Available at Amazon.com
Film Directed by
W. Lee Wilder
Film Crew Cast:
Bill Corbett … Himself
Kevin Murphy … Himself
Michael J. Nelson … Himself
Killers from Space Cast:
Peter Graves … Dr. Douglas Martin
James Seay … Colonel Banks
Steve Pendleton … Briggs, FBI
Frank Gerstle … Dr. Curt Kruger
John Frederick … Denab/The Tala
Barbara Bestar … Ellen Martin
Shepard Menken … Major Clift, MD
Jack Daly … Power House Guard
Ron Kennedy … Sgt. Powers, Sentry
When it comes to down to which Mystery Science Theater host you prefer, whether it be show creator Joel Hodges or his later season successor Mike Nelson, I think the big mitigating factor is at what time you actually decided to start watching the show. Fans from the show’s beginning will indelibly side with Joel and those that tuned in after MST3K moved to the SCI-FI Channel will probably prefer Mike. Not that this is an infallible formula, its just one that has held true when I talked to other fans of the show. .
For those of us that love Mike, its been nice in the last few years getting his DVDs with his various commentary tracks for films like Night of the Living Dead and House on Haunted Hill, but even better is seeing him reunite with MST cohorts Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett for The Film Crew. A new series of DVDs featuring these three pranksters doing commentary on some of the worst films ever made, The Film Crew fills that gap in the lives of MST3K fans that need to see these terrible movies get what’s coming to them. This goes especially for pieces of absolute trash like Killers from Space.
If any movie has ever been as bad as its cover would suggest, it is this film. Killers from Space features a young, and stiff as a 2X4 Peter Graves as Dr. Douglas Martin, one of the head researchers and test pilot working at a secret nuclear testing facility for the U.S. Government. On a particular test flight, featuring really shoddy special effects (“I’m so glad light doesn’t pass through us anymore”), Martin’s jet crashes, but he appears later unharmed. When he starts to act peculiar and is caught stealing classified information, Martin reveals the dumbest and most tedious alien abduction story ever put on film.
Mike and the others simply have a field day with this film, as we gets references galore to Graves’ runs on Biography and Mission: Impossible, as well as non stop cracks at the terrible, terrible movie itself. It’s difficult to even say which sequence in the film is the worst/funniest, because when the guys get rolling it’s really difficult to stop laughing. The abduction of Graves’ Martin and subsequent escape is an arduous portion of the movie, as film makers seemed to absolutely fall in love with having Peter Graves being threatened by rear projected giant bugs, and without the guys’ commentary the scenes would probably be near impossible to watch.
The film also is packed to the gills with unnecessary close-ups, a subject that Bill, Mike, and Kevin take full advantage of in one of the three skits put together throughout the DVD. These aren’t quite as clever as classic MST3K skits in the past, but the final one after the movie is absolutely hysterical and really drives home that these three are still as funny as ever. Really, the skits end up being a bit of relief because the film is so terrible that a break from the mediocrity is quite welcome.
The Film Crew: Killers from Space shows the Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys in fine form. This is a terrific follow-up to their first offering, Hollywood after Dark, and shows them getting into an even better rhythm. From uproarious references to cunnilingus all the way to a hilarious Eisenhower joke Mike, Kevin and Bill keep the wise cracks coming, even if the movie takes its sweet time going anywhere.
The Video
Well, the segments with the Mike, Kevin and Bill look fine. Those portions look to have been shot on digital and look really nice with no problems. The film itself looks awful, with scratches and terrible cuts, but this is all done on purpose. The movie is presented in Fullscreen with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1
The Audio
The Audio track is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and sounds just fine. There’s no problem hearing any of the dialogue or commentary track.
Trailers – You get trailers for other Shout! Factory releases, including other Film Crew DVDs, Zach Galifianakis – Live at the Purple Onion , and others.
Did you know? – Kevin introduces this feature, which talks about a scene in which one of the aliens in the movie is ADR’ed and the dialogue is played backwards. This is then followed with several alternate takes, usually making fun of Peter Graves, which are each pretty funny.
