MST3K Movies that were actually decent...

Gst0395 · November 12, 2013, 07:01:21 AM

Was there ever a movie you saw on Mystery Science Theater that you thought wasn't all that bad? Revenge of the Creature is one for me, I found it to be a decent and effective sci-fi shocker from the era, and a solid sequel to the original Creature from the Black Lagoon. Seeing a young Clint Eastwood was interesting as well. I thought it was good overall, watching it with Mike and the Bots simply made it more of a humoured experience. It was a higher standard than alot of the trash they show. The Black Scorpion was okay too, with some good stop-motion animation, though it only kept my attention when the scorpion was on-screen, and I thought the transition from the model to a puppet of it's face was pretty cheesy and overused.

What would you think? As much as I love MST3K, I don't think that every film shown on there is worthy of being one of the worst ever made, some are alot worse than others.

Trevor · November 12, 2013, 07:07:13 AM

I actually liked The Final Sacrifice and wrote a review for it on this site.

Flangepart · November 12, 2013, 09:09:06 AM

GORGO. and THIS ISLAND EARTH. Like Leonard Maltin, I like the films as is, but love the riffing as it adds another 'take' to the story.

Gst0395 · November 12, 2013, 11:50:33 AM

Yeah, this can be true. I know that Gorgo is a Godzilla-type movie set in London. This Island Earth was featured as part of the movie, which I haven't seen yet unfortunately. It doesn't sound like it could be that bad of a flick though. I thought they'd at least pick something worse with it being their big-screen debut, nothing predictable like Plan 9 of course. It was actually a well praised film at the time, though maybe this could have been the reason they picked it. Maybe they wanted to intentionally seek out a higher-quality flick to mock as part of the feature film.

And I am familiar with The Final Sacrifice though I have not seen it's riff. I can't imagine it being too great but that's only my opinion based on seeing it in IMDb's Bottom 100 like other MST3k movies.

quabrot · November 12, 2013, 04:32:42 PM

I really liked the Russian fantasy films: Sword and the Dragon, Day the Earth Froze, and The Magic Voyage of Sinbad. They are pretty amazing visually, probably the best-looking films featured on the show. If I remember correctly, there is a comment somewhere in the riffing of The Sword and the Dragon about how it has much higher production values than they are used to.

Kooshmeister · November 12, 2013, 06:44:45 PM

For my money:

Gorgo
The Magic Sword
Earth vs. the Spider
Danger: Diabolik
The Black Scorpion
The Mole People
The Deadly Mantis
Revenge of the Creature

Gst0395 · November 12, 2013, 07:37:40 PM

Quote from: quabrot on November 12, 2013, 04:32:42 PM
I really liked the Russian fantasy films: Sword and the Dragon, Day the Earth Froze, and The Magic Voyage of Sinbad. They are pretty amazing visually, probably the best-looking films featured on the show. If I remember correctly, there is a comment somewhere in the riffing of The Sword and the Dragon about how it has much higher production values than they are used to.

Yeah, back in the 1960s American film distributors re-dubbed those films for a English-language release. Roger Corman was involved in a few from what I know. In my view, I think the highest-quality films on MST3K were usually mainstream studio releases back in the day (e.g Universal) as shown in Koosh's post above.

Trevor · November 13, 2013, 03:06:07 AM

Quote from: Gst0395 on November 12, 2013, 11:50:33 AM
And I am familiar with The Final Sacrifice though I have not seen it's riff. I can't imagine it being too great but that's only my opinion based on seeing it in IMDb's Bottom 100 like other MST3k movies.

What you have to know ablution* The Final Sacrifice is that it was a student film which was fortunate enough to be released to video: whether we were fortunate to see it is another matter entirely.

* Yes, I know I was supposed to type 'about' instead of 'ablution' but the typo made me laugh so I left it that way.

Gst0395 · November 13, 2013, 07:45:05 PM

Quote from: Trevor on November 13, 2013, 03:06:07 AM
Quote from: Gst0395 on November 12, 2013, 11:50:33 AM
And I am familiar with The Final Sacrifice though I have not seen it's riff. I can't imagine it being too great but that's only my opinion based on seeing it in IMDb's Bottom 100 like other MST3k movies.

What you have to know ablution* The Final Sacrifice is that it was a student film which was fortunate enough to be released to video: whether we were fortunate to see it is another matter entirely.

* Yes, I know I was supposed to type 'about' instead of 'ablution' but the typo made me laugh so I left it that way.

I have to say, it's probably unfair to slander a student movie like that, since they lack resources to make an extremely well-made film.

I just watched the MST3K version of The Leech Woman (1960). Pretty effective horror flick with an interesting concept. I found the ending shot to be particularly disturbing. Basically I'm just watching Universal International-era horror flicks on MST3K, because I've found 'em to be pretty entertaining so far. Just thought I'd move away from watching the worst that the show has to offer.

retrorussell · November 13, 2013, 08:14:33 PM

I didn't think Squirm was that terrible; it was even effective in spots. Seeing the worms inside the guy's ribcage kind of stuck with me as a child.

SynapticBoomstick · November 15, 2013, 03:25:05 AM

Quote from: quabrot on November 12, 2013, 04:32:42 PM
I really liked the Russian fantasy films: Sword and the Dragon, Day the Earth Froze, and The Magic Voyage of Sinbad. They are pretty amazing visually, probably the best-looking films featured on the show. If I remember correctly, there is a comment somewhere in the riffing of The Sword and the Dragon about how it has much higher production values than they are used to.

I was going to bring up Sword and the Dragon as well. The dubbing wasn't very good but the locations and costumes were good and the effects were okay. I got a kick out of that wind demon guy.

The highlight for me was this, possibly the longest bit the show had:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmA7MkAjOiA

Gst0395 · December 15, 2013, 06:13:16 PM

I've been trying to watch the rest of the Universal International flicks that MST3K did, but annoyingly "The Deadly Mantis" is blocked on YouTube. I watched "The Mole People" on MST3K as well a month back. As cheesy as the mole costumes were, I found it pretty interesting.

WingedSerpent · December 15, 2013, 06:19:02 PM

I really like The Black Scorpion. I think it has some great stop-motion work, an interesting dark atmosphere and is one of the better giant animal on the loose films of the time period. Why it never seems to get mention with other noticeable films of the era like Them or The Giant Claw is strange.

Flangepart · December 16, 2013, 09:31:35 AM

Quote from: WingedSerpent on December 15, 2013, 06:19:02 PM
I really like The Black Scorpion. I think it has some great stop-motion work, an interesting dark atmosphere and is one of the better giant animal on the loose films of the time period. Why it never seems to get mention with other noticeable films of the era like Them or The Giant Claw is strange.

Could that be...drooling? I'm just sayin'...

Gst0395 · December 16, 2013, 09:45:26 AM

Quote from: WingedSerpent on December 15, 2013, 06:19:02 PM
I really like The Black Scorpion. I think it has some great stop-motion work, an interesting dark atmosphere and is one of the better giant animal on the loose films of the time period. Why it never seems to get mention with other noticeable films of the era like Them or The Giant Claw is strange.

I don't see how "Them" is comparable to "The Giant Claw", which felt pretty abysmal for a big studio production, especially with that strange bird puppet.