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Episode 703- Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell
Carissa, who truly runs like Natron Means, succumbs to Deathstalker's pledge to protect her, but only after he has rubbed his groin on her a lot. Then of course, Deathstalker blows even this simple task and the princess is hacked to death. Leaving him to find the Princess's sister, try to bag her, and help her to become the richest chick in all the land.
Then there are the Warriors from Hell, ugly snot-eating day players, whose souls are kept in a grappa bottle in the castle bar. They are bound by threat of eternal damnation to kill Deathstalker, but decide instead that he's a stand-up guy and help him vanquish the evil Troxartis. Eventually all the characters are crushed by the weight of Thom Christopher's overacting, and he must die so the film can end. And he dies a classic villain's death: A magic lozenge causes his head to explode. It's the perfect MST film, one that fails on every conceivable level, fails so miserably it transcends failure and becomes a thing of sheer delight.
Segment One: Pearl is sick, and when Pearl is sick, Clayton suffers. On the SOL, our pals do what they do best in situations like this, and dress up in funny fast food worker costumes and ask pointless food service questions with no object, such as "Do you want to super-size that?" and "Is that together?" Segment Two: The Bots, hoping to fleece poor dumb Mike, come up with the perfect ploy: a Ren Fest! Lots of fun to be had as long as you have the money! Several lame gags and Elizabethan insults later, Mike is tapped out, and runs for the cash machine.
Segment Four: Crow looks in on sick old Pearl and humors her by reading her filthy cheap airport-bookstore-style erotica. She relishes it as if it was a new translation of Proust. Segment Five: In Deep Thirteen, Pearl moans and groans at a fever pitch, and Clayton, borrowing from the classic scene in "Suspicion," brings her a glass of poisoned milk, but then he pulls the old switcheroo and drinks it himself! Ha ha! He's dead! Stinger: Filthy peasant woman says, "Potatoes are what we eat!" in a way that just sells the line.
But I suppose it's less funny in print, isn't it? As you might guess if you've watched more than one episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, many of us involved in the writing of the show hate Renaissance festivals to the point that we have wished dire harm on their participants and patrons, written letters to wit, received court orders enjoining us from stalking around them, been incarcerated for lighting fires in the bazaar and hurling flaming dream-catchers at horrified festers. Well, that describes me to the letter. "Creative anachronism" my sorry Irish ass. A Ren-fest is nothing more than an excuse to be lame, smelly and fat, just like XFL fans, only worse. I'm betting most of these clowns couldn't spell "Renaissance" if you threatened their tender vittles with hot iron. I hope some day they live out their wish to know what it was like back then by contracting plague. Too harsh? You go to a Renaissance festival and get back to me. Kevin Murphy
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Movie:
I didn't remember how exquisite this movie was. Seeing it again brought genuine tears to my eyes, primarily because
I was trying to gouge them. John Allen Relson plays Deathstalker this time out; a bony, annoying little sucker
with a rictal smirk and no lips to speak of (or with), who believes that his meat and two veg, as they say, are
the greatest in all the land and women must just take a number and line up, legs akimbo. They don't, they aren't
and he isn't, but it only adds to the fun. Deathstalker's friend, the wizard Nissius, or as they call him in the
movie, Nssissss, paws at suspected princess Carissa, who carries a magic stone. The three of them meet at a Renaissance
Festival somewhere in Mexico, and are attacked by an army led by a guy in a bat helmet. I couldn't make this up
if I was tripping.
Along
the way, Deathstalker is vexed by the Troxartis, far and away the stupidest character and most extravagantly overacted
role in MST history. Played by Thom Christopher, who played the role of Hawk on the TV series "Buck Rogers,"
he is incompetent in every way available to an actor. Perhaps his sense memory exercises only evoked images of
wood-smoked ham. He constantly overacts, tries to steal every scene he's in, dresses like Rosalind Russell and
performs the worst stage fighting I've ever seen on film.
Prologue:
Crow enjoys his active lifestyle... with his new hair! It's a techno-weave, and although he looks more like Marv
Albert than ever, he can swim, play tennis, even swim! That should have been enough but then he wows us with calf
implants.
Segment
Three: Proving even further how dumb he is, Mike insists that the Bots let him pay them more money to do an
even lamer feint at a Ren Fest, which he just loves.
Reflections:
I remember Mary Jo cracking herself and the rest of us up by continuously chanting from her sick-bed, "Claydin?
Claydin? Claydin! Oh, Claydin!" Over and over and over and over again. Just like that: "Claydin? Claydin?
Claydin! Oh, Claydin!" Just like that, on and on, for hours. "Claydin? Claydin? Claydin! Oh, Claydin!"
See how funny it is? "Claydin? Claydin? Claydin! Oh, Claydin!" See? The more you say it, the funnier
it is! "Claydin? Claydin? Claydin! Oh, Claydin! Claydin? Claydin? Claydin! Oh, Claydin! Claydin? Claydin?
Claydin! Oh, Claydin!" Man, it still gets me.| All content contained within this Episode Guide is copyright © 2001 by Chris Cornell and Brian Henry. Please do not reproduce this guide or any portion thereof in any form without express written permission from the copyright owners. |