421. Monster a Go-Go (1965)

Monster a Go-Go (1965) is on the short list of worst ever experiments. The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969), Monster a Go-Go, Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966), Eegah (1962), The Creeping Terror (1964), The Skydivers (1963), Red Zone Cuba (1966), The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961). Go-Go earns the right to be in that conversation. It is a Black Hole gulping the viewer into Hell and never relinquishing. Its blandness and zero calories of a story hurtle you into a giant joke with no punchline. If having your time wasted is what wounds you most, Go-Go is your #1. Manos is mine because it crept under my defenses and made me care. This combined with its incompetence lingers with me longer than Go-Go. Outside of Manos, not many subjects surpass Go-Go.

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Gypsy Doesn’t Get Crow.

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The short appears to be from a newsreel and brings back memories of the more obnoxious excesses of exhibition figure skating. This includes an interpretive performance of a fawn being gunned down by a hunter. Sadly, no Torvill and Dean riff was made.

The main feature is nominally about an irradiated astronaut who goes on a rampage. Except that it’s not. In a twist so idiotic even M. Night Shyamalan wouldn’t dare try it, it’s revealed by the intrusive narrator that there was no monster and never had been. It goes on a bit more, but that’s the basic gist. So what was even the point? Apparently, the film’s original director Bill Rebane ran out of money and shelved it. Then splatter shlockmeister Herschell Gordon Lewis bought it and shot the half-baked ending so he could pair it with Moonshine Mountain on a double bill.

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MAGG gets my vote for worst movie on MST3K. As bad as some of these movies are, at LEAST you get a complete movie. This one can’t even do THAT right. Sheesh!

On a side note, as any action figure collector can tell you, Johnny Longtorso is real, sort of. They are called “Build-A-Figures”, and you get a small part of a larger figure with the regular figure you just bought. So make sure to get the whole wave! I have several half-built X-men figures due to this (poor Caliban…)

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I played this early this morning. The pain is real. I tip my hat to Best Brains on the exemplary quips keeping the void of this pic at bay. And yet beneath the yucks the discomfort is there.

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Eegah is a great film in comparison to the others on that list…

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My best friend who was just exposed to Eegah (1962) a month ago thanks to years of petitioning would beg to differ with you. He felt the riffing to Manos (1966) stronger and better able to carry the film than Eegah. Eegah has hurt him enough it reconfirms that any of these to the right person can be devastating.

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I certainly agree that it’s an equally sleazy picture, but it’s considerably more competent.

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He’s independently brought Eegah (1962) up enough and recalled it in detail it left a mark on him. He is of the opinion it is utterly unwatchable and I sense he actually considers Manos (1966) more watchable. That’s what I’m reading from him. To competency? Its story is further accessible though its elements are all over the place and to some quite clashing. This seeming disconnect adds to the anguish where my pal is concerned and why I place it in that group. The others don’t have four movies going on. Eegah does and that crowded contrast and full-on dedication to it compensates for its more conventional story.

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Eegah has that damn shave-a-thon, and Manos has 30 minutes of Confectioners Sugar Wrestling. Both of these provide a more direct view of what floats their respective creators’ boats than I ever wanted. Monster-A-Go-Go lacks that level of uh… personalization. Which is probably why I find it easier to get through.

The riffs are really great, too. Also, the whole teary rant at the end about having to visit your relatives. Genius!

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Manos can at least be salvaged somewhat in the editing room.

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“Monster A Go Go lacks…”

You can stop right there. MAGG just lacks … everything.

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You can’t be serious! The majestic space-faring, the rockin’ dance party, the stirring voice-over, the oh-so-progressive car-out-of-gas-scene which CLEARLY inspired whoever directed that “Big Log” video in the 1980s! Tsk! Some people are impossible to please, I guess.

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But its tone and emphasis can not. The extent of suffering might diminish edited down while Manos (1966) is still Manos in its characterization, direction, and mood. Same with Eegah (1962). The liberties and choices decided on and not recognized then as terrible give them a personality of chaos and indigestion to sit through which is the reason they’re on the list. There’s an x factor those films possess. There are numerous ways to be terrible. Not every route is the same or as devastating to everyone. To me, Manos and Eegah repel and attract equally while Monster a Go-Go (1965) simply repels. What’s worse? Hating something or being fascinated by your pain? That’s the question.

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Darkness Visible.

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I’m just impressed that the Mads were such great amazingly evil geniuses that they managed to invent video game DLC at a time when most games couldn’t fill a single 100mb CD-ROM.

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Circus on Ice is brilliant.

Monster a Go Go has great riffing but the movie pain is so high that I find the actual film almost as hard to cope with as BB did.

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My fav riff from the short, the song Tom composed about the pink ice dancers-

:notes: These two girls they make quite a pair
They both come from your worst nightmare
They will haunt your soul forever
And now, when you see pink, you’re gonna think, ‘We’re doomed’
They are agents of Satan…:notes::laughing:

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The movie is dull and plodding, mostly consisting of static scenes of people standing in bare rooms having slow meandering conversations, or walking through empty fields while the director delivers dry narration. Some really excellent riffing. But yeah. I have to pause and take the movie in chunks.

Circus On Ice is fantastic. It’s such bizarre idea for an amateur show, filmed and narrated with enthusiasm by Warner Brothers. The riffing is solid, with some real standouts.

My one complaint with the short is that I do get a little tired of them using the same joke (which they also use repeatedly in a couple of other shorts). The narrator says something like “A high degree of skill and showmanship…” and they riff “… is not to be found here.” There’s only so much you can do with that kind of narration, I guess, and they do try to vary the phrasing of the riff a little even if the meaning is the same, but it’s a little overdone.

But… hmm. Final Sacrifice is a Canadian film. Circus On Ice is a Canadian short. Coincidence? Or is there some pattern to this? Like, perhaps, it’s Things Are Not What They Seem month, and Canadian Thanksgiving was in October? Time will tell. Or whenever I get around to watching the other 4 Vault Picks this month. I don’t remember what they are off the top of my head.

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