But it's not a puppet show...
NOTE: If you haven't seen this, the rest of this won't make much sense.
(Yeah, right, like I can spoil a movie as bad as The Oozing Skull.)
Anyway, I got my copy of the initial offering from Cinematic Titanic yesterday, and I've gotta tell ya: EZTakes spared every expense in getting it to me. The DVD arrives in a square paper envelope (which, incidentally, cost a whopping 58 cents to mail). That's it -- there's no padding, no case, nothing colorful. Definitely a no frills service. But that's okay, it arrived safely after all and within a week of my order, so I got no gripes.
The movie itself is loud and garish (while, at the same time faded; odd, that). And cheesy. Did I mention cheesy? This is exactly the sort of thing we expect Joel and the gang to riff on, and they do. It's good to have them back.
Ah, but sadly, things are not all sweetness and light in the land of bard_will.
Okay, one of the things that really attracted me to MST3K was the cheesiness of the production. Casually tossing about their mantra, "It's just a puppet show," the cast and crew achieved a level of Cheese that still has the entire state of Wisconsin reeling. It was that cheesy, and we loved it.
C'mon, admit it! We loved the Satellite of Love, we loved the absolutely ridiculous back-story that got Joel (and later, Mike) sent up there, and we loved the theme song.
Well, there's none of that here. This is not your father's MST3K. It's just a bunch of silhouettes on the screen, bagging on a really bad movie. I miss the puppets.
The humor is still sharp (as would be expected), but I noticed something odd about this one. Bear with me a moment:
I'm a roleplayer from way back. I've played D&D and games of its ilk for longer than some of my friends have been alive. And there's something out there in RPG land called the 80/20 rule: 80 percent of the loot is in the last 20 percent of the dungeon. The rest of it is just to weed out the unworthy.
Well, The Oozing Skull also seems to follow an 80/20 rule: The funniest 80 percent of the riffs occurred in the first 20 percent of the movie.
Seriously, in the first 15 minutes I laughed out loud more than I have at ANY movie in the past several years. I'm talking actual laughter here; not chuckling, chortling or snickering. These were actual full bore laughs.
But after a while (say, the first half hour or so), I was laughing a lot less. It didn't stop completely. There are still funny things the cast have to say. But they seem to come less often, or with less force. I'm not sure.
I did notice that I was actually paying attention to the movie. The hell? Is that supposed to happen?
During the surgery scene (and this is the possible spoiler; if you don't want to know, skip down to the "summary" paragraph which is a good bit and has a puppy in it), there are a number of flaws in the movie that bugged me. As to why they bugged me; I have two hypotheses. The first is, the filmmakers just couldn't be bothered to learn even the slightest bit about basic anatomy. And that's understandable: We're not talking Oscar contenders here. So when the corpse that these mooks have been schlepping around for about three hours now (I may be exaggerating a bit) arrives in the laboratory, the face is white as a sheet. The corpse has been transported on its back, so all the blood drains away from the face; this just happens.
So why, in the name of Almighty Zarquon, does the suddenly pink and healthy forehead bleed so damned much when the first incision is made? I'm not a huge fan of gore, but a certain amount is integral to the plot in films of this kind so I was prepared. But there was a hell of a lot more blood (don't get me wrong; it wasn't a Tarantino sort of thing, just more than normally anatomically available in the average skull) than I thought there should have been. The point has been made.
Which brings me to my second hypothesis as to why this bugs me. Why aren't these silhouettes on my screen riffing on the blatant scientific inaccuracy here? Did I miss it? Shouldn't something be said, something funny, about how this pale, bloodless corpse can bleed with the best of them? I felt retroactively let down.
Anyway, this is a nit-pick, not a real problem with the production.
Another thing: Some of the comedy bits were good, but the puke gag (pardon the expression) was seriously telegraphed, robbing it of any trace of actual comedy. It could have been worse. Much worse.
SUMMARY: The gang is back, but I still miss the puppets. The humor tapers off after the first half hour or so, but that could just be because the first part is so darned funny. (Oh, and I lied about the puppy.)
My Rating: I'll give it a 6 out of 10. Oh, hell; make that a 7; these guys deserve the bonus point just for coming back into our cheesy-movie-love/hatin' lives. It would have been better (for me; your mileage may vary) with the inclusion of puppets or some kind of framing story like MST3K, but I guess you really can't go home again. Ah, well. Better this than nothing.
(Yeah, right, like I can spoil a movie as bad as The Oozing Skull.)
Anyway, I got my copy of the initial offering from Cinematic Titanic yesterday, and I've gotta tell ya: EZTakes spared every expense in getting it to me. The DVD arrives in a square paper envelope (which, incidentally, cost a whopping 58 cents to mail). That's it -- there's no padding, no case, nothing colorful. Definitely a no frills service. But that's okay, it arrived safely after all and within a week of my order, so I got no gripes.
The movie itself is loud and garish (while, at the same time faded; odd, that). And cheesy. Did I mention cheesy? This is exactly the sort of thing we expect Joel and the gang to riff on, and they do. It's good to have them back.
Ah, but sadly, things are not all sweetness and light in the land of bard_will.
Okay, one of the things that really attracted me to MST3K was the cheesiness of the production. Casually tossing about their mantra, "It's just a puppet show," the cast and crew achieved a level of Cheese that still has the entire state of Wisconsin reeling. It was that cheesy, and we loved it.
C'mon, admit it! We loved the Satellite of Love, we loved the absolutely ridiculous back-story that got Joel (and later, Mike) sent up there, and we loved the theme song.
Well, there's none of that here. This is not your father's MST3K. It's just a bunch of silhouettes on the screen, bagging on a really bad movie. I miss the puppets.
The humor is still sharp (as would be expected), but I noticed something odd about this one. Bear with me a moment:
I'm a roleplayer from way back. I've played D&D and games of its ilk for longer than some of my friends have been alive. And there's something out there in RPG land called the 80/20 rule: 80 percent of the loot is in the last 20 percent of the dungeon. The rest of it is just to weed out the unworthy.
Well, The Oozing Skull also seems to follow an 80/20 rule: The funniest 80 percent of the riffs occurred in the first 20 percent of the movie.
Seriously, in the first 15 minutes I laughed out loud more than I have at ANY movie in the past several years. I'm talking actual laughter here; not chuckling, chortling or snickering. These were actual full bore laughs.
But after a while (say, the first half hour or so), I was laughing a lot less. It didn't stop completely. There are still funny things the cast have to say. But they seem to come less often, or with less force. I'm not sure.
I did notice that I was actually paying attention to the movie. The hell? Is that supposed to happen?
During the surgery scene (and this is the possible spoiler; if you don't want to know, skip down to the "summary" paragraph which is a good bit and has a puppy in it), there are a number of flaws in the movie that bugged me. As to why they bugged me; I have two hypotheses. The first is, the filmmakers just couldn't be bothered to learn even the slightest bit about basic anatomy. And that's understandable: We're not talking Oscar contenders here. So when the corpse that these mooks have been schlepping around for about three hours now (I may be exaggerating a bit) arrives in the laboratory, the face is white as a sheet. The corpse has been transported on its back, so all the blood drains away from the face; this just happens.
So why, in the name of Almighty Zarquon, does the suddenly pink and healthy forehead bleed so damned much when the first incision is made? I'm not a huge fan of gore, but a certain amount is integral to the plot in films of this kind so I was prepared. But there was a hell of a lot more blood (don't get me wrong; it wasn't a Tarantino sort of thing, just more than normally anatomically available in the average skull) than I thought there should have been. The point has been made.
Which brings me to my second hypothesis as to why this bugs me. Why aren't these silhouettes on my screen riffing on the blatant scientific inaccuracy here? Did I miss it? Shouldn't something be said, something funny, about how this pale, bloodless corpse can bleed with the best of them? I felt retroactively let down.
Anyway, this is a nit-pick, not a real problem with the production.
Another thing: Some of the comedy bits were good, but the puke gag (pardon the expression) was seriously telegraphed, robbing it of any trace of actual comedy. It could have been worse. Much worse.
SUMMARY: The gang is back, but I still miss the puppets. The humor tapers off after the first half hour or so, but that could just be because the first part is so darned funny. (Oh, and I lied about the puppy.)
My Rating: I'll give it a 6 out of 10. Oh, hell; make that a 7; these guys deserve the bonus point just for coming back into our cheesy-movie-love/hatin' lives. It would have been better (for me; your mileage may vary) with the inclusion of puppets or some kind of framing story like MST3K, but I guess you really can't go home again. Ah, well. Better this than nothing.