Mystery Science Theater 3000 #1005 The Blood Waters of Dr. Z

“On the surface it looks like an animal. Like a cat... or an ape.” - Walker 

This is one of those episodes which is funny for the first 30 minutes just because of how absurd the movie is, but becomes agonising soon after. The riffing is below par for season 10 standards, but decent enough if you're in the right frame of mind. Think “Manos”: The Hands of Fate for a similar episode. The bottom line is, if you're not battle hardened to the kind of schlock that The Blood Waters of Dr. Z is, there may be no hope for you lasting the full 90 minutes.

The film opens with what appears to be stock documentary footage of sea creatures, narrated over in disturbing fashion by our antagonist, a mad scientist who looks like Tim Burton but wants to look like a fish. Whilst spewing clichés like “they think I'm insane, THEY'RE the ones who are insane!” and “together we'll conquer the Universe!”, the scientist reveals his plan: he has developed a formula called Zaat that will merge his DNA with that of a fish. Once he has become a man-fish, he will wreak his revenge upon the world that scorned him. 

 "I think the world can handle this invasion." - Mike

If I had to choose two words to describe this film, they would probably be “slow” and “brown.” It takes 15 minutes for the evil doctor to turn into the fish-man and that's the first thing that happens. There is some attempt at horror and action as the Sheriff and his team of scientists try to stop the monster, but it doesn't really matter. This film has no plot. It's obvious that the concept began and ended with the monster costume, which is decent if extremely goofy.

The funniest thing about this film is the disparity between what the monster says and what the monster does. He spends the entire running time telling the audience how scary and powerful he is, when it's plain as the snout on his face that he is a fair-weather monster at best. He stumbles around and generally fails at the tasks he's set for himself on his wheel planner (and how many monsters have a wheel planner anyway?) At one point he gets into a fist fight with one of the good scientists and loses. Maybe if he had chosen to merge with something other than a catfish he'd have had more luck. Yeah, I forgot to mention the fish that he chose to merge with. Not a shark, not a piranha or octopus: a catfish.

"It's his "what shirt should I wear?" wheel." - Crow

Although I'm fond of this episode for its many absurdities, it's a difficult one to recommend. I found my mind wandering during the second half, and once you've seen the monster for the first time you might as well just skip to the end. This is one of those episodes where the riffing struggles to contain the beast within.

GOOD THING

The first host segment, “Cleaning Compound of Deceit.” Crow and Mike parody the ridiculous opening narration of the movie. It's rare for a late season host segment of MST3K to be this good. It's usually the case that the simpler the premise, the funnier the sketch, and this is a good example of that. Mike polishes his boots whilst Crow, playing the part of the mad scientist, taunts him by revealing his unsavoury love of shoes and his plan to turn them against mankind. “Soon there will be shoes the size of which they've never seen before, who like human flesh. And then, at just the right moment, ATTACK!”

BAD THING

The sound. This film is so unpleasant to listen to, the main culprit being the horrible, grating sound effects. Every now and again there's a chugging on the soundtrack like an old engine, and bleeps and bloops that I guess are meant to represent the sea. Most of the time there's no background noise and we just have to listen to the inane narration of the monster. We do get one weird folk song over the opening credits, which is so bad that it does at least make you grateful to not have to hear it again for the remainder of the movie.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 #404 - Teenagers from Outer Space

"By the looks of his outfit, I'd say he's from a private school somewhere." - Grandpa

In general, the movies featured in Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes fall into two categories: the campy, and the disturbing. Teenagers from Outer Space falls into the former category. This 1959 sci-fi film from writer/director Tom Graeff is highly watchable by MST3K standards, and is one of the few movies that I could sit through without the funny commentary.

The plot focuses on a 30-something teenager from outer space called Derek (yes, Derek) who turns against his alien crew when they plan to unleash a herd of giant lobsters on the Earth, so they can graze, grow fat, and serve as food for this nefarious alien race. The aliens disintegrate a dog and Derek runs away. Whilst he flees, the remaining aliens tie a lobster up and leave him in a cave. Why? Don't ask me. Derek's rival Thor runs off in pursuit of him, and it is his job to bring the little rascal back, disintegrated or not disintegrated. 

 "Stay!" - Tom Servo

Along the way we meet a variety of kindly towns folk who are hilariously oblivious to Derek's strange behaviour. Derek talks like Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation and nobody bats an eye lid; the people in this town are happy to drive him around and let him in their homes. Not even Derek's remark that he has “never piloted a vehicle like this before” in response to Earth cars is enough to raise suspicion. And when Derek asks his friendly chauffeur how to drive a car by angrily demanding “TELL ME!”, the driver calmly responds “sure, here's the clutch. When I push it in, I change the gears.”

In fact, it's only towards the end of the film when Derek refers to the moon as “her moon” whilst talking to Betty that she cottons on to the fact that he may not be of this world. “But you seemed so much like us,” she tells him. “Like Grandpa when he was young.” Well I'm glad I never had a Grandpa like hers then.

In the final act of the film Derek stages a mock betrayal of his human companions in order to trick his alien foes and gain control of their ship. He uses it to crash the ships carrying the lobster herds into himself and the other aliens, becoming a martyr. It's an okay ending and the pace is so brisk that you can hardly complain too much. Along with the comments from Joel & the Bots it's easy to see why this is a fan favourite.

The host segments are particularly good in this episode, as they usually were around this time in the series. My personal favourite is the segment where Joel & the Bots design a new fashion line based on the gaffer tape alien costumes from the film. I have a soft spot for seeing the legs of a puppet: it makes me laugh out loud every time when The Muppets do it, and the same happens whenever we see Crow's disturbingly long, matchstick thin legs. Put a funny costume on him too and there is no way it can go wrong. 

GOOD THING

The skeletons. A lot of fun is had from the skeleton props that appear whenever a character is disintegrated, and although it might be a bit cheesy and cheap, it's so much better than just seeing the characters fall over when they die. The film makers actually attempt to put some variety in these scenes too, such as the smoke rising out of the swimming pool when the swimmer is disintegrated, or the gun in the hand of the cop skeleton, or the great disintegrated dog prop. I never get bored of seeing those skeletons flopping around. 

BAD THING

The bad guy, Thor. He's not very menacing. In fact, he's kind of a weiner and a glorified errand boy. He spends most of the movie two steps behind Derek, and is easily tricked at every turn. We don't even get a great death scene to see him off, he's just one of the few easily duped aliens who get a fleet of flying saucers dropped on their heads. Terrible.