Reading Material

The Comic Galaxy of Mystery Science Theater 3000: Twelve Classic Episodes and the Movies They Lampoon

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comicgalaxyFour years after publishing an academic essay collection on TV’s Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 2011’s In the Peanut Gallery, McFarland & Company dips back into Deep 13 territory with Chris Morgan’s The Comic Galaxy of Mystery Science Theater 3000: Twelve Classic Episodes and the Movies They Lampoon, a refreshingly accessible tour of the cult series’ 11-season run that works as both a history overview and greatest-hits tour.

As the subtitle says, Morgan ticks through a dozen key episodes, one per season except the final, which earns two chapters. (The author also throws 1994’s Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie in for good measure, as well as a 12-page discussion of shorts.) In doing so, he’s able to relay the show’s entire lifespan, from a scrappy, local TV time-filler to a pair of national major-cable networks, and detail how things evolved as the years passed, on both sides of the screen.

The approach also allows Morgan to dive deep into what he feels are representative eps, to examine not only the movies skewered and screwed, but the riffs doing the skewering and screwing. Because the book is written for total accessibility, his commentary can be a joy to read; take, for example, this observation of second-season gem Catalina Caper: “Two different women lose their tops in this movie, which is either one too many or 20 too few. Either do that bit once or be completely morally and intellectually bankrupt. There is no room for middle ground.”

Refreshingly, while he clearly is a hardcore MST3K fan, he’s not a blinded fanboy; in fact, he tasks the creators to task for mean-spirited jokes on actors’ weight and/or appearance. On the other hand, readers may be left questioning Morgan’s own judgment over what classifies as a classic episode. Most notably, while he acknowledges season-four closer Manos: The Hands of Fate as being synonymous with the show, he writes, “That is not to say this episode is the favorite of most people. It’s a strong episode, sure, but … the riffing isn’t top of the line” — and this opinion stands in stark contrast to decades’ worth of fan-favorite lists.

There are other eyebrow-raisers, from him doubting the MST3K creators would ever take on Syfy dreck like Sharknado (which they did last July), to calling Star Wars’ special effects as “somewhat poor.” But to each his own, right? Less forgivable are an overuse-to-point-of-abuse of “as stated previously” and factual errors (Roger Corman didn’t make a Captain America movie), but at least the latter arrives in very short supply.

Bottom line: Comic Galaxy comes strongly recommended to all membership levels of MSTies. While it’s not the definitive history of the revolutionary series, it’s a good one. —Rod Lott

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Horror

The Houses October Built (2014)

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housesoctoberTo the surprise of no well-versed viewer of horror, The Houses October Built refers to the “haunted” variety — in particular, those ramshackle attractions that spring up nationwide in the weeks leading to Halloween, then shutter their makeshift doors until next fall. Houses, however, is no documentary, although it started life that way in its original 2011 incarnation of the same name. Now, that scrappy project has been restructured as a mockumentary, getting slathered with a heavy coat of the found-footage craze in the process.

The story seems tailor-made for that approach, slim as it is: Five friends spend five days in an RV, going from town to town to take in the best haunts the season has to offer. Because they’ve brought a camera, it’s like we’re in the actual spook-shack halls with them: It’s tough to see and not as much fun once you’re inside. They also hit up more inventive entertainment experiences, from shooting paintballs at zombies to patronizing strip clubs where the dancers don masks (not a bad idea, based on the bethonged I’ve seen IRL).

housesoctober1And that’s about it, until this ersatz Scooby-Doo gang gets the itch to track down the not-advertised, not-on-the-map “underground haunt” that’s rumored to make its visitors shart their britches in terror. The question of whether they’ll make it out alive is answered in Houses’ opening minute, so don’t enter this one in search of suspense; the exercise is more about being jolted by SUDDEN! LOUD! NOISES! than any skillful building of tension. While unremarkable and anticlimactic, its mix of fact and fiction makes for a decent time-waster.

The Houses October Built is directed by Bobby Roe, one of the aforementioned five haunt-hunters, all of whom we can assume are playing themselves since they go by their real first names and, lest ye already forgot, much of the 91 minutes comes cobbled from its humble documentary beginnings. (If you can find it, the Best Buy-only Blu-ray contains the full doc as a bonus feature.) Bubbly Brandy Schaefer is our token female and, comparatively speaking, the voice of reason among fellow travelers Mikey Roe, Jeff Larson and Zack Andrews, because there’s always a Zack. (What, no Chad?) —Rod Lott

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Comedy

Tusk (2014)

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tuskAfter delivering a few sharp efforts right out of the gate, writer/director Kevin Smith became as lax, predictable and increasingly off-putting as those hockey jerseys he wears like a uniform. For more than a decade, the bar for his movies has been set awfully low, yet along comes the bonkers Tusk to clear it with air to spare. Accounting for much of its success is that, as with 2011’s Red State, Tusk bears next to none of that Kevin Smith feel — one of pot worship, infantile humor and fanboy-pandering in-jokes.

Ironically, Tusk’s most Smith-y element can be found in the arrogant, immature, insensitive lead character. He’s Wallace (Justin Long, Drag Me to Hell), a podcaster with a porn ’stache who makes bank by tracking down and interviewing weirdos. His latest target to exploit takes him o’er the border to Canada, until an unforeseen turn of events leaves Wallace high and dry and desperate for content.

Tusk1One plot-convenient urination in a bar bathroom later, he’s pissed himself into a lucky break by learning via handbill of local retired seaman Howard Howe (Michael Parks, Django Unchained), a crusty coot who has many weird tales to share about his ocean voyages of yesteryear. Wallace takes the bait … and a cup of drugged tea, waking up to learn Howard’s true intentions: to turn him into a walrus. Let the body horror begin!

Tusk is essentially Smith’s entry in the Human Centipede sweepstakes, yet explicitly a comedy. And with Parks chewing the scenery and a surprise A-lister all but unrecognizable as an Inspector Clouseau type, it is funny … just not to all tastes; dark humor rarely is, which is why it’s so often misunderstood. While the film shows seams of padding in its expansion from a literal joke in Smith’s own podcast to a lark of a feature, it’s the scenes between those seams that count, and Tusk has several you not only haven’t seen before, but won’t be able to unsee ever. Not that I would try, given the flick’s unexpectedly high repeatability factor. —Rod Lott

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Reading Material

Silver Screen Fiend: Learning About Life from an Addiction to Film

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silverscreenfiendTruth is, every hopeless film addict has a story like comedian/actor Patton Oswalt shares in Silver Screen Fiend. The difference is we’re not famous, so who wants to hear it?

Okay, okay, so Oswalt’s knack for making an anecdote as compelling as it comedic may have something to do with it, too.

Because of this, anyone who has experienced the near-orgasmic, adrenaline rush (don’t deny it) of a movie projector flickering to life as the lights fade away — along with your disbelief — will find themselves in lockstep with a kindred spirit …

… who’s way funnier than you or I.

Although Oswalt indeed presents himself more than worthy of the title, the slim volume is really only half about the movies. This is a memoir of a four-year span in his life in the late 1990s, when he worked as hard honing his stand-up skills on the stage as he did at catching whatever double features L.A.’s storied New Beverly Cinema revival house had programmed.

What Oswalt admittedly didn’t work so hard at? Churning out sketches for his actual day job as part of the MADtv writing team. Why do that when he harbored big, shiny dreams of becoming a director? Mainlining movies — new and old, classic or crap — was, he reasoned, the most direct path to calling “Action!”

Chapters of Silver Screen Fiend open with visual evidence of this, reprinting calendar grids of Oswalt’s filmgoing exploits, from Billy Wilder and William Castle to Hammer horror marathons and whatever big-budget blockbuster happened to open at the multiplex that week. The anal-retentive cineasts among us can and will relate; same goes with his devotion to the sacred texts of Danny Peary and Michael Weldon, whose pages Oswalt not only pored over, but decorated with checkmarks as he saw the movies they celebrated.

This book is not like those books, meaning you will not find reviews per se, although the pages are rife with the author’s blessedly unfiltered opinions. Yet it rightfully earns shelf space next to those works of reference, as Oswalt’s sprocket-holed memoir is often hilarious, occasionally heartbreaking and always, always of immense interest. —Rod Lott

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Thriller

The Psycho Lover (1969)

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psycholoverAn alternate title for The Psycho Lover is The Loving Touch — one über-creepy appellation for a movie about a serial rapist whose on-the-job face is smashed underneath a heavy layer of pantyhose.

That felonious fellow is Marco (Frank Cuva, Game Show Models), who has trouble distinguishing his fantasies from reality. Meanwhile, motorboat enthusiast (in more ways than one) and psychiatrist Dr. Kenneth Alden (Lawrence Montaigne, The Great Escape) wishes his fantasies were reality, because he’d like to shack up with his mistress, but his cock-blockin’ crone of a wife (Jo Anne Meredith, J.D.’s Revenge) refuses to grant him a divorce. That chaps the hide and boot-shaped sideburns of Kenneth so bad that he brainwashes Marco into making Mrs. Alden his next victim.

psycholover1If that sounds at all icky, reserve judgment until you see the gangly homicide lieutenant (John Vincent, The Exotic Dreams of Casanova) who looks like Edgar Allan Poe discuss his police work: “You know, Doc, I’m like the proverbial bloodhound: I can smell him in this room and the hairs on my ass stand on end every time I catch his scent.”

No matter the name it plays under, The Psycho Lover is a sexploitation thriller after my own heart. Written, directed and produced by Robert Vincent O’Neill (creator of the Angel franchise), the picture has more on its dirty mind than most programmers of the era and budgetary level. By combining Dial M for Murder with The Manchurian Candidate — not to mention Hanes’ L’eggs line — he ended up with a twisty, inventive, enjoyable slice of sleaze. —Rod Lott

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