That’s right, the Shatner jokes are right off the bat, because this RiffTrax will be filled to the brim with them! The newest RiffTrax VOD is Kingdom of the Spiders, and it’s one I’ve actually seen, but long ago back in the days of watching films on the local UHF station! So long ago I barely remember anything except it was weird and Captain Kirk never met up with Mr. Spock, which annoyed me as a child who was unaware that actors played roles and not themselves. And by child, I mean last week… Damn you, Kirk!

Captain Kirk. T.J. Hooker. Twilight Zone plane guy. Johnny Legal (presumably his name on Boston Legal, didn’t bother to check).The Dad Who Says Sh*t. All great characters, sure, but William Shatner will always be best known for one role, and one role alone: RACK. Rural veterinary doctor Robert “Rack” Hansen, of course, he of the inexplicable nickname, fondness for cowboy hats, and habit of hitting on his brother’s widow by saying he’d like to “milk her.” A lesser man would’ve stopped with Rack, his legacy complete. Such a great, internationally beloved part, it’s a testament to Shatner’s skill as an actor that he’s escaped its shadow, the Kingdom of the Spiders conventions and catchphrases and reboots, and become known for more than just Rack. RACK. Rack. No seriously, he has people call him Rack and he thinks he’s a sexy cowboy. Rack.

Animals and people are dying of spider venom in Rack’s sleepy Arizona town, and when he and a foxy out-of-towner discover a gigantic hill of venomous spiders on a local farm they somehow don’t immediately make the connection, burn it down, and end the movie. What unfolds is a creeping, ridiculous, town-destroying horror, packed with more real live tarantulas than the basement home of that spooky pale guy who sold drugs outside your high school.

Rack up, put on your spider-stompiest shoes, and join Mike, Bill, and Kevin in the Kingdom of the Spiders!

And if you feel the need for some shorts, the exciting drunk driving scare film The Day I Died will keep you from drunk driving ever, because you’ll kill yourself!

They finally gone and did it. They finally RiffTraxxed The Apple, the finest piece of crazed cheese this side of the Muenster Asylum! Yes, the crazy will never stop, as we got a disco version of The Book of Genesis! IF you haven’t seen this, there is really no way to properly explain it. You must watch it! The Apple is entertaining enough without the RiffTrax commentary, but I shall bet this pushes it to a whole new level. It’s gone to the top of the list of RiffTrax VODs I need to get around to watching (sorry, Viva Knievel!) If only I had a time machine for all this time I need to watch all this stuff!

The year was 1980 and one trend was sweeping America! No, not that animated dancing cat from the Paula Abdul video. We admire you thinking outside the box, but jeez, you were off by like nine years. Reign it in a bit. We were talking about the nationwide fad of really crappy musicals!

Yes, 1980 brought us Xanadu, The Village People’s Can’t Stop the Music and of course the crown* jewel of them all: The Apple. Because what we needed at the start of Reagan’s America was the book of Genesis set to music.

The Apple tells the story of Alphie and Bibi, a pair of sweetheart musicians from Canada who make the Osmonds look like GG Allin. Alphie’s vaguely foreign-y accent and resemblance to sensei John Kreese do nothing to slow them down as they ascend the ladder to stardom. Of course, they have a little assistance from Mr. Boogalow of the sinister BIM Corporation, which is at times a record company, an oppressive totalitarian regime and the producer of a reality singing TV show (listed in order from least despicable to most.) Forgot the name BIM already? Do not worry, there is a solid ten minutes of the movie where people shout it at you while doing aerobics.

When Bibi is unable to resist the temptation and signs the record contract (GET IT???) she’s vaulted to superstardom, but at what cost? The answer appears to be not much for her. She’s actually doing pretty OK. Alphie on the other hand moves in with an elderly female landlord, as you do when times get rough. The real victims of Satan’s nefarious temptation appears to be the audience’s ear drums, which are assaulted with a variety of songs that are best described as Disco’s death rattle.

Mike, Kevin and Bill would love to stop and chat but they just got word that BIM is on the way. Why don’t you watch The Apple while they wait for him to get here.

*One of those cheap cardboard crowns you get at Burger King

Who wants to see Evel Knievel battle an evil drug-dealing Leslie Nielsen? Everyone in the universe, that’s who! And now you can, in RiffTrax form, as Viva Knievel is the newest RiffTrax VOD! Don’t worry, Red Buttons is also there, for the big internet Red Buttons following. You know, Sam. That guy really loves his Red Buttons. Really really loves Red Buttons. It’s obscene, is what it is. Stay away from my family, Sam, this is the last warning! I’ve told you a thousand times we are not Red Buttons trapped in new bodies by a wizard’s curse!

Evel Knievel was a 70s icon most known for the “stunt” of flying across the country to beat his former promoter, an executive at 20th Century Fox, outside the studio commissary with an aluminum baseball bat, shattering the man’s arm while shouting “I’m going to kill you!” Okay, that’s not what he’s most known for, but it’s what he should be most known for. I mean, did you know that? We didn’t know that. But it just might come up once or twice in our new Rifftrax of Viva Knievel!

The cast of this movie is basically a list of names designed to make you go “whoa, all those people are in this movie?” Screen legend Gene Kelly! Red Buttons! Lauren Hutton! Frank Gifford! Space Mutiny’s Cameron Mitchell! Dabney Coleman! The inexplicably-named Marjoe Gortner! And, perhaps best of all, the diabolical druglord villain played by none other than Leslie Nielsen! If you’ve seen him in The Naked Gun or Airplane! every line he says will sound like a joke to you, and trust us friends, that is a very good thing.

From Evel waking up orphans late at night to give them his own shoddy action figure merchandise, to, oh right, the occasional motorcycle jump, there’s almost too much to like about this one. So grab your baseball bat and join Mike, Kevin, and Bill as they spectacularly fail to jump Snake River Canyon and see Viva Knievel!

RiffTrax has a new VOD flick, the crazed Chuck Norris trucker movie Breaker Breaker! See noted delusional homophobe Chuck Norris drive trucks, wrestle arms, and not have a mustache. Also there is probably a plot or something about rescuing his brother and some TV dinners, but who gives a crap about the plot? I’ve come for the hot trucking action, and I will get me some hot trucking action!

Breaker breaker good buddy! We got a bear in the air on 95 going north, a bear in the grass on route 50, with Brother and Sister Berenstain Bear running a checkpoint for icons in the bear community over by the bear shop, so buckle your bearbelt, step on the bear pedal and get ready to haul some bears. We don’t know much about trucker slang here at RiffTrax, but we gather that roughly 98% of it is bear based.

In Breaker! Breaker!, Chuck Norris, star of the jokes from 2007 that your lamest uncle is just now finding out about and preparing to forward to you, stars as a trucker who is also a champion arm wrestler. It’s like Over The Top only with slightly less confusion about the hero’s last name.

Chuck’s brother is making his first ever trucking delivery, and his cargo is several hundred frozen TV dinners. His routine haul goes awry when his truck is attacked by lonely men in search of cheap, barely edible food-like substances. Actually, he’s captured by the citizens of a rogue town of drunken hicks led by the delightfully Kelsey Grammer-esque Judge Trimmings.

Chuck must go in search of his missing mustache, and also his brother. To rescue him, he’ll need to very slowly kick some butt, due to the lack of mobility afforded by his denim jacket/pants combo. Fortunately, he’s got an ace up his sleeve: all his trucker pals who are apparently willing to kill dozens of people and destroy an entire town based on one CB radio message from an anonymous source reporting that a guy who they’ve seen arm wrestle once or twice is apparently in some sort of trouble.

It’s a tale full of moonshine, hillbillies and sweet airbrushed eagles on the sides of vans. Mike, Kevin and Bill 86 the tuna, get the six top seated and give the blue plate special wings (trucker slang) in one of Chuck Norris’ finest mustache-less films, Breaker! Breaker!

Any sales pitch that attacks Chuck Norris jokes is a sales pitch I can get behind.

RiffTrax has gone so advanced, they’re not riffing on sequels before they riff the original film! This latest VOD is When a Stranger Calls Back, the sequel to When a Stranger Calls, which was remade a few years ago and was godawful. The original isn’t that bad, but this sequel has a reputation for not being very good. Though I haven’t seen it yet to verify. Though now I can, thanks to it being on RiffTrax VOD. If I ever have time to watch them. This is the kind of problem I want to have, so much good stuff!

When a Stranger Calls Back RiffTrax VOD link!

Contains scenes of nudity. (Fortunately, not Charles Durning.)

The sequel is coming from inside the house! That’s right, one of the tiredest pop culture tropes of all time finally gets a sequel! And you’ll never believe where the calls are coming from this time (because it’s a really, really stupid reveal. We’re talking the end of Signs level stupid.)

Julia is a babysitter, whose motto was evidently “Charisma free child care or your money back!” Her plan to put the kids to bed and then spend an evening quietly enjoying a glass of water is disrupted when a stranger comes to her door. He has a chilling request: he needs her to call the auto club because his car is broken down. Julia responds as anyone would: by lapsing into a hysterical panic attack while the poor guy trudges four miles to a gas station and misses his kid’s birthday party. We’re just kidding of course, he actually is a maniac and he kidnaps both the kids and they’re never seen again.

Traumatized by the incident, Julia responds by growing a Joe Dirt level mullet and enrolling in a small liberal arts college. (Experts strongly recommend you do neither of these things, but if you must choose just one, they tentatively recommend the mullet.) Everything is going just fine until one day she notices that small objects in her apartment are not where she left them. Cue hysterical panic attack. She’s really a charmer, this Julia.

Fortunately, she’s got Charles Durning and Carol Kane to help her. Durning appears to have gotten over Doc Hopper’s failure to sign Kermit The Frog as spokesperson by eating the Electric Mayhem Band and Kane looks appropriately traumatized for someone who had to play the wife of both Billy Crystal AND Andy Kaufman. At one point, in one of the most terrifying and disturbing scenes ever filmed, Charles Durning goes to a strip club to watch a ventriloquist act.

With Mike, Kevin and Bill there to riff, When A Stranger Calls Back will have you holding the line…for hilarity! (The writer of the previous sentence has been fired and is currently working as a strip club ventriloquist.)

Note: This RiffTrax was already underway before Mr. Durning passed away. As Mike wrote back in 2008, we here at RiffTrax stand in awe of his service.