“We should rip off Road House and Billy Ray Cyrus should play Dalton!”
There are two types of people in this world: those who read the above sentence and immediately lapsed into fits of hysterical, table-pounding, pants-wetting laughter. And then the other .00001% of people, who thought “Sounds good to me! Is Michelle Pfeiffer’s sister available to play the love interest?”
We have that .00001% to thank for Radical Jack. Eight long years after “Achy Breaky Heart” came out, and approximately 7 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 34 seconds after the first jukebox playing “Achy Breaky Heart” was smashed with a pool cue, American cinemas got the movie they needed. Except, minor detail, it was actually released direct to video in Russia.
Which makes a lot of sense once you see Radical Jack. Fans of Road House will recognize the key points: a loner with a mysterious past comes to town and finds employment at a local dive bar. A local arms dealer has grown rich running the town, despite the fact that its population appears to hover around 35 people. Occasionally Billy Ray takes breaks from doing construction to pour water all over himself in slow motion while seductive music plays1. The only thing missing is the Monster Truck. Once you see the budget on this thing, you’ll understand why they had to leave it out.
And Radical Jack doesn’t just rip off one of our all time favorite RiffTrax titles! Shot in Rutland, VT, it features the very time machine from Time Chasers itself!! (AKA, a crappy, weathered small airplane.) Join Mike, Kevin, and Bill for Radical Jack. Just don’t tell their lips, their fingertips, or various other body parts.
1 This never actually happened in the version of Road House that was shown in theaters, but it does in the one that airs on a loop in our hearts.
The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant – New RiffTrax VOD!
Bruce Dern has it all: A beautiful wife. An expensive house with a pool. A two headed monkey. Casey Kasem for a neighbor. And yet, he’s feeling unfulfilled, perhaps because—
What’s that? Oh, you’re right, we did kind of just gloss right over the unusual part of that sentence. Yes, Top 40 DJ Casey Kasem is Bruce’s neighbor. He’s always stopping by to deliver a long distance dedication or prattle on about some dead dog while Bruce is trying to do important stuff, like attach heads to a monkey or an idiot manchild.
For you see, Bruce’s entirely normal pastime is figuring out how graft additional heads onto things. Why? Why did Michelangelo paint? Why did Mozart compose? Man is compelled to create, and sometimes what he creates is as stupid as a serial killer’s head sewn onto a local hillbilly’s shoulder.
Needless to say, this does not go well. (Both being neighbors with Casey Kasem and the whole ‘manufacturing godless abominations in the guest room you converted into a lab’ thing.) Come for the mutant in overalls, stay for the wife in a cage, it’s all here in The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant!
The Hideous Sun Demon is the new RiffTrax VOD!
Ripped from the television series Botched comes The Hideous Sun Demon! Buy it today at RiffTrax.com!
This is the tale of a man who transforms into a violent lizard creature whenever he’s in the sun too long. No, he’s not the third wheel love interest in an upcoming Twilight reboot, he’s The Hideous Sun Demon!
It’s the late 50s, a time when exposure to radiation still caused fun stuff, like superpowers and shape-changing, as opposed to less fun stuff, like, y’know, death. After some radioactive material falls off the toy train the scientists use to transport it through the lab (actual plot point, not a joke) mild-mannered genius drunk Dr. Gilbert McKenna is changed forever. Sunlight turns him into a reptile man-monster, presumably because that’s the rubber suit that was cheapest to rent when they made this movie. But not cheap enough for them to rent the bottom part of the suit, apparently, because he runs around in totally soaked khaki pants for roughly half the movie. Why are his pants so wet? That’s just part of the mystery!
It’s a superhuman dose of old-fashioned nuclear mutation fun, stay out of direct sunlight and join Mike, Kevin and Bill for The Hideous Sun Demon!
It’s the RiffTrax Live 2015 Kickstarter!
The lineup for 2015 is incredible, and they didn’t even need to pull in some random studio film thanks to the magic of entirely awful non-mainstream productions.
Thanks to you, we have done two hugely successful Kickstarters over the past two years that funded us to be able to riff STARSHIP TROOPERS and GODZILLA (1998) + ANACONDA LIVE and simulcast to over 700 theaters across North America. These shows were a big hit, and this year we have the opportunity to perform FOUR RiffTrax Live shows with some of the most awesome bad movies ever. Are you ready? They are:
– THE ROOM!
– SHARKNADO 2!
– MIAMI CONNECTION!
– SANTA AND THE ICE CREAM BUNNY!
It’s a superfecta of bad movies. We call it… THE CRAPPENING.
We did it! We got the rights to ALL these cinematic masterpieces. Woohoo!!! And we can’t wait to riff ’em live. To seal the deal, we’d love your help again. The cost to secure the theatrical rights and for the production itself is beyond doing this on our own, but it does work out if we get a little help from our fans.
The dates of the films:
– THE ROOM – Wed. May 6th! (Encore Tues. May 12)
– SHARKNADO 2 – Thurs. July 9th! (Encore Thurs. July 16)
– MIAMI CONNECTION – Thurs. October 1st! (Encore Tues. Oct. 6)
– SANTA AND THE ICE CREAM BUNNY – Thurs. December 3rd! (Encore Tues. Dec 15)
And, yes, that’s the version of Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny that has the Jack and the Beanstalk inserts, not the Thumbelina version. And it’s in widescreen, for extra creepy bunny horror! I’ve never actually seen the Jack and the Beanstalk version, so this will be an extra-special Christmas treat. Miami Connection is legit one of the best movies ever made, but has so many weird things going on a running commentary would be a worthy addition. Sharknado 2 has enough cameos and weirdo gore there should be some great things going on. And also, The Room. What can be said about that that hasn’t been said a million times before? Go to the RiffTrax Live event and find out! Baring illness (as that’s the only thing that’s kept me away from the theater events before), looks like my 2015 theater budget just got a whole lot of rearranging going on to check all these out.
Lash LaRue returns because YOU demanded it with Alien Outlaw – the new RiffTrax VOD!
With Alien Outlaw, you can see Lash LaRue, aliens who break the law, and gunfights with said lawbreaker aliens. These alien outlaws break all the laws, even Ape Law! Watch as they mockingly stroll into the Forbidden Zone! Luckily, alien lawbreaking jerks easily die to bullets and fishhooks. And if that isn’t enough to get you to order Alien Outlaw right now on RiffTrax.com, I don’t know what else to say!
When you see a title like Alien Outlaw, you know to expect one thing: a heavy focus on rural gunfighting shows and the agencies that book them to regional fairs. What’s that? You expect some quantity of alien outlaw activity? Well, there is some of that, sure, a small amount. But surely the next thing you expect is a healthy dose of elderly whipmaster Lash LaRue, sort of wandering around the set and shouting things at other characters? And that he’ll be shirtless at some point? Okay, good, glad we’re on the same page there at least.
When last we saw Lash LaRue he was fighting ancient Native American zombies over a sacred rental property in The Dark Power. This time he and his protégé, the young pantsless gunfighting phenom Jesse Jamison, are defending a tiny mountain community from alien outlaws – no, that’s not a typo, despite the title Alien Outlaw there are actually multiple alien outlaws in this movie. It’s also not entirely clear that they’re outlaws, and it’s even less clear why they came to Earth or what their plans are at any point in the story. But one thing’s for sure: they love old-timey Wild West gunfights! Because okay, why not!
Homemade Predator costumes, Lash LaRue AND his fat hillbilly sidekick buddy from The Dark Power, an alien killed with a fishing hook, what more could anyone ask for? For Lash to use the whipping talent that made him famous at some point in the movie, maybe? Good luck with that! It’s time for befuddlement and laughter, join Mike, Kevin and Bill for Alien Outlaw!
Wet your lips for Kiss of the Tarantula, the new RiffTrax VOD!
Did you ever watch the movie Carrie and think, “hm, pretty good, but her creepy home life wasn’t nearly creepy enough”? Then boy, have we got something for you!
Meet Susan. She’s just like any other troubled teen, except her dad is an undertaker, their house is a mortuary full of corpses, she’s got a sleazy uncle who’s around a little too often, and a room full of pet tarantulas who do her bidding. And what’s her bidding, exactly? Revenge murder against those who’ve wronged her, of course! And how exactly do the tarantulas kill her enemies, given that tarantulas are really not that dangerous to humans? Well, they… um… you’ll just have to watch the movie and see if you can figure it out, because we really can’t.
Some of the slowest murders in film history, a final sequence so drawn out that the first time we screened it we were in tears (the laughing kind of tears, mostly), and middle-aged teenagers galore! Time to pucker up for your Kiss of the Tarantula!