MSTable movies: V

VALLEY OF GWANGI

This is one of the all-time horrible/great bad movies. It came out sometime in the 60's (I don't remember when, but it had to be early, 'cause the theater my sister and I saw it in was torn down around 1969). We drooled over the ads for a week ... there were going to be giveaways and posters and all that good stuff ... so we begged Mom to take us to a matinee ... and we were the only ones who showed up. Seriously. We forced them to show it to us (I think my sister still has the toy they gave her).

The plot, such as it is, is that a wild west show stumbles across this valley lost in time and raids it for an Eohippus (do you know what an Eohippus is?) for its show ... long and involved and I believe starring James Franciscus. Much chaos ensues, and I remember an Indian, er, Native American tribe who was trying desperately to protect the valley and its inhabitants ... anyway, you get the idea. TNT showed it one night about 8 years ago and we burned up the long distance wires having hysterics. I have no idea if its available on tape but if it is it is worth a watch.

Amy E. Schultz, anesbit@gate.net

VARAN THE UNBELIEVABLE

This is an incredibly low-budget Godzilla rip-off, that makes Kukla, Fran, + Ollie look like Mummenschanz. Our Hero Varan, Always appears in stunning rubber feet, and comes complete with a drunken orchestra that must be kin to Albert Glasser. The scene to watch for is a single soldier looking up at Varan's rubber feet only to die of fright, and hear an stupendously hacked up orchestra "burp." Definately a good laugh.

Joel P. Mahathy, kleb77a@prodigy.com

VENOM (1982)

Imagine a rich kid who likes animals... No, wait, don't leave yet! Now imagine he orders a snake, and they accidentally send him a black mamba. Hang on, we're only starting here! Now imagine that the kid's mother is leaving him alone with his grandfather and that a group of kidnappers plan to snatch him. Now, it doesn't take too much more imagination to see what happens... The kidnappers and the kid and his grandfather get trapped in a house surrounded by cops with a really nasty poisonous snake popping up all over.

How can you resist MSTifying a film with an obnoxious kid, an old guy with a ludicrously big beard, Klaus Kinski as a determined German kidnapper, and lots of worried cops?

There are admittedly a few clever moments in the film, and there are a few good actors (though none of them have large roles for some odd reason), but on a whole this is a very cheesy movie.

Demian Katz, katz@netaxs.com

A VERY BRADY CHRISTMAS (1988)

I know it doesn't really fit the MST mold, but I just watched A Very Brady Christmas, and Mike and the bots could have a field day with this one! Most of the original Brady's are back and spend most of the movie eating pie and making earth-shattering confessions: Cindy didn't really want to be there with the family (some friends invited her on a skiing trip), Bobby quit graduate school to become a race car driver, Peter and his girlfriend ask each other to marry them simultaneously as Mrs. Brady counts to three, etc. Then two security guards get trapped in a collapsed building and the only person in town who can possibly help them is Mike Brady (an architect).

Troy Young, troyy@primenet.com

VICE SQUAD 4

ive seen this steaming pile not once, but TWICE, thanks to USA up all nite. both time i fell asleep before the end. i think the entire cast is ex porn stars, including julia parton, an escaped convict who for some reason runs around in a thong. the lady cops (why is a vice squad chasing after a fugative? dont they crack down on white slave dens or something?) all wear spandex and act like theyre on thorazines, reading their lines in a bland deadpan (look. candy is paralyzed with fear.)as if theyre trying as hard as they can not to read the stage directions out loud. there is nothing funnier than hearing ginger lynn allen use any word over three syllables(they must spell them out phonetically on the script)

triple sec, sibbo@ix.netcom.com

VIDEO DEAD

(Made God knows when and who cares)

I am an avid Bad Movie fan. Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster didn't faze me. I sat through Rock 'n Roll High School with a big smile on my face. Not even Carnosaur was a match for my patience.

Saying all this, Video Dead is the worst, most God-awful piece of trash to blemish the face of mankind. It is about a haunted TV with zombies in it. The zombies come out when you watch the TV and eat you. Watching this bowser is only slightly less enjoyable than disembowelment and insurance seminars. It drags on and on, without hope of ending, and then when it does, they tack on another half-hour to annoy the viewers.

I can honestly say that you don't know what "Bad" is until you see Video Dead. I challenge anybody to tell me it isn't the worst movie ever made.

Jeremy A. Cook, LCookBoort@aol.com

VIVA KNEIVEL! (1977)

Evil Kneivel's first and last feature film. Some bad guys develop a miraculously inept ploy to steal Evil's truck by plotting to have him killed in an accident, and then using the vehicle to smuggle drugs. And believe it or not, the supporting cast reads like an Irwen Allen disaster flick. Gene Kelly, Leslie Nielsen, Lauren Hutton, Eric Shea, Frank Gifford, Red Buttons, and Dabney Colemen to name a few.

Leonard Maltin even recommends it for it's cheesey worth. If not for it's star-studded blunderings or it's embarassing plot, but for it's opening scene, where Evil sneaks into an orphange late at night to deliver toy-model kits to the boys and girls. Upon recieving his own present, one little boy tosses away his crutches.

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

VOLCANO (1997) 20th Century Fox

[...] Volcano is the worst movie I have seen in a long, long time. The writers grasp of elementry school level geology and physics is laughable. The plot is beyond ridiculous, filled with more holes than a Dunkin Dognuts. My personal three pet peeves about the film are that the lava coming out is only going down one street and does not bother going through buildings or alleys; that the lava shooting through the subway doesn't come out in any subway stations or vents, but instead runs to the end of the line; and that a supposably well-educated man has to ask, "What's magma?"

Joel Mathis, joelmathis@geocities.com

VOODOO ISLAND (aka SILENT DEATH) (1957) Cari Releasing Corporation (reissued by United Artists)

Poor Boris Karloff... His career went downhill rather dramatically in his post-Frankenstein years, as this disaster clearly shows.

In this film, Boris and a few associates visit and island inhabited by voodoo-practicing natives and various forms of man-eating plant. Not much about the movie is memorable, but the carnivorous vegetables are quite funny, and the immortal line "NO, you fool, they'll slaughter us to bits!" is certainly brilliant coming from the mouth of Boris Karloff.

Demian Katz, katz@netaxs.com

VOYAGE INTO SPACE

This film, compiled from episodes of a Japanese TV show called Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot, involves the adventures of a young boy who gains control of a giant robot and uses it to save the world from aliens who control an army of rubber-suited monsters. How can you help but enjoy the low-budget chaos which ensues? For variety of cheap effects and quantity of ludicrous dialog, few movies can compare to this one. Go get him, Giant Robot!

Demian Katz, katz@netaxs.com