The Film Crew: Killers From Outer Space/Wild Women
Of Wongo/The Giant of Marathon
(DVD)
Picture:
B- Sound: B- Extras: B- Episodes: A
Our old
friends from the Satellite of Love (a.k.a., Mystery Science Theater 3000—MST3K) are at it again with hilarious
commentary on three "all-new", "all-bad" B-Movie bombs. Comedic commentators Mike Nelson, Kevin
Murphy, and Bill Cobett make up The Film
Crew. Three wacky guys under the
employ of eccentric millionaire Bob Honcho, who regularly asks his men to
provide DVD commentaries on films he feels have been neglected and desperately
need them. Whether these three films
really need a commentary or not, the guys deliver them all the same.
The Killers from Outer Space
possesses few redeeming qualities aside from a positively wooden performance by
a young Peter Graves. Bad effects, poor
picture, terrible acting, and a lousy script would normally render this stinker
unwatchable, but the guys transform this otherwise painful experience into
eighty minutes of fun. Riffing on everything
from the main character's strange relationship with his wife to the
unintentionally zany appearance of its alien villains, The Film Crew cut of Killers is superb.
Unlike Killers' black and white print, Wild
Women of Wongo (also featured on The
50 Worst Movies Ever Made DVD elsewhere on this site) was filmed in not-so
Technicolor, on what appears to be faded stock. This complements the uniformly horrendous
acting and laughable story. This tired
tale tells the story of two tribes of stone-age peoples struggling for survival
amidst the lush beaches of what looks like either Bradenton, FL or Palm
Springs, CA. Of course, The Film Crew eats
this stuff up like Jell-O Pudding! The
fellas strike early and often with comedic barbs that often hit the bull's eye.
Perhaps the simplest humor works best
for a movie as bad as this one, and likening the appearance of one tribe's less
than attractive Alligator Priestess to KISS rocker Paul Stanley hits a home run
for laughs.
The Giant of Marathon marks the Film
Crew's first foray into the 1960's popular "Sword and Sandal" genre
of films. This genre was made famous (or
infamous) by numerous Steve Reeves/Hercules films, and these movies spawned a
host of imitators. Several of these
flicks were covered by the lads of the Film Crew back in their MST3K days. What MST3K
fan can forget the horror of the "sand storm" scenes from Hercules Versus the Moon Men? The
Giant of Marathon sees Reeves reprising his role of mythical hero, but this
time he is the mighty Phillipides battling the Persian invaders for his
homeland of Athens. Sound familiar? Reeves amazing physique aside, the Crew finds
laughs aplenty under every loin-cloth in this hackneyed re-telling of the Battle
of Thermopylae.
The extras on these disks are thin, including a few skits and some commentaries
on the commentaries (is that meta-commentary?), but the features themselves
provide plenty of fun for the entertainment dollar. As we have pointed out in past reviews of MST3K and Film Crew offerings, sound and picture are really not critical
aspects to the enjoyment of these features. All non-film image and video
quality is fine, while the poor picture quality of the movies themselves sometimes
enhances one's appreciation of their awfulness.
The Film Crew nicely fills the void
left by the demise of MST3K, and we
can only hope the fine folks at Shout Factory see fit to bring more "bad
cinema" our way courtesy of Mike Nelson and his faithful comrades!
- Scott Pyle