Cinematic Titanic’s Legacy of Blood

Episode 4 of the new riff delivery system that is Cinematic Titanic was made available for download yesterday, and I dutifully downloaded from EZ Takes and burned a DVD.

We watched this 1971 horror mess with the good humor of Joel, Trace, Frank, Josh and Mary Jo. And Josh was on fire this time, I must say.

The story is a creepy “rich man’s relatives gather in his possibly haunted house to collect their inheritance…if they survive” kinda deal with a creepy incest subplot and lots and lots and lots of talking.

It’s sort of Manos: The Hands of Fate without all that searing white-hot action.

You know how bad this movie is because the cast is actually all-pro, including some folks still working today. Faith Domergue, the maelstrom’s #1 pointy-breasted poster girl, for example, is one of the first to get killed. And the seemingly immortal John Carradine plays the, uh, dead guy.

But the cast is rounded out with hard-working TV actors, like Ivy Bethune who had a bit part in this year’s Get Smart, and muscle-man Buck Kartalian who has been on “ER” and “How I Met Your Mother”. Brooke Mills plays the absolutely stunning crazy chick in serious lust with her creepy brother.

John Russell was a western veteran, winding his career down with Pale Rider, as was John Smith, star of “Laramie”. Jeff Morrow was last seen (in the riff world) with Faith Domergue in This Island Earth. (Her character is identified as “Veronica” but the credits have her as “Victoria”.)

And then there’s Merry Anders, who I’d bet money one of my parents worked with after she left the business. (One thing about living in L.A. is that a lot of former actors settle here even after they retire. And most of them die right around here, too.)

Anyway, I’ve noticed a pattern with the CT movies, which is that they start off blazing, and this one is no exception. At the beginning, the end, and a few spots in the middle, the laughs come so fast you either have to rewind or commit to watch again.

At the same time, there are a few lags, like the badness of the movie bogs down the riffers.

There are probably fewer lags in this than in the previous three films. The sketches are starting to hit the mark pretty consistently, though there could be a few more, and the ones they have could be longer. The timing is improving, as we suspected it would. There’s a more natural rhythm; everyone seems to be getting more comfortable working together.

The Boy was less than enthusiastic about watching, saying the old stuff (MST3K) was funnier. But he laughed a lot and slapped his thigh more than once; I think he just misses the puppets.

I’m not missing them as much as I used to, but the “plot” of the show is trickling out excruciatingly slowly. Apparently the crew has been captured and sent forward in time (or maybe just abducted by aliens?) who need their riffing talents to save humanity.

What’s good about the new set-up is the use of the silhouette approach to rig up sets that would be otehrwise challenging. For example, in this episode, it looks like there’s a tank to one side of the movie room.

This episode stands out because, I think, it’s probably the most re-watchable episode to date. I’m not 100% sure of this, but this is the first one where I was thinking “I could watch this again” while the episode was running.

So, good job to the CT crew, and keep the shows coming!

Cinematic Titanic Sinks The Oozing Skull

Well, it finally arrived. And…? And…?

Well, it’s been 20 years about since the Satellite of Love launched. Our beloved crew is older, wiser, and technology has moved forward a lot in 20 years.

Can you go home again?

Well, Cinematic Titanic is like going home and finding things better than you remember them.

Don’t get me wrong: Episode 1 is not perfect, and we all missed the campy set up and in-between sketches that were standard on MST3K. Also, it feels like a first episode in some ways, like the cast hasn’t got their rhythms down perfectly yet.

But in terms of riffs-per-minute? Sheer comic gold. About as good as anything MST3K ever did.

So, how does it work? The five principals (Joel, Trace, Frank, Mary Jo and Josh) sit along the edges of the screen and riff. The resolution is such that you can actually make them out better than Tom and Crow from the original series (but we do miss the puppets). Sometimes Trace will use the Crow voice and it’s sort of bittersweet.

With five people there is a different dynamic, and there’s a lot to be explored there. This first episode, besides being funny in itself, promises greater things.

To spice things up a bit further, there are guest appearances (Stephen Hawkings in this episode), and they stop the movie from time-to-time. There’s a scene in this one where a character has acid poured on his face, and Joel stops it to ask if it’s really necessary. The gentleness of Joel’s character made a great foil on MST3K and it still works here, as the others scold him for stopping the movie. (You don’t really see anything as far as acid being poured on anyone’s face, by the way. The whole show is pretty family friendly.)

At another point Trace stops the film on a close-up of Regina Carroll so he can fix her makeup, after which Frank quips something like “If that doesn’t get us on Bravo, nothing will.”

Oozing Skull itself is a fairly standard “let’s transplant someone’s brain so they’ll live forever” plot. In this case “someone” is the beloved dictator of a middle (far?) eastern country (“Postcardia!” as Trace riffs when a picture of a Taj Mahal type building is shown). But it’s a sort of no-holds barred ‘70s version of the story that includes a mad scientist, an evil dictator, a platinum blonde bimbette (the director’s wife, no less), a disfigured giant, a dwarf, a dungeon, a lab, and graphic-ish brain surgery! There’s also two romantic sub-plots, betrayals abound, and the mad scientist has a pain-ray-gun.

It’s a myth that only the worst movies can be riffed on. (I have a dream of seeing the crew do Citizen Kane.) The movies must attempt a plot, have the right amount of dialog, and if they have no action at all, they can still be hard to watch, riffing or no. Skull is particularly rich in plot and action, just a little confused and more than a little hampered by a low budget.

This makes it a perfect movie for riffing, and riff they do. It’s definitely a multiple-watcher.

If I had but one request, one dream come true, it would be this: Stay clear of the political humor guys. There are a couple of instances where Frank riffs on Bush and, really, it’s not good. Yeah, I’m sure it gets applause when you do it live. But it’s “clap humor”, not real humor, and I’d rather have a dozen more references to Ray Stevens and Ginger Baker.

For $16 (including shipping and handling, with luck to be dropped to $13 for download-and-burn once they work out that out), you could do a lot worse for a night’s entertainment.