05 March 2007

MST3K (806)

806 - The Undead - In most Roger Corman episodes, the show starts off with a short. In this one, we got really long host segments to fill in the extra time. Bizarrely long segments. The scenes with the Observers seemed to go on forever, with an endless loop of that spooky Observer music playing in the background and nothing but bright white backgrounds no matter where you look. That, or I was dozing.

I did really enjoy a couple of the host segments. In the first host segment, Mike begins trying to explain where the storyline of the show is. At first, I was put off. Is this what the Sci-Fi Channel-mandated host segment storyline means? No longer is the opening theme song sufficient to explain the show, now we need a recap at the start of every episode? Mike and the bots immediately made me forgot about any complaints as they steered the recap into humor. Mike zoning out over memories of his previous job was both funny and scary. "Punched that guy from accounting that one time." Also very enjoyable was Bridget as the witch Livia. She always seems to play guest characters that, with a particular manic energy, magically pop onto the SOL.

Like the cast, I had no idea what was going on in this movie. Part of the problem was the faux-Shakespearian "thee-thou" speak, which, not being employed correctly, made the dialogue almost as hard to follow as the plot. Speaking of, the plot was completely ridiculous. I don't have a problem suspending disbelief for the sake of enjoying a movie, but let's not go crazy. "Psychical"?

"I instantly believe you." (6/10)

film d. Roger Corman (1956)
mst d. Kevin Murphy (8 Mar 1997)