How can something so awful be so much fun? That's a riddle solved once again by the men, women, and robots of Mystery Science Theater 3000, which turns affectionate mockery into an art form in this new collection of deliriously funny episodes from the beloved TV series. Joel, Mike, Tom Servo, Crow, and the usual gang of misfits take us on another memorable ride through four films that only the films mothers could love. Fasten your seatbelts. The Satellite of Love is back in action at warped speed.
GreenCine Says: The latest set of Mystery Science Theater episodes from Rhino, Volume 9, is worth it for the fourth disc alone - the Satellite of Love's takedown of the wonderfully awful The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. The mixed-up director of that cinematic atrocity expanded all his creative talent on the title (which didn't stop him from trying to "act" in it), and it doesn't stop Mike and the 'bots from riffing on it with gleeful, spot-on abandon in one of the best late-era MST episodes. The other three titles in the set range from season one's Women of the Prehistoric Planet (done before the show really hit its stride but enjoyable nonetheless) to the biker flick Wild Rebels (dig Joel and company's Wild Rebels cereal ad skit) and The Sinister Urge, an Ed Wood "classic" in which porn inspires a man to murder and which barely needs any additional commentary to make it funny (the MST riffing here gets better as it goes along). All in all, a solid collection, lead by a gang of Mixed-Up Zombies. -- Craig Phillips
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