SPOILER DISCUSSION: Episode 1311, The Mask 3D. (PLEASE NOTE: This thread is NOT the Open Thread Discussion for tonight’s livestream premiere)

Well, I enjoyed it. The 3D is a delight! Some of it didn’t quite work, but the surrealism made up for it. A lot of work went into those parts and you could tell. It was definitely made to work with 3D and those who watch it in 2D will be missing out on that.

I wasn’t either. :angry:

3 Likes

Watching the 3D screener the riffing is so funny Jonah, Hampton And Baron get better and better!

4 Likes

I feel for the actors here. They were trying their hardest, even when the material wasn’t working.

3 Likes

I thought it was an OK movie, actually… I was expecting worse.

According to Wikipedia this was the first Canadian-made movie to get national distribution in the U.S.

4 Likes

The print they used was really good.

10 Likes

Favorite riff of the show: close between “somewhere a Pizza Hut table stands naked” and Franken-David-Byrne.

11 Likes

I’m only one host segment into this but the first is gold. Someone please let Darcy from Joe Bob Briggs’ Last Drive-In on Shudder know about Jonah as the immortal Tom Atkins.

Synthia as the landlady is one of Rebecca Hanson’s all-time moments. I lost it at “From Lethal Weapon? AIIEEEEE!!!” and the movie-style zoom, one of my favorite host segment gags ever.

“Got your mail again, Nicolas Cage.”

14 Likes

Loved this one from start to finish! I’ll be revisiting this one every October.

7 Likes

A very solid riff. Gorgeous 3D and the first two host segments are great, as I mentioned above. The 3D end segment was great too. Yvonne Freese is hilarious as the skull/mask, though I legit thought it was Kelsey.

I hope this will usher in a tradition of more dedicated Halloween episodes - I can’t tell you how good it felt to watch this one right before the holiday, and it’s a genuinely creepy film, which is something MST has had its share of over the years (Squirm, parts of Manos, etc). The 3D was a great audience-interaction gimmick here, and I wouldn’t mind getting another 3D movie next season or some other bell/whistle.

Still apparently haven’t turned up in the backer end credits yet, but am I bitter? Haha, yes!

7 Likes

My review is up:

3 Likes

I liked it. I genuinely enjoyed it as a movie.

4 Likes

Thought about it some more and once they tweak the audio levels a bit, it’ll probably be a great standalone episode to recommend a new person, assuming they can put up with the gimmick.

7 Likes

So, yeah, the audio was a distinctive problem and the 3D was …strange. But I thought the segments on this one were a highlight, especially the riff of Monster Mash where nobody actually shows up.

4 Likes

I have to say this episode was really amazing to me on so many levels. Best host segments for Jonah this season IMO. The 3D was MUCH better than I expected and really enjoyed it; I wanted more! But my favorite thing: Pinhead Servo!!! Being a Pinhead fan (aka “The Hell Priest”) since the first movie, this was so unexpected and yet so hilarious to me! Tom Atkins, oh man, where to start?! That was just genius right there. Not to mention Crow dressed as himself with the old school late 70’s!/early 80’s costume design. Well done to everybody involved in that episode!!!

9 Likes

Actually, thought: somebody needs to rewrite the “They Couldn’t Come” song to be about D&D. Perfect fit, really.

4 Likes

Yeah, they said at the end of the livestream that they’ll rework the audio levels for us. There were times that I couldn’t even hear that there was supposed to be dialog at all. Luckily for me, I have audio processing issues anyway so I always watch with captions on. Although sometimes the captions weren’t visible because they were white on white in a small font.

I did like the way the movie set up the 3D sequences as purely within the mask’s dreamscape. With the voice of the mask telling you it was time to put yours on, giving you time to do so. Like I said elsewhere, I found the intermittent 3D in another movie to be rather jarring and cumbersome, but it really works here. That was clever. A couple of well made jump scares, too, without being over the top with it.

From the sound of it, they had special custom 3D masks printed for the movie. I wonder…

Ah. Wikipedia has a picture.

That’s kind of cool? But I was expecting an attempt to at least kind of look like the mask from the movie.

Great episode. And I love that because of the Gizmoplex we’re able to do a 3D movie. Awesome job with the 3D host segment. (I love the behind the scenes look we got in the livestream.)

The explanation we’re given:

  1. Putting the mask on draws out your darkest thoughts and impulses, becoming a more powerful and addictive compulsion as it gradually consumes your better nature.

  2. The mask comes from an ancient South American tribe and was used in ritual human sacrifice.

  3. The doctor has bought into the trope that taking a human life is the ultimate power trip. (Similar to the Most Dangerous Game.)

The fever dreams occur while he has the mask on, and they represent the darkest depths of his subconscious. Some of them do include imagery of death and human sacrifice.

We also see that although he’s happy with his fiance, he finds himself attracted to his secretary, who has been quietly attracted to him for a long time. (They do show her subtly flirting at the beginning of the movie, before the fiance shows up.) He takes a step into sin when he cheats on his dark-haired fiance by making advances on the blonde secretary, and from there he moves on to attempting to kill her.

Interestingly, the fiance asks early on what happens if you don’t have any darkness in your soul at all, to which the reply is “Doesn’t everybody?” It’s true. We’re only human, and none of us is perfect. And yet… When he puts the mask on her, it has no effect. (Which is actually nice to see, instead of the assumption of women carrying “original sin” or some other inherent corruption.)

Also, I don’t watch horror movies. I’ve never seen Hellraiser. But Pinhead Servo is perfect. It just makes me happy. Excellent suggestion, Rebecca.

9 Likes

There’s a 2D option as well. Another very clean print, too!

4 Likes

I loved this one so much!

It’s so good to see a black and white horror movie after so long. They’re my MST3K sweet spot, and this was a great one. It was so freaky and actually pretty good; perfect for Halloween. That this really was a Halloween episode made it even better. The last line only scary stories and the megi boards started us out strong, and as soon as we got the line “Warner Brothers, are we in the right theater?” I knew we were in for something good. Then we get Halloween 3 riffs, and all the doodads and the apology caricatures.

Everyone’s costumes were great. I feel you, Jonah. I was waiting for you to bust out a “Thrill me!” from Night of the Creeps. And then noir therapy and the updated Monster Mash song, but I think the end sketch knocked it out of the park. Yvonne as the mask was the perfect thing to go out on.

I’m constantly wowed at how good this season’s been. Happy Halloween, everyone!

Night Of The Creeps Film GIF

13 Likes

I wanted to watch the livestream, but it just has part 2, where’s the first half?

Did they do viewer mail during the show, any extra sketches? I saw the first ad, but checked out after that as I couldn’t hear the movie.

It (the sound) is better with headphones on my laptop, so I was going to finish it that way, and watch on my TV when we get the download.

1 Like

This was the first episode of the season where I actually attended the live premiere for it. I thought this was a solid episode with some good riffing. While the movie can drag at times, the mask sequences are pretty entertaining. And that’s when the riffing is at its best. I do really like the host segments too. The Halloween theme is welcome here, and the host segments do a good job at playing with that. I like the trick or treat sketch where know one can recognize Jonah’s costume, and the song later in the episode has some pretty clever lyrics. It’s a fun episode all around, and it’s great to see another black and white movie on the show. I really missed them during seasons 11 and 12, and this was a great return to the format.

7 Likes