Robot Monster is one of the classic Golden Turkey winners featuring the iconic image of an ape with a space helmet on its head. In this post-apocalyptic film, almost the entire human race has been destroyed by an alien named Ro-Man... who is a Ro-Man from the planet Ro-Man. The only humans left live in a small camp ironically near Ro-Man's home base. It seems that the family's patriarch, a scientist, has developed a serum that protects the family from all sickness, and also appears to keep them hidden from Ro-Man's detection.
Bride of the Monster is an early Ed Wood film featuring Bela Lugosi and is thought of as the first film in the "Kelton Trilogy," a series of movies Wood made featuring Paul Marco as Officer Kelton; the other two films being the famed flop, Plan 9 From Outer Space and Night of the Ghouls. Interestingly, Night of the Ghouls brings back Lugosi's assistant, Lobo (played by none other than Swedish wrestler turned B-movie actor, Tor Johnson). In this film, Lugosi plays a mad scientist, Dr. Eric Vornoff, who is planning on using nuclear power to build a race of superhuman soldiers to help him take over the world. Oh, and for some reason, he has a sea monster that is nothing more than an octopus in an aquarium.
In Devil Doll, we see the darker side of ventriloquism as we see The Great Vorelli (Bryant Haliday) use his strange dummy to get what he wants. While Vorelli himself is pretty creepy, when the wooden doll gets up and walks and talks on his own, it becomes obvious that Hugo isn't a normal prop. Instead, this talking doll claims to have once been a man and Vorelli used dark magic to trap his spirit within the wooden object. Can the film's hero and heroine, Mark English (William Sylvester) and Marianne Horn (Yvonne Romain) solve the mystery and put everything in its place before Vorelli uses his powers again?
The final film in the collection, and the only one in color, Devil Fish, was an Italian film featuring another deep-sea menace, a trend started by Jaws. Here a strange sea creature has started attacking Florida's tourists. When the local aquatic scientists learn of the true nature of the beast, they are appalled to find out that it is genetically engineered and it's quick-healing ability means that any piece broken off of it will grow a whole new monster in a matter of hours. Worse yet, it seems there is an unstable part of the creature's cells that will cause it to split into hundreds of smaller ones if it isn't destroyed soon. So now, they must race against time in order to kill the monster before it spreads across the whole ocean and takes over the entire aquatic world.
Needless to say, all four of these movies fit well into MST3K's riff-criteria. They are all cheesy B-movies complete with bad acting and worse plots. The comments made by Joel or Mike, Crow and Tom Servo are hilarious and often warranted, even if a lot of the jokes are dated. What's great though is that these DVD sets have some solid featurettes that are just as fun to watch as the episodes themselves.
The best extra for long-time MST3K fans is a panel featuring several of the show's stars at a convention. This hour-long discussion covers everything from the show's origins to how it grew and got adopted by The Comedy Channel (later named Comedy Central) as well as how different working on that show was compared to normal TV series.
Other featurettes include discussions about Robot Monster as well as Ed Wood Jr. and his bad contribution to science fiction and horror films along with his influence on Lugosi. There are also discussions about the early shows' Invention Exchange gags and, of course, a set of mini-posters and a plastic figurine of Gypsy.
Like the previous 18 volumes to be released, Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XIX has a great selection of movies from all over the show's life. While I generally prefer for shows to be released in aired order instead of jumping all over the place, that doesn't seem to be as much of an issue with this particular series. Any MST3K fan should want to add this latest volume to their collection.
