can easily turn into a flee from the unknown. The locked rooms of a mysterious house can hold wanted explanations or unwanted eviscerations. They are disparate and linked. Much like how classic character actor John Carradine, of The Grapes of Wrath fame, and cult B-movie favorite Tor Johnson, of Plan 9 from Outer Space fame are linked in a bungled movie about horrific medical experiments, glands of immortality, not a lot of locations, and shots so black they come across like Goth Rothko’s.(“Gothko”?). Unfortunately, in the case of that movie, The Unearthly, it also holds a not-great MST episode, a sentence that befuddles and horrifies me to say (hah, tied that up nicely!)

The Unearthly features the ever inimitable Carradine as Dr Conway, mad scientist and part time organ player who is conducting FDA unapproved experiments on lone, vulnerable patients to produce immortality under the guise of a rest and retreat at his house in the country. Services include basement full of twitching brain dead people, sexy lab assistants, and man giant Lobo’s luggage and kidnapping assistance. Dr Conway will even give people like fugitive Mark Houston a place to hide, providing they’re willing to become part of the experiment. But Mark might want to help get the other guests, including the beautiful Grace, or before they become shriveled up, twitching people taking up valuable Christmas decoration storage space in the basement. Even with the presence of Carradine and Johnson, and a plot involving mad experiments and a spooky house, the movie is mostly Carradine overexposing his plans, fugitive Mark trying to convince others something is going on, and lots, lots, lots of people walking in and out of rooms in a boring looking house.

Tor's reaction mirrors my own to most of the movie.

Despite the class and charisma Carradine always brings and the lumbeing fun of Tor Johnson, there’s not a lot for Joel and the Bots to go on. The movie goes nowhere and fast, and there’s only so much material to be wrung out of people having boring, expository conversations about mumbo jumbo science. The Carradine jokes aren’t even clever beyond referencing that he was in Stagecoach and Grapes of Wrath, though the Tor jokes are much funnier, like when a character says he’d like to wring Lobo’s neck, to which Crow adds, “But I’d need a forklift!”. They try to wring some fun out of one of the side characters being an old style New York palooka, but the fun they have doing the voice doesn’t translate to great jokes. Not that Joel and the bots aren’t trying: this is them in their prime, riffing often and with great verve. But the jokes are just okay, but not very connected to the movie, because they’re not super invested in it. They don’t act bored or riff badly at all; Season 3 was when the show hit its first stride, and the SOL crew are just naturally good at joke delivery and keeping the tone fun and breezy. But the material, from the movie to the riffs, just doesn’t feel there. If anything they’re invested in about it, it’s how confusing it is, resulting in a great host segment where Crow and Tom jam random loose bits of board games to make a new one in the spirit of the movie’s mixed up plot.

Reading the instructions? Lose one turn.

But the shorts before it? Those they easily make art out of. Two classic examples of 50s educational shorts for kids, one, Posture Pals, is about four kids working on their posture so they can become the king, queen, prince and princess of posture and fork a posture monarchy over their classmates ( or just wear dumb cardboard crowns for not slouching like Neanderthals ). The next, Appreciating Our Parents, is about s kid learning all the things his mom and dad do to support him and how worthless and selfish he is for wanting that extra nickel for a mail-order toy each week. The show always does great with these old educational shorts from a more naïve time, getting delightfully dark, like when lil’ Tommy sees his mom cleaning the kitchen in Appreciating our Parents, and Servo says, “While suppressing her hopes and dreams.” Then there’s when Mrs. Reedy, the teacher in Posture Pals, shows the main kids how bad their posture is, and Joel says, “That’s when the kids came up with a plan to blackmail Mrs. Reedy.” And of course, just for the really dark and literate crowd, as lil’ Tommy’s mom kisses him goodnight, Servo whispers, “Good night, Oedipus.”

The height of coolness.

I’m tempted to say it’s scary how the episode couldn’t be funnier, but it’s just sad that a movie about mad doctors, John Carradine, and Tor Johnson just doesn’t result in a better episode. But it does result in two spectacular shorts, which are worth the price of admission. And luckily, this isn’t the last the SOL crew will encounter these two cinematic titans. And when they do, they’ll have better material to work with.

Episode in a Riff:

“Forever’s a long time, doc.” -Mark

“Yeah, tell us about it. This movie’s a long time!” -Crow

Random Asides:

 
-God, it’s just a struggle to see this movie! Maybe the transfer they got for the DVD is just bad, but the whole movie feels like watching an ink smudge move around. This was true of my old VHS tape and it’s true of Shout!’s DVD reissue. Oddly though, the scenes on the MST Hour wraps on the disc look much cleaner.

-Funny how the show slams America’s Funniest Home Videos early on, and later Trace and Frank would go on to write for them.

-I like the acknowledge Magic Voice. She should show up more often. But I do enjoy that the new iteration of the show has Gypsy fulfill both rolls and do more.

-Why aren’t there any guards or locked doors around the secret basement full of people disfigured in the name of medical science?

-Man, the “Hard Pill to Swallow” invention is rough, even by the Mads’ standard

-The skit about Appreciating our Gypsy may be more hilarious than the actual short. Classic Tom bashing Crow lines include, “Crow is thinking hard, or as hard as he can think…”. I also love the flow of this lines about being, “Too bloated on rich foods and heaping portions of our own gargantuan ego” to fix the ship and how, while Gypsy braves the void of space to fix the ship, Crow sits inside, “Cozy as Allister Cook, sipping cocoa and watching Tiny Toons.”

                                                                                                                      

-The show has really good timing on ending the music with the door slamming on the short

-Rather polite and casual entrance to a mad scientist’s secret mansion

-Carradine’s mansion is like if the Kellogg Center was run by Alex Jones

-I love the way John Carradine pronounces it,  “syuooicide”

-“In science, nothing is taken for granted!” Yes, classic evil scientist dialogue.

-I can kinda see how this ep drove Kevin Murphy crazy, if he actually did choke Paul like he says he did in the Amazing Colossal Episode Guide.

-Is this movie a subtle commentary on the overmedication of minor problems and the opiod crisis, or is it just dumb?

                                                                                                                                  

-Where does the synthetic gland Dr. Conway implants come from? You’d think that itself would be a big deal!

-Was the music for this also used in The Atomic Brain?

-The Unearthly board game is great, very Joel era, as is the madness it induces. “Lose one turn.”

-God, watching the MST Hour wraps, I really kept expecting to hear an ABC Channel 8 broadcaster interrupt the credits with talk of what would be on the news that morning.  

-Yes, Mike as Jack Perkins, this episode is the color of pitch.

- “As far as body types go, I’ve never trusted thin people. Frankly, they remind me of Satan. Just like John Carradine.” Um….okay, Mike. 

Additional Links:
Satellite News review
Annotations

908 - The Touch of Satan

This is where the fish lives.

The face of evil!

How far would you go for a girl? She’s sweet, intelligent, very cute, the works. However, she has some drawbacks. Like, she still lives with her parents. And she has a crazy grandma living in her attic who murders people. Oh, and she maybe, kinda, owes her soul to Satan. But on the other hand, her dad is a walnut farmer, so she’s rolling in the dough! Of course, the question also assumes you’re someone who likes women in the first place, which probably eliminates half of you anyway. The better question is, how far can a lame horror movie like The Touch of Satan stretch out half an hour’s worth of plot to a full run time? And how hard can Mike and the Bots riff it? 

The Touch of Satan is the inspiring story of Jody, your typical Mustang driving, blow-combed 70s chunkhead who is driving cross-country before deciding what he wants to do with his life. He stops in a small town and happens upon Melissa Strickland, a cute girl strolling along a lake. They have a bland conversation full of witty and scintillating pauses, and soon Jody is meeting Melissa’s family. He also meets her Grandma, a horribly burned old woman with the unfortunate habits of sneaking into Jody’s bedroom, creeping him out, and murdering people with pitchforks. Hey, every family’s got one weird member. Will that be a deal breaker for him? What about the fact that she may owe her soul to the Devil? I dunno, she is pretty cute. But the Devil and everything…

Horror is a hard genre to do well and easy to botch in a number of ways. A mistimed music cue or poorly chosen camera angle and turn fear into laughter. Here, the filmmakers chose to take what is basically a lame anthology show entry’s worth of material and stretch it out to feature length through the magic of filling most dialogue scenes with… long… overly… dramatic… and… ponderous… pauses. This… makes… the… movie… drag… on… far… longer… than… necessary. Sure, the scenes with Melissa’s killer grandma get creepy, but that’s it. As I said in my review of Giant Gila Monster, a whole lotta nothing happens in this movie.

This is more like it. Gah! Still freaks me out.

But while in Gila it was scenes of people parking, singing, and the occasional monster attack stretching out half an hour of plot, here it’s drawn out conversations and the occasional killer grandma. It is far, far more boring that Gila or about half the other movies shown on MST. And while that can drag an episode down easily, here, they feed off that boredom. “Did the actors drink a quart of Robitussin before shooting? Mike asks. During an interminable driving montage, Crow wonders, “Weren’t they concerned about holding an audience back in the 70s at all?” And speaking of, I think this was the era lot of the writers on the show grew up in, because this one is chock full of 70s references, like mentions of “Whip Inflation Now” (which I had to Google), and Mike, as Jody, asking, “You catch Kotter last night?” They’re kinda lazy and all over the place, but I like them. But not as much as I like the Devil and Satanism jokes! “Sightsee on your time, Beelzebub!” Tom yells as Jody drives around the countryside. And later, he says, “Oh, they’ve got a signed copy of The Necronomicon” as Jody peruses the Strickland house. And then there’s the killer grandma, whom Mike dubs “Margaret Rawhide Chew” and who, as she slaughters a police officer, Crow yells, “Where’s my bike? I reported it stolen 80 years ago!” Hoo, they have fun with this one. With all the time spent with Melissa and Jody, it’s like being stuck on a bad date with Mike and the Bots. In other words, still a good time.

Guess what decade this movie was made in?

That carries over to the host segments to. Crow has Mike stone him to make sure he isn’t a witch, which doesn’t help since his metal body doesn’t crush easily, and in my favorite bit, Servo’s evil killer grandma tries to take Mike out. Like one Servo wasn’t dangerous enough. There’s also some weirdness going on in Castle Forrester, with Pearl out and babysitter Stephie watching over Brain Guy, whom she treats like a baby, and Bobo, whom she thinks is a dog. It’s weird and nonsensical, but in that great MST way. 

I don't care if it's Servo, this is creepy.

 The main things holding this one back are the movie’s languid pacing, which makes molasses look like lightning, and that it doesn’t offer anything really spectacularly bad, weird, or memorable for the Brains to really sink their teeth into. But for an episode I, or maybe longtime MSTies, haven’t seen in a while? Worth checking out, especially around Halloween!

Or Not-Christmas, whatever not-holiday you prefer.

Watch the entire episode, annotated, here!

 Episode in a Riff:

“I’m gonna time this pause: one, two, three, four, fi-wow…, five, six…” -Crow

Random Asides:

-This was maybe the third or fourth time I’ve seen this episode, and I remember my first few viewings feeling that the movie was as slow paced and boring as Mike and the Bots found it. However, all these years later, and having sat through more than one languidly paced indie flick and M. Knight Shyamalan movie, the dialogue felt like it flowed pretty normal. Or maybe I’ve just gotten used to it. On  the plus side, this movie doesn’t have an acoustic guitar soundtrack.

-It does, however, have a dumb plot twist. Spoiler: Melissa’s sister, Lucinda, was a witch, I think, and when townspeople armed with pitchforks and torches came for her, Melissa gave her soul to the Devil to save her sister. Then, years later, Lucinda is a crazy old killing “grandma”, and when she threatens Jody, Melissa turns on her just a few days after having met him. Then, when Melissa falls in love with Jody, she stops being young, so Jody gives up his soul to Satan to keep her alive. Like Mike says, “Man, if you can’t trust the Devil...!” This’ f’ing movie…

-Lord, the trailer for this movie, included on the Rhino edition of the DVD, feels less appropriate for a horror movie and more like a warning against IBS. “If you feel a swelling in your gut, it could be…The Touch of Satan!”

-Anyone out there ever had actual wassail? I looked up recipes and it doesn’t sound bad; cider-y and spiced. But, remember, as Tom and Crow sing, “If you person to whom you sing cannot provide the wassail / You are entitled to his debit card and PIN number!” That should be a yuletide staple.

-I wonder what Mary Jo Pehl was up to when this was shot? Maybe a needed vacation from the madness.

-For some reason, Mike’s jokes giving Jody this incredibly sad 70s bachelor life feels on point and wonderful

-There’s a solid three minutes that’s just Jody walking around, parking and going to take a picnic. WOW.

-Jody’s reaction to evil Grandma is pretty goddamn spot on. That would freak me THE.F. OUT.

-Speaking of evil grandmas, I like to imagine the SOL is swarming with Servos like a hive mind, and every so often one of them just goes in the theater. And then every so often, one of them becomes and evil grandma and tries to kill Mike.

-I like that “Stan”, the not-Satan that Crow sells his soul to at the end, is voiced by Paul Chaplain, who usually play sactual devil pitch! 


Additional Links:
Episode Write-Up by Paul Chaplan
Satellite News Review
Annotations

402 - The Giant Gila Monster

I sing whenever I sing whenever I sing…

Starring a Mexican Beaded Lizard as "Gila"

The Giant Gila Monster was the very last episode of MST3K I saw as “The Mystery Science Theater Hour” waaaay back in 1997 after I first discovered the show. A week after tuning in for the next episode, the Olympic Park Bombing happened, and MST disappeared from showings at 3 am on ABC Channel 8. Thankfully , by that time Rhino had started releasing episodes on VHS, allowing me to see new episodes like Cave Dwellers and finish seeing episodes I’ve missed like half of Pod People. But for a final episode, Gila was a damn good way to go. I’m glad I no longer have to stay up until 3 am to catch MST3K, but man, that hunt, that wait, sure made it feel more worthwhile and fun. And after rewatching it for this review, making it maybe the ten millionth time I’ve seen this one, it still makes me laugh, and I’m still discovering obscure references. And I will the ten million and first time I see this one again.

Gila is a gritty, intimate, McMurtry-like examination of a small Texas town and the unique, engaging characters that inhabit it, their struggle to escape poverty, and the pursuit of their passions and hopes. There’s local tow truck drive and hot rodder Chase, who is busy making a living for his mom and kid sister, helping her get leg braces, and trying to keep his French girlfriend in the country, while also struggling to accomplish his dream of being a singer. Then there’s the Sheriff, the lone authority in miles of nowhere, trying to keep rebellious teens in check while they strain against the limits of their one-horse town, and is also harassed by local oil magnate Mr. Wheeler, who is constantly threatening the Sheriff’s job if he doesn’t find his missing son and his son’s girlfriend. Then there’s poor, sad Old Man Harris, who spends his days drinking and riding around in his jalopy Model A, trying to stave off death and the pain of loneliness one more day in playing chicken with trains and working his way down to the bottom of a bottle. It’s also about a regular sized Gila Monster put on sets with toy cars and twigs and sticks arranged like trees to make it look giant. In fact, it’s mainly about that, and I was just being pretentious about the other stuff, nevermind. 

It's also a lot of people standing around wondering what happened.

Actually, a lot of what I said is true of the plot, minus the deeper, high-lit implications of it. The movie is mostly Chase, the Sheriff, and the people of the small town cluelessly going from missing person account and parking their hot rods near a wrecked car and back to the garage, intercut between scenes of Gila eating people and wrecking cars, in as much as a shot of a normal sized lizard intercut with a shot of a screaming extra can be considered “eating.” The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, this ain’t.. It’s also not mysterious to us, since we know it’s Gila doing the eatin’s, so we get characters running around not figuring out what we already know. It’s largely a whole lotta nothing. But oh, what wonderful nothing it is. The characters are dopey and clueless, there’s frequent monster attacks to keep it from getting boring, the occasional song number to liven (and annoy) things up, more subplot than actual plot, and a lizard on a set with toys for special effects.

The Thomas the Tank Engine episode you never saw.

 

 And boy, do Joel and the Bots enjoy every moment of it. This is one of those ones where their joy at riffing the movie just seeps off the screen. They’re in great spirits, and we get a variety of my favorite moods of MST during the flick They’re annoyed Chase’s songs, bemused by the Sheriff’s bumbling, laugh at Old Man Harris’ drinking, and they even give Gila a slobbering, disbelieving personality to comment on the film. They make running gags out of the old jalopy music from The Munsters, car sputtering noises, and more. There’s jokes from the goofy like when someone says hi to the Sheriff, and Crow says, "Wish I were!", to the biting like, when the Sheriff and Oil Tycoon come to the barn dance, Joel says, “We’re from the committee to keep Rock n Roll white!” And of course there’s a Jurassic Park reference, which still warms my heart to this day.

They carry their love for riffing the movie into the host segments as well. They make fun of teen dances and malt shops, form a Gila-themed rock band, and in my personal favorite, Tom doing a pretentious film show talking about the various blocking techniques used in the movie. And by “various”, as Crow interrupts, “the director just had them put their legs up on everything!”

Tom behaving rationally, as always.

Knees on luggage...

On slightly high ground...

On tables...anything works!

And that's not to mention the great "Renaissance Fair Punching Bags" invention from the Mads. This is also the episode that introduced not one, but two long running gags on the show. First, there’s Chase’s impromptu song “I Sing Whenever I Sing” that’s sung as he bangs dents out of a car hood with a mallet. Melodious.

Such sweet music.

Then there’s crow, in a letter at the end written by a child, being named “Art”. Apparently this is a reference to the episode Jungle Goddess, but it keeps going here, to where Pearl calls him “Art” a number of times later on in the show.

Let’s see, did I miss anything? Dopey, likeable movie that’s still bad and just painful enough? Bad special effects? Joyous riffing and attitude throughout? Memorable skits and introduction of long running gags? Well, the episode didn’t get me out of school or work, so there’s that. Otherwise, it does about everything an episode of MST3K can do, and does it expertly. As perfect as the show gets, and an all time favorite!

Oh, wait, they don’t make a Godzilla reference at any point. There, that’s something wrong.

Episode in a Riff:

As the Gila Monster dies: "Aw, they killed off the only likeable character!"-Crow


Random Asides:

-There's a fantastic interview with star Don Sullivan on the Rhino DVD collection. He reminisces on his history of acting, how he got into the business, and how much he enjoyed the MST version of Giant Gila. “MST added just a note to The Giant Gila that took it to an area where, my sense of humor, plus the songs that are in it, became my favorite.” It's incredibly heartwarming!

-The DVD set is actually edition 10.2. See, collection 10 originally came with "Godzilla vs. Megalon", which I didn't buy at the time since I had it on VHS. Now I can look back and see, for many reasons, what a fool I was.

-I hate the DVD set doesn’t have the MST Hour bumpers, but my old VHS does!

-I love Tom checking out his butt . "Gentlemen, can’t a robot admire his own backports without being thought of as astray?"

-I actually believed Frank at the beginning that Dr F was dead when I first saw this. Moments like this make me love Dr F and Frank’s relationship. There's some of that in Bobo and Pearl, and King anad Max, but Dr. F and Frank have it the best!

 -Joel’s invention, the Plot Specific Radio, is perfect! I still think every show should have it.

-"Taste the red hot steel of Dr. Clayton 'Firebrand' Forrester!”

-I really love the Mads' Ren Fair punching bags.

"Bite me, Frodo!"

-This was my first time watching an old episode on a 4K TV. It has a little of that weird too-smooth scanning in some parts, but otherwise is fine. 

-There are a few differences in the regular version and the MST Hour version. A few line reads are different (Tom's "Hey, I drank urine! Ew!" is much funnier in the MST Hour cut), and Chase's boss at the tow truck service is all but out in the MST Hour cut, save for his fiery death. There's also some stuff involving the Sheriff and Old Man Harris that's been cut that I really enjoy.

-If the movie was mainly Chase, the Sheriff, and Old Man Harris investigating monster attacks, I'd full on love this movie!

-20 minutes in: Checkov's TNT

-“Let’s get something cool and slippery from the stupid jerk!”

-Crow and Tom ruining Joel's closet malt shop, and him complaining about it, is some great meta-commentary on how they do things on the ship.

-I noticed some things I missed on this viewing: Lisa pays for the barces, Chase has a boss, who is who gets blown up, I like the rotating goofball characters like chase, the sheriff and old Joe. I’d pay to watch the entire movie about them all

-58 minutes: Richard speck haircut joke: deep cut and DARK!

-Sometimes, MST slightly colorizes black and white movies to make them pop more against the silhouettes. This is one of the better examples: it's very sharp, maybe slightly blue, and hardly noticeable.

 -I wish there had been more “servon on cinema” bits

-Trace, in the monster guide for this episode, called the giant gila ‘a decent effect, competent enough actor’ and ‘aka republican senator from Oregon’

-I really hope the kids who wrote the adorable letters to Joel and the Bots are still watching this years later!

Additional Links:
Satellite News Review
Annotations