MSTable movies: M

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MAC AND ME (1988) Vision International
Argh, this is a horrible, horrible movie, basically, a family of aliens land in the desert, one gets lost and winds up in Los Angeles where it befriends a boy in a wheelchair. (!) Later on there's a birthday party in a McDonalds (tm) where there's singing and dancing (!), then the kids drive off into the desert and find the little alien's family and revive them with Coke and Skittles... Then there's a horrible scene where the aliens are dressed up as a stereotypical 50's family... Blatent commercialism at it's worse...
Zach "DStalker" Wilson, ro_man@hotmail.com
MAKING CONTACT (aka JOEY) (1985) Pro-jekt/Bishop Film/Centropolis Filmproduktion
I saw this movie several years ago, quite by accident, and the scars have yet to heal. After his father's death, a boy gains telekinetic powers and uses them to battle a an evil ventriloquist's dummy and goes through a 2001-esque stargate sequence at the end. Or something like that. Pain. Oh, the pain...
Kimberly Stahl, kims@sirius.com
MAN BITES DOG (original title C'EST ARRIVE PRES DE CHEZ VOUS) (1992)
there's little doubt that one of the most pretentious pieces of tripe in recent years--far outstripping natural born killers for give-the-rubes-what-they-want-if-it-means-bigger-bucks-and-many-yucks--is man bites dog. a former friend--that tells you something there--brought it by one of our last nights living in new york and insisted we watch it. we did. we don't speak to him anymore. it's belgian, and that should certainly tell you something (ah yes, the great film traditions of antwerp). much cacophony, much rhapsodizing on the meaning of cacophony, much brooding on the rhapsody of cacophony, much phonieness. there were times I was certain I was watching a very long obsession ad with a particularly telegenic psychotic doing the honors. when it finished our then-friend stood up and said "well, it's not the worst movie I've ever seen," but we had to disagree.
Jayne Helgevold, jhelgevo@pop.pressenter.com
THE MANITOU (1978)
Susan Strasberg has a malignant Indian medicine man on her neck...
Jeff Allwood, jallwood@gte.net
THE MANXMAN (1929) Wardour Films Ltd.
You'd probably want to watch Plan 9 From Outer Space after this stink bomb. It's a silent movie that is slow moving like a Japaneese "no-drama" play. There's a "happy guy," one with a scary smile! They play the "1812 Overture" during an inappropriate time: when a man's wife decides to commit suicide by drowning herself in water! It's VERY zombie-ish.
Russell Christiansen, russell@cyberoak.com
MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE (aka THE ONE-ARMED BOXER VS. THE FLYING GUILLOTINE and ONE-ARMED BOXER II) (1975)
Super-campy, kung-fu silliness. Martial-arts experts come out of the wood-work to compete in the ultimate fighting tournament, pitting every known chop-sukey craftsman in the business, each with a unique style. Guess who should usher forth at this time, but a mysterious kung-fu master, who seeks revenge against a one-armed nemisis who killed two of his students. This master's skills are unmatched. His only weapon; a bee-keepers mask that he flings on a chain. Better known as 'the flying guillotine'. And fling it well, he does.

Landing this mask over an unsuspecting victim's melon, sproinging blades constrict around the neck. A yank of the chain pops the cork clean off. Voila! Effective....deadly!

The fact that this freelance decapitator is as blind as a bat, doesn't stop him from getting his man. Even if that means beheading every one-armed man in the territory. Coincidently, there seems to be just that type of individual every five feet in front of him. So he really has his work cut-out.

The actual one-armed guy in question, spends most of his time running his own martial arts school teaching his students to walk on ceilings, and hanging with an Indian rubber-guy with a ten-foot reach. Handy for raiding lots of cookie-jars, and too quick for mom to notice.

After our quirky little assassin mistakes a one-armed fighter for his target in one of the matches of the tournament , he quickly does away with him with his trusty bowling ball-scooper (well, that's all it's good for every other time). Well this pisses off alot of people. KUNG-FU PEOPLE in fact! Including the actual one-armed guy. And quickly they convene to take this party-crasher out. What culminates after alot of killing, is a show-down between the one-armed guy, the one-armed guy's derelict, street-urchant girlfriend, and the guy with the flying guillotine. You'll have to guess what happens next to finish off this cinematic spin-cycle. I'm not at liberty to give away the ending. Although at the conclusion there is a touching and harrowing epilogue about the legendary 'One-Armed Nun'.

Evidently, this is a Quentin Tarantino favorite, and he recommends this little gem to all his fans. Isn't that sweet?!

Frank Lund, w.bate@sk.sympatico.ca
MATANGO (aka MATANGO: FUNGUS OF TERROR and ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE and CURSE OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE) (1963) American International Pictures/Toho Company
It is just as bad as the title(s) suggests. Japanese. Bad color, bad acting, bad plot, bad special effects, bad makeup, bad dubbing. Just Plain Bad. Tramp steamer is blown off course. Running low on food, they sight a desert island. Consume tasty fungus. Become tasty fungus. I chuckle and shudder from the memory. This one took about six months and lots of long-distance phone calls to find a print of, but it was certainly the worst movie we showed during my tenure at the [student] union.
Rad Davis, jmdavis5@ncsu.edu

An amazingly cheesy import from Japan, the plot defies description, but it has something to do with people eating psychedelic mushrooms, and becoming mushrooms themselves. I think. Anyway, the mushrooms attack the unwary, and in a bit of realism, they do it very slowly. So slowly, in fact, it's imposible to believe that anyone could be attacked by them. But, I guess that would mean they'd have to name it Mantango - Fungus of Whimsy.
John Godzac, jgodzac@ball.com
MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE (1986) De Laurentiis
I saw this really crappy movie about two weeks ago. It was, like, from the eighties. Emilio Estevez was in it, and Stephen King wrote it, but it was still pretty dumb. It was called Maximum Overdrive. It was pretty gory. But besides being gory, it was completely stupid.

I guess it was about a bunch of trucks and other machines going on a killing spree. It didn't really give me a chance to pick up a plot line of any sort. Estevez even came to try to explain the plot at one time in the movie. I couldn't tell what the heck he was talking about. He used quite a few metaphors. There was even a little conclusion at the end of the movie, which said that, "...a Russian 'spy' satellite" shot down a UFO afterwards, but it also said that the Earth passed out of the tail of this comet soon after. So which was it? Anyway, these machines start small, like an electric knife cuts this waitress' arm. Then a gas pump sprays in this guys eye. It only goes downhill from there. Eventually, after a bunch of other massacres, they blow up the one semi that, as far as I can see, started the whole affair. Then they get away in a sailboat. Why it hadn't gone berserk, I really know.

They had to literally cut this movie in half to put it on cable, and it was still pretty gory after that. If you can handle all of this kind of stuff, though, the movie is completely stupid. Pointless, in fact. Trucks going mad on a truck stop in North Carolina. I couldn't believe that Stephen King wrote it. Of all his books, he picked this one. And what's more, he liked the final outcome. Anyway, it was a dumb movie, and it might be pretty funny on MST3K.

DataMan40@aol.com
MEGA FORCE (1982) Northshore Investments Ltd./Golden Harvest Productions
In the summer of '82, a movie called Mega Force was released. I was a projectionist at a theatre at the time and during it's run (2 weeks), some friends and I would go see the late late showing each night and make comments) (in a similar fashion to MST3K) It's a truly stupid, bad movie - but in an entertaining way. You can find it most video stores. It has to be seen to be believed (how trite!)
Miles Gore, milesgore@compuserve.com
MEN OF RESPECT (1991) Central City Films/Arthur Goldblatt Productions
The director apparently thought it might be interesting to see what would happen if Macbeth were a gangster (John Turturro) murdering his way to the top of some New York crime "thing." That's right -- it's not even a family, it's a thing. What makes this film so bad ... well, there are a lot of things, actually, but I was thinking of how it tries to find a modern equivalent for EVERYTHING that happens in Shakespeare's play. The result is true DEEP HURTING.

With Rod Steiger as the mob boss, Peter Boyle (again!) as "Matt Duffy" (get it?), and Steven Wright as a guy who just stands there.

Lee Hurtado, l.hurtado@mail.utexas.edu
METALSTORM: THE DESTRUCTION OF JARED-SYN (1983) Albert Band International Productions
Early 80s recombinant Road Warrior/Star Wars ripoff with absolutely nothing to recommend it (except to the MST gang or MSTie partygoers) beyond the fact that it has the strange distinction of having a title that's a double misnomer: there is no metalstorm and Jared-Syn lives.
Brian Reubelt, reub6707@uwwvax.uww.edu
METEOR (1979) American International Pictures
Possibly one of Sean Connery's least remembered movies. So bad, it needed water thrown on it to make it less boring. The special effects are really not up to ILM standards.

It is simply about the USA and the then USSR using model rockets mounted on a ceiling ornament against a flying piece of broken off asphalt.

Very MSTable!!!!

Sam Martin, smartin@chanute-ks.com
MIDNIGHT MADNESS (1980) Disney
Starring David Naughton of Dr. Pepper commercial fame and a pre-Family Ties Michael J. Fox. Special appearances by Stephen (St. Elsewhere) Furst and Paul "Pee Wee" Reubens.

Some hippie guy named Leon puts on a scavenger hunt around LA and has all these kids compete in it. Somehow he pulls this off with the help and permission from various agencies, including the LAX Airport, a miniature golf course, a fast-food restaurant, a game room, and various other places. The participants split up into teams, wear identical-colored clothes, and drive around in similar-colored vehicles. This, I believe, goes off the Goofy meter. This should be good for lots of Dr. Pepper in-jokes and a few potshots at Pee Wee Herman among others.

Java Island, javaisle@computek.net

Rebuttal

MIGHTY MORPHIN' POWER RANGERS: THE MOVIE (1995) 20th Century Fox/Saban Entertainment, Inc./Toei Company, Ltd.
In the world of bad movies, this one takes the cake. Stay tuned for an hour and a half of purple slime, brainwashed adults, and a guy in a foam rubber suit with a purple tounge.
Chris, newkirk4@juno.com

ll right, I've had it. This movie MUST BE RIFFED!!! I've only seen smigens of it, but it is indeed stupid. All they did with those wussy bad guys was that they added CGI just to make them better. Otherwise, it's a bomb. I almost feared this movie would make the 1996 Academy Awards, although I was glad that it didn't. I find the skysurfing jig in the beginning inane, the Power Rangers just being show-offs! Then there's Ivan Ooze with no acting skills at all.

And by the way, the series is easily riffable.

Russell Christiansen, russ@megsinet.net
MILLENNIUM (1989) Gladden Entertainment
Millennium is a *VERY BAD* movie. Bad acting, Bad direction, Bad plot, and Bad special effects. The "personal robot" makes Lost in Space's Robbie look high tech (the bots could have a field day with this dude) and the 'test tube' leaders of this world in their little containers are pathetic. Cheryl Ladd tries so hard to act and fails, unlike Kris Kristofferson, who doesn't try at all! (this guy acts as bad as he sings) Plus, with the 'time frame' twist to the plot, we actually get to watch all that bad acting twice! Talk about Deep Hurting! The obvious weakness in this movie is that a society can take dead bodies and duplicate other people, time travel, and create (chuckle) full function personal robots with feelings (he almost cries at the end), but they cannot fix their own living bodies or environment. Hey! Did anyone else notice they seem to have no problems with their tobacco growing industry?? If Cheryl Ladd is their best hope for their future, that is why they are in such sad shape. This movie *MUST* be MiSTied!!
Margie Johnson, mjohnson@atm.com
MINES OF KILIMANJARO
It is a terrible movie a friend of mine discovered about 4 or 5 years ago. He was bored and wanted to rent a movie he knew nothing about. It has a pretty cool looking cover, so he got it. There are some very obvious flaws - times where the speaker says that "there were seven men" when there's obviously only six, and many others. We even started a "society" around the movie, came up with a secret handshake, etc.
Eric Thrall, thra0001@itlabs.umn.edu
MOBY DICK (1998) (TV) Hallmark Home Entertainment
"Call me Ishmael." Call this one a buch of crap. This is the most disgusting representation of Herman Melville's novel of the same name. The casting was horrible, the story was sliced so badly it looked like the book was put into a blender and USA took whatever was left. To all those who love the novel BEWARE! To those who haven't read the novel...take this movie with a grain of salt. After watching the first part of the movie, one would think that Ahab (played mediocerly by that Star Trek captain whats his name, Jean Bob?) would actually get Moby this time.
John Leon, kvwj90b@prodigy.com
MODERN PROBLEMS (1981) 20th Century Fox
God, what a crappy movie. This was a pile of witlessness in which Chevy Chase (who I sometimes find funny) has telekinesis. Dabney Coleman is wasted as the villain, who wrote a book about sex. Even Nell Carter (from "Gimme a Break," which is a show much better than this film, even to those who don't like it (God help them)) can't save this bag of dreck; she plays a voodoo priestess who is Dabney's housekeeper (typecasting, if you've ever seen her on "Gimme a Break"). She could have at least used a Caribbean accent! The plot about telekinesis and the subplot about voodoo makes it prime MST3K material. Who ever owns the original negative to this crap, please shred it now for the good of all cinema (and Nell Carter's career). I'd rather watch a 24-hour "Friends" marathon than sit through this.
Attmay, ansch002@acpub.duke.edu
THE MONSTER SQUAD (1987)
Have you seen this thing?! 4 or 5 twelve year old kids vs. Dracula, the Creature (from the Black Lagoon), the Wolfman, the Mummy, and Frankenstein's monster. And they win!

Add to that a kindly old German guy, a police dad, and a "major babe" girl-next-door, and you have a recipe for thrills, chills, and an endless stream of fat kid jokes (ala Goonies). Topping it all off is the setting; suburban streets inexplicably adjacent to spooky swamps and old haunted mansions, all during the highlight of movie history, THE MID-EIGHTIES!

Zach, scottj@worldnet.att.net
MOONTRAP (1989)
I rented it thinking, "hey neat, Chekov!" ::shudders at the painful memory:: Brief plot summary: Koenig, bored shuttle pilot ("I'm tired to driving a space truck!") discovers a mile-long derelict spacecraft in orbit around Earth, (uh-huh) which also contains a human corpse (uh-huh). They bring it back and use carbon dating to determine that the corpse is 10 million or thereabouts years old (uh-huh). Somehow they make the logical leap that humans are actually an ancient species that came from the moon long ago (uh-huh). They blast off for the moon ("NASA has an old Saturn V in mothballs all ready to go!" ...uh-huh) and discover that it's infested with bionic alien lifeforms (uh-huh). They kick some major alien butt with their Uzis (in space? Uh-huh) and eventually discover a major space-babe in a suspended-animation chamber (uh-huh). They thaw her out and she talks to them in an alien language but learns English on the spot (uh-huh). Eventually Koenig's partner dies, he kicks more alien hinder, and he and the space chick get it on. Meanwhile, the aliens make their move for Earth, but Koenig saves the day with his Uzi again, using it as a jetpack to propel himself inside the alien mothership, where he hits the self-destruct button and escapes the same way (uh-huh). He and the space-nugget escape as the alien ship does a Death Star impression. Cut to a shot of an alien pod landing somewhere in Wisconsin. (uh-huh) Big surprise, they're not all dead, neener neener! Cut back to Koenig's house, where he and the space-biscuit are now happily married. (uh-huh) He looks all pensive and says something like, "I can't shake the feeling that they're still out there!" Then he goes off to a party with his (rather nattily dressed) space-cookie wife.

Even Shorter Summary: go see Apollo 13 instead.

Matt Burch, mburch@ksu.ksu.edu
(From rec.arts.tv.mst3k)
MOONWALKER (1988) Ultimate Productions
Michael Jackson music videos strung together by a lame plot where he fights a drug dealing tarantula owner and turns into a robot? Yeah, right.
Dave Sagehorn, sage@pcii.net

Rebuttal

MORGAN STEWART'S COMING HOME (1987)
One really bad movie starring a pre-Pretty in Pink Jon Cryer as the son of a politician brought home from boarding school to bolster his father's public image. Typically 80's, typically predictable plot including yuppie parents, an "out-there" girlfriend, and an evil plot foiled by guess-who. This includes a bonus performance by Vanessa Redgrave as Morgan's bitchy mother. I dare you to watch this one beginning to end. The only tolerable part of the movie is the opening song "Painted Moon" from the Silencers. Unfortunately, they were shamed into seclusion after the film was released and were never heard from again.
kkrispie@aol.com

[This is an Alan Smithee film, never a good sign.]

MORTAL KOMBAT: ANNIHILATION (1997) New Line Cinema/Threshold Entertainment Productions
Successfully following the actually-pretty-good movie, Mortal Kombat, This movie should be crushed under the mighty thumb of Goro. They killed off my favorite character (No, not Kenny) right off the bat, so I was pissed off. Then they made my second favorite character evil and killed HIM, then they resurrect 2 dead characters and leave their stories under a rock somewhere. Overall, the writers should be shot.
Cedric Henry, henrykid@paulbunyan.net

This is a Japanese kung-fu movie with special effects and popular characters. Its generic plot, boring, pointless characters, and habit of introducing more stupid characters with no backstory make me want to vomit. My friend and me were riffing it the whole time. Also, check out the goofy-ass "animality'' sequence.

Magdalena Nadbrzuch-Reed, mateusz@dns1.famvid.com
MORTAL KOMBAT (1995) New Line Cinema
This movie SUCKS!!! SUCKS!!! SUCKS!!! The storyline of the Mortal Kombat series kicks @$$! So, of course, they chose to tear it apart, mixing up Mortal Kombat 1 and 2. I shall elucidate. This wasn't a movie: it was a gigantic plot contrivance riddled with dumb fight scenes and corny dialogue. Be a-scared. Be VERY a-scared.
The West Virginian, bilica@prodigy.net
MOSQUITO (1995) Hemdale Home Video
I saw it late at night on USA. Perfect MST fare. A spaceship crashes in a national forest and causes the nearby mosquitos to grow into really big, cheesy effects. A bunch of people are killed and the survivors not only have to kill the swarm of deadly insects, but must kill them in increasingly origional ways. This is evidenced as one character sets a giant foam-rubber "mosquito" on fire with a gas oven, instead of just hacking it with an axe or blasting it with a shotgun as they had been doing all along. I highly recommend this one for a good riffing session.
DCBlank@aol.com
MR. MAGOO (1997) Walt Disney Pictures
This has got to be Leslie Nielsen's worst movie, it should be called Mr. Maggot. I found very little funny about it, and the director (Stanley Tong of "Rumble in the Bronx" fame) was a poor choice. Even the outtakes at the end are dull. Blind people protested it for the wrong reason. They said that it was a stereotype of blind people. They should have said the movie was doo-doo.
Attmay, ansch002@acpub.duke.edu
MURIEL'S WEDDING (1994) Miramax/Roadshow Film Distributors
This has to be the worst movie I have ever been stupid enough to finish. It is billed as an "uproarious comedy" and was given "two thumbs up" by those two men who have no taste. About one third of the way into the movie, Muriel's best friend discovers that she has a tumor on her spine and she is paralyzed throughout the rest of the movie. HaHaHa. How anyone can find this humorous is beyond me. The rest of the movie revolves around Toni Collette trying to capture a husband by being annoying and homely. Whatever!
S. Zwick, szwick04@kdsi.net
MY BEST FRIEND IS A VAMPIRE (aka I WAS A TEENAGE VAMPIRE) (1988) Kings Road Entertainment
This movie is sooooooo dumb. I thought it was the best thing on in a motel one night. Boy, was I wrong. There is no point. They try to work a plot in, but it never really goes anywhere. They stretch, bend and even break the classic rules for vampires. The kid has no clue where he's going in life, and there is no death in the whole thing. Tom Servo would love it.
jmjadavis, jmjadaz@gte.net
MY BLOODY VALENTINE (1981) Paramount Pictures
I watched this silly 80's slasher flick on cable one night around Valentines Day. It's about this guy with a pick axe who gos on a rampage in a coal mine. The closing credits has a folk song that has to be heard to be belived.
Unknown, dummy.davis@mhs.unc.edu
THE MYSTERIANS (1958)
Weird looking guys in bizarre helmets and capes build a huge dome and try to conquer earth by acting menacing and occasionally fending of military raids.
durlinlunt@acadia.net
Petréa Mitchell
pravn@m5p.com