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 The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Volume 6
Review by Valarie Thorpe
The latest offering in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 collection is Volume 6 featuring episodes 511 – Gunslinger, 404 – Teenagers from Outer Space, 406 – Attack of the Giant Leeches and Mr. B’s Lost Shorts (including Mr. B Natural, X Marks the Spot, Hired!, Design for Dreaming, Johnny at the Fair and Are You Ready for Marriage.)
These go back to some of our favorites on MST3K. While we loved Mike as host in the later eps, we have a soft spot in our hearts for the first line-up and this 4-DVD set goes back to the original team of Joel Hodgson Tom Servo and Crow.
Rhino Home Video is producing these sets and everything from the packaging to the transfers is top notch stuff. A high quality four-disk foldout package with slipcase opens up to all four disks with an ‘at the drive-in’ motif going on. Very nice.
Since chronology with this show isn’t any big deal, it’s no problem for them to pull episodes out of order from their original airing. Some of the framing pieces could use the chronological format but you don’t lose much. We’d actually like to see more theme-type episodes grouped together and while this one has a bit of a mix on it, it does fit the bill for horror fans with Attack of the Giant Leeches and Teenagers from Outer Space. And while those two episodes are obvious fun for horror buffs, don’t overlook the wildly absurd Gunslinger. Directed by Roger Corman (yea really, it’s that Roger Corman), Beverly Garland stars as Rose Hood, who finds herself made sheriff once the murder of her man leaves the job wide open. And before they can even bury her husband, she’s already gunned herself down one of his killers…at the funeral natch.
These movies aren’t about the synopses though, they’re about how much Joel, Servo and Crow can poke fun at them. It was a rare episode of MST3K that didn’t make us howl but the guys are in rare form on these – in Teenagers from Outer Space you get angst, rebellion and lobsters looking for world domination. And with Attack of the Giant Leeches, well, you get one helluva bad movie – but in the best and most fun possible way.
Another one of the advantages of watching these on DVD is getting an opportunity to see the full movies the way they were intended to be viewed on the ol’ Satellite of Love. In many of the later syndication runs, channels would hack ‘em down to fit. These disks restore them to their full-length glory (fill in Crow’s sexual innuendo crack here). So go and buy yourself something pretty dollface…you’ll thank us for it.
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