The world is filled with crappy movies. Wander the aisles of any video store, rummage through any department store dollar-DVD bin, flip through the channels at 2:00 in the morning and chances are you’ll find some horrendous stuff that makes you scratch your head and wonder why anyone would put up the money and take the time to make such a piece of crap. Well, if it’s a genre film in the realm of sci-fi or horror, the reason was Mystery Science Theater 3000 – even if that reason wasn’t apparent at first.
The show debuted in 1988 as on public television in Minnesota before hitting the big time on Comedy Central. The premise is the a space station janitor (well, two janitors if you count the one who left and was replaced) is experimented on by being forced to watch bad movies with his robot pals. The show revolves around silly skits and the gang watching, talking and making fun during the shows.
Living in Canada when the show had its original ten-season run, I don’t recall seeing it on the air. It might have but at any rate I missed it. Shout! Factory’s four-disc “20th Anniversary Edition” DVD collects four episodes that served as my introduction to MST3K with four really bad movies. And while I appreciate the gimmick and understand there may be better episodes out there, I found the show (at least as represented by this set) to be very hit-and-miss.
First Spaceship on Venus is self explanatory. A team of international astronauts head out into space and find some trouble. Laserblast tells the tale of a troubled young man and his plight to wrong those who wronged him with an alien weapon that fits perfectly on his arm. Werewolf combines your typical man-wolf story with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with horrendous and poorly acted results. Finally, there’s Future War, a much more recent film that plays like Jean-Claude Van Damme taking on a combination of Terminators and Jurassic Park escapees.
I can’t imagine having to watch any of these four films on their own. They’re beyond bad and not in a so-bad-they’re-good sort of way either. Acting, effects, story – they’re all bad. However when you sit Mike or Joel (the janitor “hosts”) and his robot friends Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot and let them savage the screen, there’s some fun to be had. The gags are a mix of vicious sarcasm, pop culture references and outright complaining. When you let these guys go for 90 minutes, some of it is bound to work but there’s other times where the riffing is about as exciting as the film you’re watching. I did find the show is best viewed when a little bit tired. Have you ever tried to watch Saturday Night Live during the day? It’s not nearly as good either.
I also think part of the reason that I’m not overly enthusiastic about the show is that so much has changed since MST3K went off the air a decade ago. There’s these things called DVDs that often have commentary tracks. Although they’re often bored directors and stars patting one another on the back, we’re now used to people talking during the movie. It’s not such a novel concept as when MST3K first aired.
The 20th Anniversary Edition DVD release for MST3K is an odd collection that doesn’t have much of a through-line as far as connecting one film/episode to the next. Still it offers some of the strangest and worst the movies have to offer and makes it, at the very least, watchable if not entertaining.
Mystery Science Theater 3000: 20th Anniversary Edition DVD Review
Please note that there’s a couple of versions of this release. The first was a souped-up set complete with tin box, lobby cards and Crow T. Robot figure. It was apparently sold out before it even hit the shelves. This review is based on the new edition, which features all the same content, just no tin, lobby cards or figure.
This is a four-disc set with one episode on each DVD. The show is shown in a full screen format. The quality varies based on the source material. Sound is in Dolby 2.0 Stereo. There are no subtitles.
The bonus features are led by a three-part retrospective documentary that’s got a whole lot of info and just as much talking. There’s also a 40-minute panel from the 2008 San Diego Comic Con that includes a reunion with the major cast and crew. Other features include theme song variations and the original trailers for three of the four featured films.
