B-Movie Classics Round-Up - Gotta Love Them Commentaries

By Nick Peron

I have three copies of George Romaro's original Night of the Living Dead . On DVD. Yeah, most can understand maybe having a VHS copy still kicking around and, you know like the consumer whore we can all be when a DVD came out I just had to upgrade. But three copies? Well folks, I have a plain old no-frills DVD release of Night of the Living Dead (It looks like an edited print too since all the scenes with the naked zombie have been cut out), I have the Legend Films colorized edition with a commentary by Mystery Science Theater 3000's Mike Nelson, and a the Elvira's Horror Classics edition where the movie is interupted by the mistress of the macabre herself.

As I take a look at my movie purchases the last while I find myself drawn to the likes of Mystery Science Theater (and it's spin-off projects, although I have yet to buy or listen to a single Rifftrax that hasn't had a DVD release, because I can't be bothered farting around with synching an MP3 file with a DVD), and Elvira's Movie Macabre. With the pending 20th Annaversary edition of MST3K coming out from Shout! Factory (who also coincidentally releases the Elvira stuff) in October (I have my copy pre-ordered!) I thought I should make yet another review about some of the DVD releases that these two iconic b-movie hosts have to offer out there in the material world. So here we go:

The Doomsday Machine:

The Premise: Firstly, this movie is a big pile of crap -- a big pile of crap with moments. Taking place in the distant future of 1976, where Casey Cassem has moved up from America's Top 40 to being a space flight announcer (Which in all honesty is a step up from announcing the next shitty Britney Spears single if you ask me) a group of male and female astronauts go into space on a mission to Venus before those wacky Chinese destroy the entire world with a Doomsday Machine. Everyone aboard the vessel gets caught up in a case of "Okay, we have to rebuild humanity, I get to fuck that'un an nobody else can touch her!" The movie ends with most of the cast except for two get killed and are told to go out into the cosmos to repopulate humanity elsewhere by the telepathic minds of Venus (The fuck?)

The Budget Trap: They filmed the movie in 1967, but because budgetary problems the film did not get released until 1972, which puts out some very obvious issues with the movie. The first thing you'll notice is that exterior of the space ship constantly changes throughout the course of the film (And even in one instance has Japanese writing and a Japanese flag on the thing!) and why is that? Well because in order to get the movie out there, they had to borrow (or was that likely steal?) material from other movies. In fact, all the outside shuttle pictures (other than the obvious NASA stock footage that sci-fi films of the time used ad nauseum) it used footage from the Japanese film Yosei Gorasu (hence the Japanese writing on the ship.) Other than that they used footage from The Wizard of Mars (for ship control monitors) and borrowing music from The Phantom Planet . And let's not mention the ending. Much like Monster A-Go Go , this movie didn't have the budget to finish filming all the scenes, leaving them with an incomplete movie. Their solution? Use whatever footage you can reuse. Can't get Bobby Van to come back and film the final scene of the movie? No problem, get somebody who doesn't even sound like him dub the diologue of a different actor in a space suit. Not to mention the cop out ending, the telepathic voices from Venus "destroying" the rest of the actors who weren't killed off, and then telling the last two survivors of humanity to go off into the deepest reaches of space to find some other damn planet to populate -- in a derliect Soviet space shuttle.

Somebody Didn't Pay Attention in Science Class: The other problem with this movie is all the wacky science "facts" in the film, ignoring the usual trappings of a 60's Sci-Fi b-movie, they have some interesting faux-science going on. First of all, they have gravity stabilizers that apparently if not calibrated properly make sandwiches float in the air, but not anything else. Because as we all know, gravity is very selective. The other thing I have to wonder is if they even did any research about the planet Venus before they made this movie? Any at all? I mean, I'm sure by 1967 when they were making this movie they must have known that the atmosphere on Venus is made of carbon dioxide and clouds of sulfuiric acid, if the beings that lived on Venus (ha!) didn't kill them first, they'd probably die an agonizing death the first breath of that fresh Venusian air they breathed.

Best Movie Moment: The best scene in The Doomsday Machine is the scene where the two astronauts are dieing in the air lock. Not exactly the most accurate depicture of an unshelded person in the vaccum of space, but none the less somewhat chilling watching the two actors flail around gripping their throats with blood coming out of their eye sockets. This is probably a more accurate depiction of what would happen if you walked out on Venus than if you stepped out of the airlock and forgot your suit though. But as they say, in space, nobody can check your scientific facts.

If You Want to Check This One Out: You can be either entertained with the DVD release of the Elvira's Movie Macabre episode featuring this movie (either by itself or part of a two-pack featuring the The Werewolf Of Washington which features Quantum Leap 's Dead Stockwell) or if you love Mystery Science Theater 3000 you might be interested in picking up Joel Hodgeson's MST3K spin-off Cinematic Titanic which has also done a release of this film.

Gamera, Supermonster!:

The Premise: An alien named Zanon comes to Earth in order to destroy it, and only a bunch of Japanese women in tight outfits, an annoying little boy, and Gamera stand in their way. And if you are like me and figure that combination is a sure sign that humanity is doomed, I'm afraid not, because after about an hour of the half of a kid screaming "GAMERA!", a series of stock footage Gamera sacrifices his life in order to save the human race.

Them Crazy Japanese Love Their Stock Footage: I think there is some unwritten rule when it comes to Japanese entertainment that after you have amassed a couple of hours of anything, it's necessary to do a recap or an entirely new show or movie using nothing but stock footage from previous chapters of said entertainment. Gamera, Supermonster is no exception. It uses footage from every Gamera movie prior to it's debute. In fact, 90% of the movie is stock footage. If you've seen all the previous Gamera movies, get ready to see more of the same. Only instead of a bunch of different plots, you've got one that involves an annoying little boy. It's Gamera 's answer to Godzilla's Revenge (Which is just as, if not more annoying than this movie) There is a second unwritten rule about Japanese movies as well, and that pertains to when they are dubbed in English: That anybody who is providing the voice of a young boy needs to have the most loud, nerve wracking, nails-on-chalk-board child voice possible. If your voice actor cannot put the audience in a state where they would be willing to bludgeon their own mother to death with a baby seal, then they're voice is not annoying enough to be used to dub the lines of a Japanese child.

Defining What the Fuck Moment: Near the films end, they use a clip from the movie Galaxy Express 999 , which is an anime and they try to pass it off as an enemy space ship leaving Earth. I know what you're thinking "So fucking what?" but let me put it into perspective: The film has up to that point been nothing but minatures and guys in rubber suits, and then all of a sudden out of the blue they show an animation of a locomotive flying off into the sky. That stands out on top of all the grown men in rubber costumes walking on all fours beat out.

Versions Available: Well other than an actual release of the film on it's own, this movie was featured on Elvira's Movie Macabre and it is one of those episodes that is available on DVD (by itself or in a two pack with They Came From Beyond Space which actually isn't that bad a film), however all the stock footage in the film that were parts of Gamera , Gamera vs. Barugon , Gamera Vs. Gaos , Gamera VS Zigra, and Gamera vs. Guiron were all viewed on Mystery Science Thater 3000 -- twice even -- and although none have had an official DVD release, if one were resourceful enough they could probably find these out there in the compost heap that is the Internet. Some of them are amusing to a point, but it's early MST3K where most of their jokes are popculture references and there are only so many times I can hear them say something like "Look it's the Japanese [[insert name of obscure sit-com actor]]" But I digress.

And that about sums it up for me for this edition, I'll write about some more some other time when I feel like it :P