MST3K #604: Zombie Nightmare

It's #604, with more delinquents and a baseball-bat-wielding zombie.

Our movie this time is a low-budget Canadian rock-teen-horror-baseball-voodoo film (yes, ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE), featuring Adam West and Tia Carrere. A chunky baseball player stops two young punks from raping a young woman, and one of them stabs him to death, right in front of his son. Then, years later, his grown-up son prevents a robbery and gets coincidentally run down in front of the store. The new young punks (one is the son of the second, non-murdering punk from the prologue, and is also a rapist) drive off, leaving the son to die in the street. His mother calls on the young woman from the prologue, who luckily is a voodoo witch (there are lots of those in Montreal, doncha know?) and they revive the son. He's not really himself, though, just a vengeance-bent zombie.

Why you should always call before you dig.

There's a young cop trying to solve all the teen murders, and his boss (Mr. West, there), seems to know an awful lot of the players in this case. Since, as it turns out, he's the stabby rapey punk from the opening, and the old baseball guy gets zombified just long enough to drag him down to hell.

The movie is pretty bad, but it kinda knows it. (Or at least the creators did -- the DVD special feature has several of the stars talking about their reflections on the MST version of their film, and how much they liked the show even before they were on it.) Adam West wasn't quite in full self-parody mode yet, though that time wasn't far off. As a result, his character work and mustache are enacted seriously, even his breakdown during the scene pictured above.

A deleted scene from Batman Vs. Soup.

And since Adam's in the movie, it's only right that Mike and the bots spend a lot of time talking about Batman. Crow's even written a sketch about it, but he threw it out, so Mike's wearing those tiny shorts for no good reason. Besides all the obvious Batman jokes, there are also a decent amount of jokes about the Canadian setting (David Steinberg, Andrea Martin, Bob and Doug McKenzie, and even The Kids In The Hall get called out).

Sidebar: Boy, do I ever wish the Mads didn't wear that makeup for their voodoo phase. Okay, maybe even the makeup would be okay, but the Screamin' Jay Hawkins bone-in-nose getup is just so tasteless.

This is my second episode in a row to mention: The NRA, Peanut Buster Parfaits, Chi-Chi's, Frankenstein, an Orlon sweater, Elvis, and ABBA. It's the third to mention Happy Days (four out of the last five, and now retired). And three out of my last four episodes have mentioned The Dilly Bar (that's it, all Dairy Queen references are retired too).

A (dark) joke I had to look up: "Were they the Tonton Macoutes?"
A joke that didn't age well: "He's doing the Nestea Plunge!"
My favorite joke: "George Romero's Casey At The Bat." (Honorable mention to the garage door closing: "That's a really trivial use of her dark powers.")
Overall, I rate this one 6/10. The movie is too dark to see, too noisy to hear. The riffs are on point, but the movie is a tad too serious for me to fully enjoy.

Up next, I'm watching #616, Racket Girls.

MST3K #523: Village of the Giants

It's #523, with some giant "teen" delinquents.

Based on Dreams From My Father

Our movie this time is a teen party film, like Catalina Caper but without the blazing wit or hard rock. It's an affable movie, which only wants to make us laugh. And it pulls out all the stops: giant ducks dancing adorably, then being roasted and eaten; Tommy Kirk mugging; and Ronny Howard nearly killing himself repeatedly. Then, the film ends with possibly the most casually distasteful joke I've ever seen in a MST'd movie. (To sum up: Ronny is a chemical wunderkind, and has invented a goo that makes living creatures grow. A troupe of little people wander, on foot, into town so they can get bigger. Get it?)

Eldritch Cleavage

Along the way, we also see Beau Bridges make heartfelt speeches about how hard the teens have it these days (apparently he personally rewrote the dialogue), and the 30-year-old teens dance to a gaggle of pop songs from today's top hitmakers (or at least Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon, whom I like, but who is no Little Richard). Finally, Ronny creates the antidote and shrinks those delinquents back down to size, The sheriff decides to forget all about that time they kidnapped his daughter and literally threatened her life. It's fun!

He was even stripped of his spitcurl!

You know what's actually fun, though? The arc of host segments. This is the first time in my binge that they've laser-focused on a single story (not counting the run of Thanksgiving skits way back during K02). And what a story it is! Frank has been downsized, and over 90 minutes of in-universe time, he grows a beard and watches weeks of daytime television. Oh, and Torgo is applying for his old job. Plenty of fantastic character stuff from Frank, and I always love seeing Mike's Torgo (there's one theme-music joke here which I can't even describe, but it sure is great). The whole thing is just a lovefest for Frank (with another great song by Mike -- and his lovely bride), and it's not till the nonstinger that we realize it's all thinly camouflaged love for another departed Frank. I'm watching #624 soon, so I'll hold off on my eulogy for TV's Frank till then, but this is a great tribute.

And even without the Zappa tribute, this episode has some out-of-left-field references: Mudhoney, The Fugs, Bukowski, and Ed Gein all get mentioned (putting to rest my complaint regarding too little avant-garde trivia in the last episode). Since Ronny has a lot of screen time, we hear a few lines from "The Wells Fargo Wagon," but more impressive to me is the other song from Meredith Willson: "Chicken Fat," the song despised by generations of exercise-avoiders. And there's a reference to Animal from The Muppets, with a very creditable impression.

This is my second episode in a row to mention: Deney Terio, Honey I Shrunk The Kids, William Conrad, Acapulco HEAT, Dudley Do-Right, Ed Sullivan, What's Happening!!, Dirty Harry, Happy Days, North By Northwest, The Chevy Chase Show, and Gymkata (now retired). This is the third in a row to quote a song by The Who, and the third of my last four to quote Groucho (also newly retired).

A joke I had to look up: "The ravaging effects of Osgood-Schlatter disease."
A joke that didn't age well: "Frank, you haven't been off that couch since Vicki!"
My favorite joke: I enjoyed "The Ope of Greenwich Village," but it was just edged out by "Very, very white-collar crime."
Overall, I rate this 10/10. The movie is perfectly goofy, and the host segments are impeccable. I'd gladly show this one as an introduction to anyone who hasn't seen the show before.

Up next, I'm watching #604, Zombie Nightmare.

Christmas With Dave Foley #2: Kids in the Hall "Bellini Day"

I'm not doing this series in strictly chronological order, so our next thing, randomly chosen, is a holiday sketch I adore.

This won't make a lot of sense if you haven't seen a lot of Kids In The Hall, or at least enough to know the recurring use of writer Paul Bellini as a silent, bizarre absurdity. (If you're not familiar, stick around after the sketch to hear Dave and Kevin explain a little of that history.)

Obviously, the unnecessary slam on religion is a memorable part of this sketch, and I can imagine that putting a lot of people off. But it's by no means the most heretical thing the Kids ever did, and the way Mark overplays it makes it funny, even the third time it happens.

I've always loved Bruce's kid characters, and his clueless laughter at 1:18 gives me life. Of course, we're nominally here for Dave, and he shows up in the mostly thankless role of dutiful mother (though he gets to show some leg, and even a stylish hairdo).

I'd hoped to find enough Christmassy or winter-themed KITH sketches to make 15 or 20 minutes into a compilation, but this and the next sketch I post will have to do. Sorry.

As a KITH sketch, I rate this 7/10. It's too inside for people who aren't familiar with the show, though it works hard to reach the heights of absurdity the show consistently depended on.
As a Christmas sketch, I rate this 9/10. It has all the hallmarks of an old-fashioned "true meaning of Christmas" scene, with everything twisted a little to make it hilarious.
As a scene for Dave, I rate this 5/10. Mom is kinda one-note, and even her hair is overshadowed by everything else around.

The Space Ghost Christmas Collection, Chapter One

Space Ghost C2C - A Space Ghost Christmas... by theperminator

For some reason, this Christmas special isn't streamable on the Adult Swim website, maybe because it's just special clips for a holiday marathon. Because it's never been on DVD, and I didn't catch it during the time I religiously recorded every episode, I'd never seen it till this year. (My friends, I'm sure, are happy about that. Every year for ages I made the people closest to me watch all the great Christmas episodes of my favorite shows, and this would have DEFINITELY made the list.)

It's snowing in space (one year after it snowed outside the SOL), and Don Kennedy's warm announcer makes his first-ever appearance on the show.

Spacey and Zorak sing a song. Then we watch an episode (elided during the embedded video above), and Spacey and Zorak sing another song.

Space Ghost introduces another episode, and then The Council of Doom start to sing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (featuring lots of Brak!).

Another episode, another song.

This isn't quite perfect for me -- there's too much time doing the Cartoon Planet thing, just watching our friends sing. In fact, the best parts are all Zorak, shouting "Click click click!" or "Gabba Gabba Hey!" during unrelated songs.

Still, I'm glad it exists, and I can't believe I'm 22 years late to watching it.

As an episode of SGC2C, I rate this 4/10: Huge gobs of Zorak, but there's no guest (except a quick, silent reaction shot of dearly departed Kevin Meaney) and no one gets blasted. But that's unfair, of course, since this wasn't an episode. So never mind.
As a Christmas show, I rate this 9/10: It's wall to wall Christmas music, and snow, and wreaths and Santa hats.

(A note on the buylink: This special is not commercially available. Instead, why not buy another improbable Adult Swim Holiday thingy?)

25 Days of Christmas #14: "All Through the House"

Here is Homicide's first real Christmas episode: "All Through the House."

It's Christmastime in Baltimore, and the murder police are having a bleak time of it. Lewis's partner has recently committed suicide, and Russert can't shake the memory of her late husband. They go out together on Lewis's new case, since the victim, Whitney Freeman, was a witness in one of Russert's most important ongoing investigations. Felton's wrapping up presents for his kids, though his wife has left him and taken them he knows not where. Pembleton misses his wife. He misses his fire. He misses Nat King Cole.

Only one person really feels the Christmas spirit, and that's The Big Man himself, Stan Bolander. He's put up a tree, which prompts a rant from Munch about the relentless cheer of the season and the pressure to be happy. Soon, they get a call: someone's shot Santa. The dead Salvation Army Santa had his kettle stolen, and the neighbor lady says that Santa's house is right down the street. A kid answers the door, and Stan goes off to find social services to care for the kid, while Munch has to watch the kid and try to work up the courage to tell him of the murder.

They don't get along very well, and it's great fun to watch the kid calling Munch on his idiosyncrasy: "You've got a weird way of talking. ...You're using all these weird words. Like they were a cartoon coming from your mouth, and you're watching them thinking, 'I'm cool!' " 

"I get a lot of bodies.A lot of different backgrounds.This time of the year, I want every body to feel welcome."

Lewis and Russert go to notify their victim's mother. Mrs. Freeman is a socialite who's only focused on making sure her houseful of servants decorate the tree properly, until she breaks down with guilt over her daughter's drug problem and death. Back at the squadroom, Bayliss is trying to get a game of hearts going, but nobody will play with him. Until, that is, he convinces Gee to play a few hands, for a nominal wager.

Stan gets back to Munch and the kid, with great news: the Santa who got murdered wasn't anybody's dad. The victim had mugged the real Santa, the kid's father, for the contents of his kettle, and stolen his suit. Bolander is reassured by this Christmas miracle, and Munch, who hadn't quite gotten around to notifying the kid, is relieved, though he can't quite see the hand of God or miracle of Christmas in the night's events.

Lewis and Russert roust the assistant state's attorney, Ed Danvers (played by bigtime TV star Željko Ivanek), out of his home and warm cider and red holiday sweater, to find the file on their case.  Their clues finally lead back to the wife of the criminal Whitney Freeman was about to testify against -- she did it so their kids could have their own father back.

Bayliss and Gee's card game has expanded, and become a lot more expensive, as Gee ends up shooting the moon. You see, Gee put one of his daughters through college playing hearts, and as he tells Bayliss, one should never try to hustle a Sicilian. (I always said this was the funniest serious show on TV during its run, and this episode is a pretty good example, between Gee's hustle and Munch's sparring with Santa's kid.)

The squad's night ends, and they all go outside to find more fresh snow falling. An impromptu snowball fight erupts, and everyone shouts "Merry Christmas!" to each other, and to us.

As an episode of Homicide, I rate this 8/10. The relative lightness of the storylines in this episode doesn't trump the truthfulness of the series' tone as a whole. Our next Christmas episode will be more characteristic in tone.
As a Christmas show, I rate this 9/10. A lot of dark shows have a hard time balancing a lighter tone in their Christmas episodes, but this one is almost perfect. Sure, it's about murder police, but no innocent person loses their life in this episode, and it's got a lot of heart and warmth and snow and Christmas music over the end.

Homicide: Life on the Street - The Complete Series

25 Days of Christmas #1: Due South: "The Gift of the Wheelman"

One of my favorite Christmas TV episodes of all time is Due South Episode #110, "Gift of the Wheelman." I wrote a long, impassioned review of this in 2003, which was lost in the great Geocities purge a short time later. I'll attempt to recreate my original thoughts and amplify and update them a little.

If you haven't paid attention to the episode's title and Christmas setting, perhaps the screencap above, from one of the first shots of this episode, will tell you a bit about this story. To begin with, Due South was a cop dramedy about mismatched partners: one polite, earnest Mountie and his rule-bending Chicago buddy. Due South also addresses many other topics, but a frequent motif is relationships between fathers and sons; this episode may be the epitome of that motif.


Warning -- the rest of this review is intensely spoileriffic!



The story of the week (featuring future Haggis-collaborator Ryan Phillippe) recasts O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi" into a parental framework, and weaves in a crime tale from an old folk song, "Henry Martin," about a man who turns to crime to support his family. The father plans to sacrifice his own life to provide for his son's material needs, while the son has no interest in any presents but his father's, ahem, presence.

The father in our story is named William Sydney Porter, just to make sure you're paying attention, and he is an aspiring writer. He's come up with a clever plan, quite possibly borrowed from one of his stories (we see a manuscript titled "Killer Blow" lying around) to burn up his vicious bosses, the Donnellys. (It should be noted that Paul Haggis is from London, Ontario, and knows a thing or two about criminal Donnellys who would be terrified of fire, even just fire alarms.) In the blaze, he plans to hide his own embezzlement of the proceeds of the opening bankjob, which he could then pass on to his son, who only wants his father to stick around and keep writing. William is finally convinced by our Mountie hero, Constable Benton Fraser, that while it may be good to GIVE one's life for another, it's far better to LIVE one's life for the sake of another. 

Let's back up a bit: Paul Haggis, the writer of Million Dollar Baby and Crash, was raised in the Catholic church, but considered himself an atheist for much of his young life. (Please don't think I'm ignoring Haggis's then-belief in Scientology -- it just doesn't have a lot to do with this specific episode.)   He created this series, and wrote this episode, so we can credit most of the creative choices made here to his leadership. I read this episode as a humanist commentary on Christ's self-sacrifice. As Fraser points out in this show, a father has many duties to his children. One of the most important to just to be with them, to provide examples of ethical living and humane treatment. When Christ gave His life on the cross, He decided to abdicate that part of His fatherly responsibilities to humanity. Don't get me wrong; I love Jesus. He's humble and sweet, smart and loveable. But wouldn't it have been better for humanity if Jesus HADN'T left? Just imagine us, the same people 2000 years on, but the world's sweetest dude is hanging out with us through the generations, washing our feet and gently reminding us of our moral duties? William Porter, the father in our story, is a writer. He's chosen an intricate, highly dramatic plan to provide for his son. While his son respects his writerly ambitions, he'd much rather have Dad around all the time.

And let's leave those heady thoughts for a moment, to deal with the heroes of our story. Benton Fraser is trying to solve a bank robbery, in the company of Chicago Detective Ray Vecchio. The robbers dressed as Santas for their December 24th crime, and a dragnet of the city's Santas is throwing both the city and the squadroom into an uproar. Elves and reindeer have also been collected, but that melting-pot of holiday madness is nothing compared to what's going on in Fraser's head: his own father is back.

Fraser, Sr, was dead: to begin with. There was no doubt whatsoever about that. Old Fraser was dead as a doornail. Benton has been reading his father's journals (his father was emotionally distant, and often physically distant while chasing down his own cases for the RCMP -- Benton's feeling a lot closer to his father thanks to the journals) and this night, Fraser, Sr, manifests himself as a ghostly presence for the first time, to guide and teach his son. (There's a possibility in this episode that Fraser, Sr, is just a hallucination, but later episodes pretty much confirm his reality.)

Fraser's desperate need for closeness with his father, of course, spurs his need to help the Porter family in this episode, but it also deepens his own character. The rather obvious framework of this series as a whole (Mismatched buddy cops! The polite one's Canadian! And he's a fish out of water!) is belied by the consistent depth of characterization and use of allegory and reference.

The story of how Benton come to Chicago on the trail of his father's killers, and how he deals with the specter of his father (in all senses of that word) is the overarching structure of this series. I don't think it's overstating the case to say that, especially near religious holidays, how humans deal with their spiritual beliefs and lack thereof can be the overarching structure of our emotional lives. Christmas TV deals with religious themes all the time, and I love a lot of it even when I don't agree with the conclusions therein.

It seems to me that, in the historical narrative of Paul Haggis, Due South frequently gets short shrift, maybe because it's so obviously genre-based. If this review has descended into high praise of the series, so be it. I loved Crash, but I think about Due South so much more; it takes up much more headspace for me and a lot of my friends. Oh, and it's funnier -- did I mention the Elvises who were collected instead of elves?

As an episode of Due South, I rate this 10/10.
As a Christmas story, I rate this 10/10.
I can understand why these ratings might seem overstated, but later reviews will vary wildly; I just wanted to start this series of viewing (and reviews) with something truly excellent. I'm planning to spend the next twenty-something days watching Christmas TV. I've got another Christmas Due South up next. Stay tuned.

Due South: The Ultimate Collection - Three Complete Seasons