 320 - THE UNEARTHLY with shorts: POSTURE PALS and APPRECIATING OUR PARENTS
(RHINO DVD
Box #3 and VHS)
Genre: Low Budget Mad Scientist/Horror
(1957, B&W)
Shorts: This experiment starts off with two great shorts. The first is
Posture Pals and is a dated educational short on good posture
in which a bunch of ’50s-era kids compete for some cheap Burger
King crowns in a class posture contest. This dated short is
very well-riffed by J&tBs.
The second short is called
Appreciating Our Parents and is about how this dopey kid should appreciate his
’50s housewife mom as she cleans up the mess he leaves in his wake (I wonder if his mom went to the
Home Economics College?).
This short, like the first, has great riffing and is also followed
by a funny host segment in which the ’Bots spoof it well.
Synopsis: The feature is a low-grade horror flick that stars John Carradine as a mad scientist
who’s trying to discover eternal youth, but instead just ends up turning his victims – I mean “volunteers” – into hideous zombies.
In constant need of new “volunteers,” Carradine keeps inviting people to stay at his home with him, his nurse, and his large, dimwitted henchman, Lobo (played by Tor Johnson).
His latest guest is a man named Mark whom Carradine thinks is a wanted murder, but actually is an undercover police officer investigating the “good” doctor.
When a blonde girl staying at the home becomes Carradine’s latest failure, Mark the cop discovers
what’s going on by join in on the local practice sneaking around in the dark.
Mark confronts the doctor and calls in the police and so the whole things ends with cops showing up and with
Carradine’s death by one of his earlier failure experiments.
Host Segments:
- Prologue: ’Bots try to film a segment for America’s
Funniest Home Videos
- Segment One (Invention Exchange): Mads invent
the Hard-Pills-To-Swallow; J&tBs invent Celebrity
Pez-Dispensers (although Emilio Estevez’s head looks more like
Conan O’Brien!)
- Segment Two: The ’Bots spoof “Appreciating
Our Parents”
- Segment Three: The ’Bots do a presentation on
the acting of Tor Johnson
- Segment Four: The ’Bots invent a game based on
the movie with some byzantine rules
- Segment Five (End): Joel reads letters in an
old-time mobster voice (the Mads soon start doing it too)
Stinger: Lobo (Tor Johnson) saying “Time for
go to bed!”
Don’s Review: A dated and extremely dull Mad Scientist Horror movie is the feature here.
While enjoyable on the cheesy level, the scenes in this movie of characters sneaking around in the dark go on so long, that
simply staying interested is, at times, a bit of a chore.
Plus almost all of the scenes in the movie take place on a few soundstages,
so that when a character actually goes outside, it’s a bit of a shock.
But, in its favor, John Carradine chewing up the scenery and Tor
Johnson stumbling through his role are two things that are a lot
of fun to
watch. The riffing is quite good in this feature, although the dullness of the film itself can be a bit overwhelming.
The host segments are also pretty good, so this episode is worth checking out from Rhino if you
haven’t seen it.
Trivia Note: John Carradine would later spoof roles like the one he played here when he starred as a Mad Sex Researcher in Woody
Allen’s
film Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex... But Were Afraid to
Ask.
Don’s Rating: 
[ S1: 
S2: F:
 ]
Related Links:
(1) Mighty Jack’s MST3K Review (Episode Review)
(2) DVD
Savant (Movie Review)
|
