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