Rifftrax celebrated its 30th live show this week by revisiting one of its episodes from 1997. It was also another reason for Mike, Kevin and Bill to mock Wisconsin with impunity.
The Giant Spider Invasion is known for many things, mostly uncomfortable. It was directed by Bill Rebane, who was also responsible for Monster-A-Go-Go (making what Servo said after that movie sadly inaccurate). It also featured Alan Hale Jr. and Barbara Hale, many years after their well-known TV roles. Mostly, it has this guy...
A grimy farmer named Kester who's not happy with his drunken wife but is sure happy to see her way-too-curvy younger sister. He's described as what would happen if Deliverance was him. He's played by Robert Easton, who had a small role in The Touch of Satan and also co-wrote this "movie". Actually, there was no script according to this, and it shows.
Anyway, Kester, his wife and sister live in a rundown farm where something crashes from the sky.
They find a bunch of rocks that seem to have diamonds. They really have some spiders inside that crawl all over the place. Eventually one of them grows really big.
Meanwhile, two scientists head to town, thinking the Spider Meteor or whatever has created a mini-black hole that could open up our world to a dimension where monsters might invade. They don't, but it's an excuse for Barbara Hale to sound scientific for 90 minutes.
There's really icky deaths, and a very slow spider interrupting a county fair. As the Rifftrax guys say, it's the most accurate depiction of northern Wisconsin ever.
Compared to the original version on MST3K, the Rifftrax version wasn't as mean about Wisconsin. At least more MAGA jokes were expected, but it was a very good pummeling of a really cheesy (what else since it was made in Wisconsin) movie. It's also interesting the spiders were supposedly a sign of God's wrath since the movie has an intense preacher yelling fire and brimstone while they crawl all over.
Before the movie, the show featured a short called Adventures in Telezonia. It mainly talks about how great phones are, and they use the same marionettes that were featured in The Sound of Music. Some telephone sprites help a kid who thinks he lost his dog. The puppets are expressive, even if the story is not. There's one moment where Handy, the hero, says "take your finger out" and really makes it sound obscene. It's actually one of the best shorts they've done in a while. It shows us how far things have come in 60 years, from rotary phones to iPhones...and who remembers having a party line ("A party line is like a tree, and its leaves are lonely perverts")?
OK, let's feature some riffs, and we'll compare some between MST and Rifftrax:
"Hellfire and brimstone, that's what in store for you"
MST: Dennis Rodman, you've been listening?
RT: Sounds good...what?
The spider lands
MST: Hooterville was decimated by SCUD missiles that day
RT: Just one of the normal fertilizer explosions
Kester shows up with a gun, wearing a union suit. True horror
MST: He's lactating. What a handsome man
RT: Santa's gone through a rough patch
Then the spider eats Kester.
MST: Does it matter the spider ate him with his butt?
RT: He died as he lived, lusting after his wife's sister
There's also riffs on Samurai Cop, the Heaven's Gate cult, Chick-Fil-A, dad jokes, Marie Kondo and Charlotte's Web.
What also makes this movie special is that it includes a marriage proposal after the film in an outtake. Also, the pre-show slides actually do make good points. Quentin Tarantino's accent in Django Unchained was a big mistake, and the font for Stranger Things is the real star of the show.
But Stop of My Mother the Car Will Shoot? No.
The VOD for the movie is available for pre-order, and will arrive in mid-October. The MST version is in volume 10.2 from Shout Factory.
