Anvil and Sprocket Movie Review

Trace (I think that’s Trace) tries to adjust Regina Carrol’s makeup.

And then suddenly there were more movie-mocking projects than you could shake Torgo’s stick at from the old Mystery Science Theater crew. The most recent version, Joel Hodgson’s Cinematic Titanic, is the first to return to the silhouettes-on-a-movie-screen format. I received my copy in the mail earlier this week, and the Elf and I sat down to watch it once we got the kid to bed.

The movie is classic Mystery Science Theater, if perhaps a little more graphically violent. It’s actually 1972’s Brain of Blood (retitled for this project), a schlocky medical-ethics squeem-fest about a doctor who transplants the brain of a dictator into the body of a disfigured man-child. There’s very little to distinguish this movie from the dozens of others like it with the possible exception of actress Regina Carrol. She’s the movie’s unflatteringly-filmed peroxide blond-shell, a carny-mirror femme fatale certain to keep Chris Matthews up nights.

Cinematic Titanic‘s crew of five bracket the film in silhouette on scaffolding. From these perches they make zingers on the movie, sometimes enlisting the aid of other props or shapes that descend from the ceiling. A Stephen Hawking impersonator rolls across the screen at one point, cracks a joke, and rolls off. Instead of the old host segments, the movie pauses occasionally to let one of the players deliver an extended riff on the film, sometimes with the aid of cranes.

It all sounds pretty interesting, but the execution leaves something to be desired. With five riffers I’d hope for a little more chemistry between the performers. They rarely interact with each other or build off of each other’s riffs, and the scaffolding shapes keep them rather isolated. And their delivery sounds a little animatronic — anything but spontaneous. Maybe this is something the series will grow into — this is the first episode after all. But everyone here worked together before, some of them for a very long time. Where’s the camaraderie? These don’t feel like my friends. They don’t even feel like each other’s friends. They feel more like the Pizza Time Players except in better repair.

The other problem seems to be more structural. The movie begins with the cast taking their places on the scaffold and — with no preamble at all — beginning to riff on the film. We never see the performers in anything more than silhouette. A lot of people didn’t care for the host segments in Mystery Science Theater, but they did offer more opportunities for extended commentary on the films being mocked. Some of my favorite Mystery Science Theater bits came from these sketches — analysis of Kathy Ireland’s look of Dull Surprise, The “Where O Werewolf” song, Joel in his Manos costume. Compared to this, the shadow-plays against the movie screen backdrop seem much more limiting.

The host segments also gave the players the opportunity to connect with the audience, often speaking directly to the camera. That gave us a sense of character which is very much lacking in Cinematic Titanic unless you’re already very familiar with the players. But in the context of CT we have no reason to like these people-shapes or care about their commentary. Cinematic Titanic uses the “shadowrama” technique in an entertaining fashion, but the show is desperately lacking in personality. Sparse. Cold. Impersonal. And I just don’t see how that gets fixed without bringing the lights up now and again.

One final word, and this is about EZ Take’s packaging. The DVD arrived in the mail less protected than that endless stream of AOL discs everyone used to get. It’s a square paper mailer and inside it is a DVD. There’s not even a paper sleeve for the disc. How am I going to put this on my shelf? More to the point, how am I going to display this so people can see it and ask me about it? People can see my Film Crew DVDs and twelve volumes of MST3K. This risks falling behind the shelves, never to be seen again until the movers shift the entertainment center. Come on, guys. If I have to order a physical product, at least give me something I can look at.