MST3K 206: Ring of Terror

[lhb412]

"Do you often refer to the head of the English department as 'young man?'"

Sorry to steal jellydonut's thunder, but I just watched this one and was aching to blab.

Season 2 was when the show was still settling into what it would become, and I think this is one of the earliest really good episodes that would have easily fit into the next few seasons without standing out. It's not the first all-out classic (which I reckon is Godzilla vs. Megalon), but it's very good.

The plot of the movie doesn't sound too hot on paper (in regards to the kind of inanity MST usually hooks onto), but like The Dead Talk Back it's a film which is stupid and wacky in a more subdued way: the odd plot, the disconnected opening and closing sequences that seem to be tacked on to make it seem like a horror film, the personalities of the individual students, the fact that the lead actor seems to be in his late thirties and is playing 22, the fact that the movie has absolutely no dynamic at all! It all adds up to something that isn't just bad, but interestingly bad - which is what MST works with the best.

Oh, and I don't usually go for the old adventure serials, but The Phantom Creeps is the best of the ones they did. What was that chauffer thinking -thinking he could rule the world?

[jellydonut25]