Who Collects the Unriffed Movies?

I do, I do!!! If you do collect them, how successful have you been at finding them? Which have you got, and which are you dying to find? I’ve managed to track down nearly everything in one format or another…

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Oh, I absolutely do. Sinister Cinema was my primary connection for the longest time; they had stuff no one else did. I managed to track down VHS copies of Fugitive Alien and Overdrawn at the Memory Bank on eBay. My ex, who was a film major, forbade me keep my unMSTed collection in the same room as his Citizen Kane DVD. :rofl:

Somehow I’ve ended up with six or seven copies of Manos over the years… the original MST3K DVD, the Sinister Cinema VHS, the ‘Essentials’ DVD, another unMSTed DVD, the Shout! edition of the DVD, and the 4K remastered Blu-Ray.

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I have a fair collection of them, notably the Gamera films. Picked up more than one Manos along the way as well. There’s a few I’d really like to get but can’t seem to find a decent release of, most particularly The Crawling Eye.

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There is a few I own, but usually when something gets riffed I can no longer watch the unriffed version. That being said I have already pre-ordered this blu-ray gem:

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Oh while I get there catalog I’ve never actually ordered from Sinister Cinema - but their other site Armchair Fiction I’ve ordered a lot from over the years. They publish old classics (so to speak) cheesy, pulp old school SF, mysteries and horror - great stuff!

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Fred Olen Ray used to have a company called Retromedia that specialized in finding old “gems” and cleaning them up and re-packaging them.

His problem was that outfits like Alpha Video would just straight up lift his work and put it on their collections. Not sure if that’s why the company no longer exists or if there were other legal issues.

One day, I hope, the riffers will be able to share their best tales of copyright horror. Because you know it’s, like, The Estate of Coleman Francis (some guy who shared a cab with him in Poughkipsee in 1963 and got him to sign the back of an envelope saying “I will my estate to…this guy”) demanding that Beast of Yucca Flats be given due respect.

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Am I misremembering Final Justice? There’s a lotta cheesecake on that cover, and the only cheesecake I remember from that movie is what I assume Joe Don Baker was packing away at the craft services table.*

*ok that was mean†

†I apologize for nothing!

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Sort of??? I actually have a collection of old sci-fi movies from before I even knew about MST 3000. You know, those 50-packs for $20? Coincidentally, about half of those are classic MST episodes.

Whenever I think about buying one my favourites without the riffing, I just think how much better they are with Joel and bots giving it the business.

If I ever buy one, it’s going to be This Island Earth. After watching the bonus material on the MST Movie, I just have to see the original cut!

:point_right::desert_island: :earth_asia:

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I just realised a shorter, and more pop-culturey, title for this thread is “Who Watches The Unwatchable?”. :wink:

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Quis custodiet manos, in the original Latin.

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I’m jealous that you have a copy of Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. Last time I looked someone wanted hundreds of dollars for it. Rarity does not necessarily mean valuable. This movie put an end to PBS making movies. It’s like expecting AIP movie merchandise to be available at Wal-Mart and Target. Maybe in the bin of movies they should pay you to take off their hands, but definitely not creepy bobble heads.

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I collect them on YouTube mainly. Many are public domain and delightfully free. I also have a large collection of shorts that have and have not been used. I have every Gamera movie ever made on either DVD or blu-ray. I find tons of b-movies on ROKU. (Some things may not be available in other countries.) Basil Rathbone has been in movies much worse than The Magic Sword. The last one we watched left our brains broken until we slept it off. Jack Nicholson was in some awful ones in his AIP years too. My poor mum had to take over being my partner in b-movie watching now that my cats are gone. Sarcastic cats are great at movie riffing, and mine had excellent timing.

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Lots of unriffed films show up on Amazon Prime from time to time, e.g. Attack of the Giant Leeches, Bloodlust, etc. And a lot of old schlocky sci-fi and horror films which could be riffable. A related film which came & went is “The Creep Behind The Camera”, a bio-pic about creepy filmmaker Vic Savage and the making of “The Creeping Terror”. That guy was a truly awful person.

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It doesn’t fit the “collectible” theme and I think it has been mentioned elsewhere in the forums, but a bunch of unrifled MST3K, RiffTrax and Cinematic Titanic titles are available for free streaming at Tubi, including The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, Starcrash, Girl in Gold Boots, Gorgo, Samurai Cop, Miami Connection and a lot more.

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Yes - looking forward to picking that one up, too!!

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So many of those great old black and white horror and sci-fi films are getting the restored blu-ray treatment, I can’t imagine The Crawling Eye’s gonna be left out. I think it’ll happen eventually. What I’d love to see restored, maybe released in the original Spanish with subtitles as well as the dubbed version, is Pod People (Los Nuevos Extraterrestres)

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I’ve got a bunch of Retromedia stuff - love them!

Speaking of Coleman Francis I managed to find a VHS of Red Zone Cuba under the title of “Anthony Cardoza Classics” a while back - it’s one of my prized possessions (I set the bar kinda low for “prized possessions”)

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The original version is great - Shout Factory put it out on blu and it looks spectacular.

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I picked up a copy of “Creep Behind the Camera” with the restored “Creeping Terror” back when it came out - it’s quite an eye-opener. I gotta dig that one out and watch again - there’s a great extra, an interview with the cast on it.

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My grandfather met Vincent Price. He wasn’t impressed by him.

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