The United Federation of CAA MiSTies

[Davidizer13]

Y'know what? Forget Space Mutiny names.

I want to be known as Zap Rowsdower.

(If you haven't figured it out, I'm indecisive. Maybe; I haven't figured that out yet.)

[Blitzkrieg1701]

Dang man, that wins over everything.

[Htom Sirveaux]

I wonder if we could use this to talk about recently viewed bad movies? Sort of a "What Are You Riffing" type thing.

I've seen three good ones as of late.

First, The Gingerbread Man. A horror film starring Gary Busey (how could I resist?) about a condemned killer who comes back from the dead in the form of a homicidal gingerbread man cookie. Or at least that's what the back of the box said; all I saw was Gary Busey looking a little smaller and dumpier than usual. I'm not really into slasher flicks, but it was satisfyingly bad.

Second was Sharks In Venice, starring Billy Baldwin. A wellspring of talent, that family. Some spaghetti-eating mobster is forcing a deep sea diver to retrieve a lost treasure for him. What follows is the astounding phenomenon of people speaking clearly and distinctly despite a mouthful of SCUBA gear. Oh, and there are some sharks. I don't know if you caught that part.

(Out of space, gonna have to double post.)

[Htom Sirveaux]

Third, and freshest in my mind as I just finished watching it, is 100 Million (because "100,000,000" would be too much work to read) BC, starring no one anybody has ever heard of. A military team goes back into prehistoric time for some reason I didn't catch, half of them get eaten, and the other half come back, accidentally bringing a T-Rex with them. This film features some of the worst CG effects you could ever hope to see. It's basically The Lost World: Jurassic Park, except fun to watch.

[Blitzkrieg1701]

I just watched 1969's The Astro-Zombies earlier today, and that was one powerful pile of bad, let me tell you. The MST3k crew would definitely have had to edit it for content, but they would have had a lot of fun with the titular "zombie" (a guy in a dinner jacket and a rubber mask). It's directed by Ted V. Mikels, the guy who did Girl in Gold Boots, and even features that film's star Tom Pace (aka "the icky elf"). Oh, and John Carradine as the mad scientist, can't forget that.

[Nate]

The other day SpoonyOne mentioned in the commentary for Robowar (a movie starring Reb Brown, of Space Mutiny fame) that the worst movie he'd ever seen, bar-none, was Castle of Fu Manchu, and that it was borderline unwatchable even with Joel and the bots riffing on it.

So I'm gonna see if I can find that online somewhere, see if his claim holds up. Because I dunno, Castle of Fu Manchu doesn't seem like it could be nearly as bad as Racket Girls or The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies.

[Htom Sirveaux]

Edit: Nevermind. (Was wondering as to this "SpoonyOne." Found it.)

[Blitzkrieg1701]

Yeah, I took issue with crowning Fu Manchu as "worst" as well. Having actually seen Monster a Go-Go (also painful as an MST3k) in its original state, the bar has been set VERY high.

[K. Ayato]

*Singing* "He tried to kill me with a forklift..."

[Maledicte]

Castle of Fu Manchu is on Youtube. Watch it before it gets taken down!

Now I must see this and Monster A Go-Go.

"Steve? Me and Steve need to talk to you."

[bigsleepj]

"...and spoil the rod!"

[Davidizer13]

Good news, everyone! For the last few months, Best Brains Inc., the company behind MST3K, has been posting episodes on Google Video, meaning that you can watch some of the classics (Space Mutiny! Pod People! And many more!) for free, legally.

You can rejoice now.

[Maledicte]

Really? The episodes I'm finding have been up for 2-3 years now.

[Nate]

So I just managed to watch Castle of Fu Manchu online, and I have to say. I'm surprised.

Far, far, FAR worse than Monster A-Go-Go. Far, far, FAR worse than Manos. However, admittedly, Racket Girls was still worse than this movie. Racket Girls was a Mike era movie, though, so I can safely say Castle of Fu Manchu is the worst movie Joel was subjected to.

That may sound like a stretch. Monster A-Go-Go was definitely awful, definitely just absolutely dreadful, and the non-ending was painful. However, there can be said one thing about this movie that makes it better than Fu Manchu.

Monster A-Go-Go was filmed competently. It was boring, and bad, but at least the scenes were able to be watched. Fu Manchu has scenes where it is completely black. And not just for a few seconds, but there are scenes that stretch on for 30 seconds with complete blackness. Stuff is out of focus, or colored poorly. The camera zooms in on objects that you can't tell what they are. Editing is non-existent, with scenes haphazardly thrown together such that you have no idea what's even happening.

The sound is awful, you can't tell what people are saying half the time. This doesn't help as far as the plot is concerned, although I even wonder if this movie HAS a plot. Things happen and you don't know where they happen, or who they happen to. The movie tells us who none of the characters are, their motivations, or well, ANYTHING.

And how BORING. There is a scene for five minutes of a heart transplant. Just a doctor messing with some tools over a table. NOTHING HAPPENS. AT ALL. Not even dialogue! The camera continually zooming in on a clock on the wall doesn't help, as if to say "Yep, just think about how much time you're wasting watching this butchery of cinema!"

That's just the worst and most glaring example, but there are plenty of other scenes where just nothing happens, and it's hard to sit through.

So I was surprised how bad this movie was, and while again, not the worst in the show overall (seriously a movie will have to be pretty bad to top Racket Girls), it is DEFINITELY the worst movie of the Joel era. Nothing else even comes close.

[Maledicte]

Now I HAVE to see it.

[Blitzkrieg1701]

Holy cow. I'll have to look into that... when I'm actually feeling up to it.

Speaking of bad movies, I subjected myself to Dracula vs. Frankenstein recently, and that was quite astounding. With a title like that, it of course makes PERFECT sense that the movie is about a lounge singer, a bunch of unconvincing hippies, some even MORE unconvincing bikers, and a midget carnival barker. Well, okay. A lanky twenty-something with a jew-fro does show up as "Dracula" in a few scenes, and there's a scientist guy with a "creature" whose head seems to be made out of paper-mâché, but still... PAINFUL.