Riffrax Live: Return of the Night of the Living Dead

The week before Halloween, the Rifftrax gang presented a ghoulish display of one man’s living nightmare….then showed the classic zombie movie, Night of the Living Dead.

A sellout crowd in Nashville, Tennessee and thousands more at theaters across the country enjoyed a night of cinematic horror, punctuated by funny comments. Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett presented an improved print, and also improved sarcasm, of the classic George Romero movie. There were some jokes left over from the original DVD, but they took out the riffs about women, Keith Olbermann, Ron Paul, and the Steelers (since the movie was filmed near Pittsburgh). The new version added jokes about Crocodile Dundee, Game of Thrones, cab drivers who hate to go to Brooklyn, non-alcoholic weddings, Les Miserables, To Kill a Mockingbird, Nancy Grace, Microsoft Zune, Miley Cyrus,  Orville Redenbacher, and Birdemic.

It’s also fun to compare the original DVD  to the live show. Mike starts off with this comment during the long driving scene in  the opening credits: “If they pass a sign that says ‘Valley Lodge’, I’m leaving.” This was followed by…

The first zombie attacks Johnny and Barbara at the cemetery:

DVD: C’mon, lady, ward him off with your giant forehead.

Live: Knock off the fighting. What do you think this is, an Irish wedding?

Ben, the male lead, shows up at the abandoned house surrounded by zombies.

DVD: Apparently the zombies were emanating that weird mosquito noise

Live: Young President Obama, thank God you’re here!

He tries to comfort a stunned Barbara:

DVD: She’s got gonna sing, is she?

Live: Lars and the Real Girl had more chemistry. (TV’s Frank would be so proud)

A naked female zombie is seen from the back

DVD: How come every time a naked chick shows up at your doorstep she’s either a zombie or she just escaped from some lunatic’s basement?

Live: She’s not a zombie. She just likes to par-tay! (No gorilla grams, either)

The Coopers are in the basement, thinking they're safe, but Tom, who's upstairs, says he and Ben found a TV.

DVD:  You're still not allowed to come up. Just wanted to tell ya
Live:  We can watch The Walking Dead. (that was the most inevitable joke that night)

Tom asks Judy why she always has a smile for him

DVD:  I like marshmallows.
Live:  Dianetics

While the riffers are glad the zombies are not Instagramming the human remains they’re eating, they see a zombie enjoying an arm too much

DVD: It isn’t disgusting enough to eat corpses, now they went and got KFC.

Live: Tori Amos has gone feral.

The most tragic line of the show occurred when we see Helen Cooper dead after her zombie daughter Karen stabbed her:

DVD: Finds a spotlight as she’s dying. That’s true show biz spirit, folks.

Live: She’s been spade (or spayed). This got Bill fired for ten seconds.

Once this show is available on VOD, it’s certain to replace the DVD version as the definitive riff on this classic movie.

Before that, fans saw true horror in a new “Norman Krasner” short where he is told by his boss to write a speech and presentation with hardly any time to prepare. Just like the other shorts, everything goes wrong. The cleaning lady vacuums some of the slides then pours coffee on his notes. It ends, quite appropriately, with a sprinkler system pouring water on Norman just as his speech collapses in a pile of failure. These shorts were supposed to teach business people how to prepare for the unexpected, but with so many things going wrong for Norman, the moral seems to be, “we’re doomed, so why bother?” There’s jokes about Transformers 3 and Eeyore, while Norman is left asking the question, “Where the Hell is my dignity?”

It was also announced the first “Norman Krasner” short, which was given to certain backers of the Kickstarter project, will be available to everyone next month. I’ve seen it already, and have this review. It’s black and white and also a horror story.

Rifftrax had its traditional 30-minute “fun facts” show, including haikus, costume ideas like dressing as a Native American dressing as Johnny Depp, and the next great horror flick title: Freddy vs. Jason vs. Milo and Otis.

The winners of a caption contest were also announced. This is the picture…

My entry was: “They’re not only saying Grace, they’re eating her, too.”

It couldn’t compare to the winner, “Steve, the other white meat.”. Second place went to “Subway: Eat Flesh”, which I think should have won.

After Halloween, preparations for Christmas start almost immediately. Rifftrax will be ready on December 5^th to take on, yet again, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. If it can re-riff Manos and Mr. B Natural, Santa on Mars, not to mention Droppo and Tor the Robot, aren’t safe either. 

One more thing: the closing credits included the names of people who donated at least $125 to the Kickstarter campaign. They were supposed to be included  after the Starship Troopers show last August.

One of those names: someone claiming to be Faith Lehane. According to the "Thanks" page, she's listed as "Faith L.", but the credits had her last name, too. It might be her, but you'd also expect Buffy to drop a few dollars to Rifftrax.

Maybe Rifftrax’s next Kickstarter event should be Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the movie….and Nick Brendon is invited to help out. Just an idea.

Rifftrax's Other Kickstarter Rewards, Without Riffs

After reviewing Mr. B Natural 2.0, one of the rewards Rifftrax sent to Kickstarter supporters of the Starship Troopers live riff show, I decided to check out the other two shorts they had offered.

I was warned by other fans to approach the "Norman Krasner" short carefully. We first saw him in Norman Checks In, at the live riff of Birdemic . While what happens to him seems relatable to many businessmen, we can see why he's become a new cult hero to the Rifftrax-verse. Still, who thought it was a good idea to make a six-minute film about a guy who tries to use a pay toilet? This short is the ultimate worst case scenario that likely wouldn't happen these days...we hope. Rifftrax now has it for sale to everyone, and you can expect distrurbing jokes about using a restroom. I won't list them all, but one joke does mention a certain politician who got in trouble using a restroom in a suspicious manner.

Also, why this short was called Norman Krasner, Beloved Husband of Irma. Was he found dead in the toilet by the custodian two days later? How come Irma isn't in this short? Is she invisible, like Mavis in Frasier? Does Irma prefer not to be identified as Mrs. Norman Krasner? Judging from Welcome Home, Norman (featured in the San Francisco Sketchfest and Manos Live show), and Norman Makes a Speech,  she probably prefers it. Norman is supposedly the corporate version of Chaplin, Buster Keaton or Charlie Brown, and is presented to employees the way girls were shown films on "Molly Grows Up" when they turned twelve. Still, what can anyone learn from being in a pay toilet from Hell, or an airport parking lot with no exit? Maybe that Death is preferable?

Oh, and thanks to Cinegraphic Studios for putting these shorts on YouTube.

The other short is a riffed version of the 1902 film, A Trip to the Moon, as made by Melies. Here's one of several versions on YouTube. I chose this one because apparently this was Melies' attempt to colorize his movie way before Ted Turner..or Rifftrax, since it colorized Reefer Madness:



There are some callbacks to ridiculous holiday specials, but there's some others that talk about a certain type of celebration, doing something rude on the moon, and some unlikely references to Vegas shows, movies and two famous 19th century guys. I'm keeping these riffs vague until they're available to the public. Besides, riffing silent movies are much different than regular bad movies with worse dialogue. I wonder if this will lead to riffing Chaplin, Keaton, The Great Train Robbery or even Birth of a Nation. Besides, who are the silent film equivalents to Ed Wood or Coleman Francis?

UPDATE: It's also available at the Rifftrax site.

Backers of the Rifftrax Live show on Starship Troopers should be glad to have these shorts in their cyber-libraries before anyone else. We get a new look at a classic short, a famous movie, and a guy whose life is one audible moan of resignation.

Now, when do we rip The Lone Ranger, AfterEarth, Star Trek: Into Darkness, and Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters a new one?