MSTable movies: I

ICE PIRATES (1984) MGM

And to think I actually saw this one in the theater... a movie made for the expressed purpose of milking money from Star Wars crazed kids. This one centers around a group of space pirates who search for water, the booty of a distant future where everyone is apparently dehydrated. Robots, scantily clad women, daring rougue pirates, and a Logans Run dressing, Ice Pirates is B fare at its best. No real plot, yet the movie moves along from one boring encounter to another. A *very* weak plot about finding a planet filled with water is mentioned (Earth, Gaia, Arcadia...), and the pirates try to fly there. The movie culminates in the mother of all action sequences as hoards of robots (run-down ones , and those of the evil duke) fight in the Pirate ship's freezer hold as time advances rapidly and everyone grows a giant fro'. This movie would be good, if for nothing else, for its depiction of robotic abuse in the name of piratering (great scenes of one on one robot battles, and decapitation). I could envision some great sketches here...

Christopher Browne, Christopher_Browne@postoffice.brown.edu

I EAT YOUR SKIN (aka VOODOO BLOODBATH) (1964)

A holiday outing turns grizzly, when wandering,brainless vacationers, on a tour of the Carribean Islands, find their way to a Moreau-like island of Voodoo Zombies who subsequently terrorize them, and end up not even eating one flake of skin, not even a scab. The rest peters-out with a mad scientist's evil plot that's thwarted with the standard lab-explosion. Most of the dialogue was badly dubbed-in at the last second, prior to release in '70 after sitting on the shelf for six-years. Some really evil people out there.

Frank Lund, w.bate@sk.sympatico.ca

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (1997) Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Entertainment

This is wunderkind Kevin Williamson's apparent hommage to "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?" as it features four plucky young people (two guys, two gals) who try to solve a mystery and capture a costumed criminal. Unfortunately, there's no talking Great Dane in it, although Anne Heche does make an appearance. (Sorry for that joke.) The villain in the movie is the Gorton's fisherman, who "dies" at least six or seven times over the course of the movie. Or does he? Hint: there's a sequel coming up...

Joe Blevins, joeblev@concentric.net

THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES (1964) Morgan-Steckler Productions

We're not making this title up--it's a real film! (Real bad, that is)! It stars Cash Flagg and Atlas King. (Could those be stage names? Could they be too ashamed to give their real names?) Cash Flagg plays a balding, middle-aged teenager who becomes a murderous zombie whenever he wears the hood of his sweat jacket up. He goes on a rampage in a carnival burlesque show, then meanders through the industrial zone of his town aimlessly, mourning over all the deaths he has caused, while a wildly inappropriate cowboy song plays in the background. Atlas King plays the sidekick with a thousand ever-shifting accents. Highly MSTyable.

Lisa Pierson, lpierson@concentric.net

[Editor's note: Used this season in episode 812, but probably not for reasons to do with this page.]

INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996) 20th Century Fox

How in blazes did this movie become one of the top-grossers of all-time? The plot is right out of an Ed Wood movie, but lacks the charm and interesting characters. Sure, it has "great" special effects, but a lot of flash does not a good movie make. For example, when Marooned came out 25 years ago everyone thought it was super-neat! It even won the Academy Award for Best Special Effects! Sure, Independence Day is sure to win that same award this year--but believe me, that's the ONLY award it will recieve (except maybe sound editing or some paltry category like that). Anyway, the point is, Marooned is now known to MSTies as Space Travelers nd was finally recognized as the piece of boring shlock that it is (despite its stellar cast, which ID4 also boasts). And to all you people who bought into the hype and bought the limited edition videocassette--you've been duped! Watch the movie and pretend the special effects aren't there and pretend Jeff Goldblum's character is being played by a bad Japanese actor and pay attention to story and filmmaking techniquies. . .you'll find you have a movie that makes Plan 9 look like The Day the Earth Stood Still

I mean, that hokey scene where the dog jumps into safety at the last minute. . .gimme a break! Exhibit A, right there!

Justin "Rolling" Meadows, umeadj00@mcl.ucsb.edu

[Editor's note: Space Travelers (episode 401 of MST3K) was an edited version of Marooned.]

INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984) Paramount

I know, I know, it's an Indiana Jones movie, and to many people that means it can do no wrong. Way off target! Even starring Harrison Ford isn't enough to save this movie from its two big mistakes. Number One is Willie-aka Woman With Voice Like Nails On Chalkboard Who Uses It Often! Her constant screaming puts me off my feed. The other is the cult of Kali-ouch. Deep, deep hurting there-the filmmakers took a very serious, very bloody, very dark part of a very serious religion and turned it into an excuse for yucky special effects, yucky villains, and yucky chase scenes. As far as Indiana Jones movies are concerned, this movie is the low point of the trilogy-it's begging to be made fun of!

Robert Silvers, II, silfamly@bellsouth.net

INFRA-MAN (1975)

Unlike the serious movies that MST provide, ;) this Japanese mess is SOOOO bad, it stands up by itself. An alien witch creates terrible monsters to take over the world. The hero decides the only way to combat the menace is to have himself transformed into an atomic powered man-oid. (Apparently what any right-thinking scientist would do.) The monsters are hilarious; something like creatures from McDonald's Land gone horribly latex. My all time favorite midnight movie.

Keith Olszewski, kolszewski@halnet.com

THE INVISIBLE BOY (1957) MGM

This is a movie which contains Robbie the Robot. The plot is basically that a boy visits his father at his job in a scientists think tank. As he is underfoot, they get him to play with a broken robot that was invented by a deceased/vanished super-genius. Even though all of the other super geniuses have been unable to repair Robbie, the kid does it in about 2 minutes. Then when he tries to show the super geniuses Robbie is working, they become even more annoyed... and the laughs just keep coming.

Mark Maggiore, majory@ix.netcom.com

ISHTAR (1987) Columbia Pictures

Believe me, this movie is pretty bad. It's about two untalented singers (Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman, who did this for the moola) who go to some made-up country in the Middle East. If they tried to pass it off as a drama, it would work, because it is about as funny as a (competently performed) cataract operation. Would you believe my mom actually likes this film, and does not use drugs? To show that I don't agree with everything the critics say, I liked Stroker Ace. Leonard Maltin called this film "The Heaven's Gate of Movie Comedies." To qualify for that, it has to at least try to be funny. Good thing the camel was blind; he didn't have to see this compost heap.

Attmay, ansch002@acpub.duke.edu

ISLAND OF LOST WOMEN (1959) Warner Bros.

Don't know the date of this one, but late 50s, early 60s. I only saw it once, but two men crash on a supposedly deserted island and find Alan Napier (yes, Alfred from the "Batman" TV series) and his three voluptuous daughters who wear bikinis through most of the movie. He was a famous nuclear scientist who has fled mankind with his daughters. Their "Gilligan's Island"-style straw hut is powered by an underground nuclear reactor.

Two classic moments that I remember:
A shark attacks one of the women while she swims in the lagoon. One of the men dives into the water to rescue her and wrestles with a stuffed shark. He carries her out of the water. When he sets her down on the beach, his clothes are bone dry.

The nuclear reactor blows up at the end. The cast runs out of the shack and hides behind a large rock. The reactor blows. The entire island is leveled. Except, of course for that one rock, and they all step out from behind it unscathed.

Mike Klemm, klemmre@aol.com

IT CAME TO EARTH

First, there's some mob guys and I think one of them gets killed, but it was hard to tell because someone forgot to light the set. The dead guy is dumped in the lake. Then "It" comes crash landing into the lake. "It" looks like a giant pair of flaming dentures. "It" turns the dead guy into a zombie. Then, we're subjected to two nerdy college guys, their dumb girlfriends, even dumber cops, and George Gobel as the nerdy guys' geology professor. Rita Wilson, wife of Tom "Forrest Gump" Hanks, is also in this. There is a scene where one of the nerdy guys and his dumb girlfriend go to park. Nerdy Guy has to take a potty break, and they actually show him standing by a tree, zipping up his pants. We are also treated to a "plumber's crack" shot of one of the nerdy guys when he goes swimming. I saw this movie on one of my fine local TV stations.

Kathy Jarvais, katjar@frontiernet.net

IT'S PAT (1994)

No one should ever be forced to watch this movie. It seems like something straight out of the Ludovico treatment (a la A Clockwork Orange, the 1970 Stanley Kubrick film). Never at any point is there any reason for that film's existence. Frankly, never have I cared less about a character's gender.

TSKearns@aol.com