Mystery Science Theater 3000: XXIV

Wow, Shout! Factory completes the MST3K Sandy Frank episode releases with BOTH Fugitive Alien episodes and tops that off with one of the Russo-Finnish films and a Mexican wrestling horror movie that says farewell to TV's Frank. This is a pretty eclectic mix of episodes that should please most fans.

310- FUGITIVE ALIEN
This 1987 TV "movie" is actually a 1978 Japanese TV series called Star Wolf imported and modified for the US by Sandy Frank, which tells you it's got to be good in that special way that Mighty Jack and Time Of The Apes are "good". Seriously, they don't get much funnier than this. A brutal alien "Wolf Raider" named Ken stops another "Star Wolf" from killing a human child also named Ken and becomes a fugitive from his own villainous comrades and their planet Valnastar. Ken is reluctantly taken in by the crew of the Earth ship Bacchus III commanded by the puffy-jowled Captain Joe and together they defend the Earth from further Wolf Raider attacks. There is much conflict amongst Ken and his new human companions while they learn to trust each other. Unintentional comedy ensues with the usual overwrought and breathy Sandy Frank cheap dubbing combined with the cheap production values of the original Japanese show. Wolf Raider's have superhuman abilities, but otherwise look just like humans except for the silly long-haired wigs they wear on their raids. And in one memorable scene "they tried to kill him with a forklift", which is used as a premise for one fantastically funny song and host segment with Joel and the 'Bots. There's also a fun host segment based around Syd Field's Screenplay writing guide. This is a much beloved MSTie must-have episode you'll want to watch over and over again. It's MST3K at its absolute best.

318- STAR FORCE - FUGITIVE ALIEN II
The further adventures of Captain Joe, fugitive Star Wolf Ken and the rest of the crew of the Bacchus III is also compiled from a couple episodes of the aforementioned 1978 Japanese TV series. This time they have to destroy an alien super weapon and Ken must deal with his ex-girlfriend Rita who has been sent by the dictator of Valnastar (from which I took my reviewer name years ago!) to kill him. It's about as goofy as the first Fugitive Alien and the episode is about the same level of funny. If you couldn't get enough of Fugitive Alien the first time around (and I never can!) then this episode is for you. Host segments include a Fugitive Alien medley and the Captain Joe action figure.

617- THE SWORD AND THE DRAGON
This is another fantastic Russo-Finnish production with thousands of extras in massive battle scenes as well as fairly well done fantasy elements including an impressive looking dragon. Nevertheless, the dubbing and folk-tale fantasy elements make it pretty good fodder for a humorous MST3K take and like the other Russo-Finnish films used on the show it's enjoyable both for the fantastically beautiful and expensive movie and the silly fun that Mike and the 'Bots have with it. Hero of the film Ilya Murametz visits on the hexfield viewscreen. An enjoyable episode all around.

624- SAMSON VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN
Sadly, this episode bids farewell to Frank Conniff, but not before we're treated to a pretty amusing episode based around a 1962 black-and-white Mexican wrestling horror film starring the most popular and famous Mexican wrestler of his time, El Santo. El Santo is an early example of a professional wrestler becoming so popular that he got a deal to star in a series of feature films. Renamed "Samson" for this badly dubbed US release, our hero must battle a cult of villainous vampire women all while being careful to keep his mask on. This silly film is fairly low-budget and it shows while the cheap dubbing makes it seem even sillier if that's possible. One highlight of the episode is a host segment featuring a visit to Deep 13 by "Torgo The White" who wants to take TV's Frank to "second banana heaven". Not a great episode, but solid fun nonetheless.

Extra Features Include:
- MST3K Shorts: Snow Thrills & A Date With Your Family
- Introductions by Japanese cinema historian August Ragone
- You Asked For It: Sandy Frank Speaks!
- MST Hour Wraps
- Life After MST3K: Frank Conniff
- Lucha Gringo: K. Gordon Murray Meets Santo
- And as usual, four exclusive Mini-Posters by artist Steve Vance.

Wow, I'm the 12th reviewer on this thing and I'm so far the first to actually post a review AFTER the products come out.

After the last volume's somewhat less than stellar set of episodes, I was really hoping this box would have some winners, and I'm happy to report that it is EXCELLENT! It even includes some interesting bonus features. Here's the show by show breakdown:

FUGITIVE ALIEN: Another Japanese TV show stapled together by Sandy Frank to make a "movie," this one involves a renegade "wolf raider" named Ken who is a fugitive from his evil planet after not killing a kid during a raid, then accidentally shooting his partner when THAT guy tries to kill the kid. He is begrudgingly accepted onto spaceship of humans, led by drunk, puffy-faced Captain Joe. That sets up the rest of the "movie" which is mostly short unrelated adventures, since this was a TV show first. The movie is goofy fun, with some of the most hilarious Cheap-Star-Wars-Rip-Off style special effects this side of StarCrash. It also includes the "They tried to kill him with a forklift" song that honestly gets funnier and funnier every time they sing it. I feel like I'm doing a terrible job explaining its appeal, so let me stop here and just say that this is a fantasic episode and one that will definitely be an easy choice for repeat viewings.

Bonus features include the always amusing MST HOUR wraps and a short introduction to the episode from August Ragone which ends in a hilarious moment of clarity for August where he admits he's kind of a dateless loser.

STAR FORCE - FUGITIVE ALIEN 2: The further adventures of Ken, Captain Joe, those other two guys, and the female crew member with the jacked up teeth! This one is just as funny as the first, with great riffing all around and plenty of reprisals of "they tried to kill him with a forklift!" There's three main plot segments to the actual movie, the first two taking up most of the runtime. The last, however, had me laughing the most, because in the last 5-10 minutes of the movie comes a hilarious Kubuki version of Darth Vader that we have NEVER seen before, who apparently tricks Ken with a fake version of his mom (???) before a quick, shoddy firefight ensues. That ends with Ken leaving in what looks kinda like an X-wing, with an obvious R2-D2 type robot behind him. All of this comes out of nowhere, all of it so obviously there just to rip-off Star Wars, all of it so very funny! Another excellent episode of MST3k.

The bonus feature here is called "You Asked For It: Sandy Frank Speaks!" and after watching it, I really doubt MST3k fans were asking for a 25 minute interview where at minute 24, Sandy Frank finally addresses MST only to immediately dismiss it as "a lark." The first 24 minutes are him relating (in exhaustive detail!) his career history of buying and selling TV properites, so if you're fresh out of chloroform and can't easily locate your copy of the Book of Mormon, just fire up "You Asked For It: Sandy Frank Speaks!" and you should be out in no time.

THE SWORD AND THE DRAGON: Another Russo-Finnish fantasy movie, and its just like all the others MST did in that its colorful, very well budgeted (how DID they do that wind demon effect anyways?), super energetic and pretty darn goofy. Also like the other Russo-Finnish flicks they did, its a fantastic episode, with strong riffing from start to finish. There's a funny host segment on this one where Gypsy imitates a woman in the movie by singing while Mike and the bots come out scampering around in ridiculous animal costumes only to have her stop mid-song, say "You guys are so weird" and leave. My wife laughed forever at that, and quotes it often. Another great episode.

This disc has two great shorts as bonus features, one called "Snow Thrills" and the other "A Date With Your Family." Both are very very funny, with "Snow Thrills" being my favorite of the two. I laughed hysterically when the narrator of "Snow Thrills" said he was told skiing is correctly pronounced "shee-ing" and Joel replied "Yeah, but those guys are full of skit."

SAMSON VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN: TV's Frank gets a clever send-off in this episode when Torgo the White takes him to 2nd Banana Heaven. The movie itself is quite a trip. Samson is actually world famous Mexican Wrestler El Santo, and Mike and Co. actually refer to him as El Santo when riffing the film. The film itself is a fun little bit of trashy, B-movie goodness. A bunch of vampire women wanna capture a Mexican officials daughter so they can turn her into their new queen or something. A good chunk of the first act is all the women rising from their coffins, going through some ceremony, all of it happening pretty slow, since slow equals menacing in movies like these. About halfway through, Santo barges in and the movie gets much more interesting (and goofy). My favorite parts are the vampires themselves. First of all, they drain the life of their victims by first running up and beating them unconscious THEN sucking their blood. Second, one of the male vampires impersonates a black-masked wrestler to get an opportunity to take on El Santo. When El Santo beats him and removes his mask, he's got a WEREWOLF FACE! Except both before AND after this scene, every vampire including that one has a human face! The best part though, has to be the ending (SPOILERS, as if you really care) where Santo gets tied down to a slab in the vampires lair and is tortured by the vampires, only to be freed when they apparently lose track of time and morning sun shines in through THE WINDOW OF THE VAMPIRE'S LAIR and sends the vampires either fleeing to their coffins or bursting into flames. Why didn't the vampires cover up that window before including that room in their lair? Or at least keep a clock on the wall so they know when to get out of there? The vampires in this movie are not particularly smart. There's plenty of other weird scenes, and combined with some good riffing and the casual racism that MST3k got away with by being a show in the 90's makes this one a very memorable episode.

Bonus features for this one include TV's Frank discussing what he did after MST3k, and he's very humble about his accomplishments. For example, though he was head writer of Invader Zim he's very quick to give all the credit for that show to the visual designers and the creator of the series. He seems like a nice, humble guy.

You also get a TV spot for the movie which shows most of the film's climax, as well as a brief documentary about the fame of El Santo, Mexican horror movies of that time period, and what led to him being in such movies. Overall, very interesting and the Luchador expert interviewed for the doc is a masked man with a heavy Boston accent, the absurdity of which just cracked me up to no end.

So there you have it, four excellent and rather accessible episodes, making this volume an easy choice for fans, as well as a great set for someone new to MST3k.

Buy it today!

Although many of the prime episodes of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" (MST3K) have been done in previous releases, Shout Factory really comes through with Volume XXIV. This is a great set, and the two "Fugitive Alien" releases are by themselves worth the price of admission and are the clear highlights of the set. "Fugitive Alien" and "Star Force: Fugitive Alien II" are works of Sandy Frank genius in which a 1970's Japanese TV show is sliced and diced in the most confusing imaginable way to yield films so hilariously bewildering that I consider them among the best "worst" movies ever made. The plots are essentially incomprehensible (so much so that at one point Tom Servo's head explodes,) but combine numerous characters named Ken and the least likely starship commander in the history of cinema, Captain Joe, with total lack of continuity (just try to keep track of which actor is playing Ken, I dare you!) Think of them as "Mighty Jack" only without the lucidity. These are two of the best of the Joel-era MST episodes: be sure to watch for the famous song about heavy machinery ("They tried to kill him with a forklift!") You will have a hard time shaking it out of your brain for days afterwards.

"The Sword and the Dragon" is another cold war fantasy relic from behind the iron curtain that has certain stylistic kinship to the even more bizarre "Jack Frost," and simply boggles the mind. I enjoyed this one for its peculiar directorial choices and odd folklore angles which never cease to amuse.

"Samson vs. The Vampire Women" sadly proved to be Frank Conniff's final episode, and is the weakest of the four. It's a terrifically cheap black and white Mexican wrestler film featuring "Samson" the masked hero and a weird female cult (which is, believe it or not, much less intimidating than Batwoman's throng of Batgirls from "Wild, Wild World of Batwoman.") This is honestly not a favorite of mine (the pace of Mexican wrestler films is unbelievably slow) but I did enjoy the Torgo cameo and how it tied into Frank's departure from the series.

The set features numerous worthwhile extras, and the two that I enjoyed the most were "Life After MST3K: Frank Conniff," where Frank discusses a variety of things including the show and his career in perspective, and the documentary I never thought I'd see "You Asked For It! Sandy Frank Speaks," in which one of our favorite cinematic masterminds discusses his career (with an emphasis on television sales) in a brash, yet totally intriguing way (I totally did not expect the otherworldly Anwar Sadat tie-in!) In summary, this is a strong set, with two great episodes, one above average episode, and one that I put in the bottom quartile of MST3K efforts (though still worthwhile for one-time viewing.) I highly recommend this set on the basis of the Japanese Sandy Frank efforts alone.