Mystery Science Theater 3000 – Volume 10 (DVD)

Mystery Science Theater 3000 is a B-movie showcase that aired on cable for several years. It is not unlike Elvira's Movie Macabre or Gilbert Gottfried's USA Up All Night, but it has a twist because throughout each movie our extra-terrestrial hosts stay with us to heckle and add snarky comments.

The back-story as to why these space aliens are watching bad movies is: when zany mad scientist Dr. Clayton Forrester (Trace Beaulieu) and his loopy assistant Frank (Frank Conniff) get bored with their work at the Deep Thirteen research center, they kidnap Joel the janitor (Joel Hodgson) and shoot him into orbit on the Satellite of Love. While in space Joel builds wacky robot sidekicks Tom Servo (Kevin Murphy) and Crow T. Robot (also Trace Beaulieu) to help him withstand an onslaught of grade 'Z' movies that the mad scientists force him to watch.

This collection, Volume 10, is definitely starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel. Mostly these movies are just so bad they're bad, but there is some fun to be had here and there.

1975's The Giant Spider Invasion takes the cake as a 50s-style z-level monster mash about… well, read the title.

The story gets going, eventually, when a miniature black hole comes crashing to Earth on a scrubby cow farm and a cavalcade of spiders hatch out of crystal geodes containing diamonds. The hairy spiders quickly overrun everything in sight and then produce one alpha-spider the size of a VW, which rampages through town. (In reality, a VW was adorned with a giant spider costume and driven across the grassy fields – it looks like something out of an elementary-school play!)

Barbara Hale of Perry Mason fame plays a polyester pant-suited scientist, and Alan Hale, Jr. who was The Skipper on Gilligan's Island, is a sexist backwoods sheriff who loves his own jokes. The two join forces to stop the spiders from gorging on Redneckville, USA.

Excruciatingly slow to start, we see our first spider at the 30 minute-mark, when, the dysfunctional farmer (who likes to wear a holey red body stocking with a white girdle over it), his alcoholic wife (who's drinking everything that's not nailed down), and their trampy daughter ("I'm not eleven anymore - I'm 35-23-35!"), find the nest on their property. A little more gore is thrown in when the spiders start killing the cows by beheading and disembowelment.

There are some unintentionally funny lines in the movie — augmented by our heckling hosts — but the movie is just barely bad-good.

Also in the collection:

Godzilla vs. Megalon: The underground kingdom of Seatopia sends out Megalon, a giant beetle, and Gigan to destroy the above ground dwellers. In an attempt to stop them, an independently thinking robot brings Godzilla into the fight.

Swamp Women: A plucky police woman infiltrates a group of hardened female criminals who are planning to break jail and retrieve their loot of diamonds from its swampy hiding place. Complications arise when the women abduct Connors and begin fighting each other. (Directed by Roger Corman.)

Terror in the Night: A troubled teen with an undeserved criminal past is the suspect when young women start turning up around town dead and marked up with lipstick.

This DVD set also contains the following extra features:

-MST3K Video Jukebox

-Photo Gallery

-Outtakes

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson