Maybe I should explain…

This is the third time the Mystery Science Theater crews have tackled Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Besides the adventure on the original show, the Cinematic Titanic crew has also plunged deep into the SCCTM waters. This latest RiffTrax Live show has made me realize just how often I’ve seen this ridiculous film. Despite it’s terribleness, the film grows on you. I now sort of like it. It’s weird! Man in suit polar bear, cardboard box robot, green face paint Martians, it’s all amazing. Droppo the insane Martian childman, Volmar the evil Martian who longs to drag the planet back to its warlike state. Let us not forget Santa Claus, who alternates between laughing and insulting his wife.

The RiffTrax Live performance came with an accompanying short, Santa and the Fairy Snow Queen, a piece of maddening insanity. A prancing androgynous pixie named Snoopy (despite being named Snoopy, Snoopy is given her name later in the film!) tells us a tale while constantly gyrating, doing various exercise stretches, and randomly laughing shrilly. The Fairy Snow Queen comes to visit Santa Claus, but Santa is in a drunken stupor, so she brings various toys to life as a joke. The Fairy Snow Queen speaks in a very thick German accent, the size rivaled only by her inability to act. The various toys dance around, notably there is a Rag Doll, a Soldier, several generic dolls, and the two most memorable characters. First is a lion, that when he is animated, his first sentence is “I can eat candy!” No wonder he is dubbed Candy Lion in the credits. The other is a hideous Jack-in-the-Box, who pops out of his box periodically to remind us all of Hell. This feature got a well-deserved slamming, though fans will be scared to know that there is a longer version of Santa and the Fairy Snow Queen out there. Perhaps a longer separate short?

The main film begins and the Riffs fly. Of particular amusement is the intense staring while one of the Martians slowly lowers the landing knobs. Volmar’s constant comparison to Daniel Plainview was also amusing. The biggest laughs in the theater came from jokes about the Alex Trebek funeral march, and Santa’s very tired and disturbing finger. Several parts of SCCTM is just so out there that no commentary is needed to enhance the fun. The befuddling slapfights between the Martians, with moves even Captain Kirk could never dream of, are moments of bizarre that require watching. I rather enjoyed this RiffTrax Live outing.

The infectious “Hooray for Santa Claus” song has been stuck in my head since the film, one of those unfortunate side effects from a SCCTM viewing. I’ll need to watch copious amounts of Cold War stock footage to get that song out of my mind.

Until the next RiffTrax Live show…

See the full original comic!

Fun fact: Director Manuel Caño also directed a film called Voodoo Black Exorcist!

Yes, it’s an utterly baffling horror film about a mad doctor who believes death is simply an evolution and that every woman wants to sleep with him. Yes, he is laughed out of the academy and moves his decency-defying research to a swamp in Ecuador, as one does. Yes, he’s investigated by a sheriff who can only be described as a chunk of swarthy walking meat, and who also believes that every woman wants to sleep with him.

But MORE THAN ANY OF THIS, Swamp of the Ravens is a vehicle for an original song about being in love with a dead robot that will change the way you view songs, movies, songs in movies, robots, dead robots, living robots, and love itself. Seriously, we haven’t been so infatuated with a song since Damien Carter taught us all about “Hangin’ Out With [His] Family” in Birdemic, and we know you’ll love it just as much as we do. You poor souls.

Oh and also, there are no ravens in the titular raven swamp. Just buzzards. Really, it’s a heck of a movie.

So grab the dead robot you love most and join Mike, Kevin, and Bill for Swamp of the Ravens! No ravens required!

Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…a copyright attorney that represents DC Comics handing out cease & desist letters to the producers of Supersonic Man!

Sadly, Supersonic Man, though he tries his hardest, still does his best to crib from various, more well-known sources. He has the Man of Steel’s strength, Dr. Manhattan’s occasional be-speedoed-ness, and yes, the awkward, moron-like flying of The Pumaman. What original attributes does he bring to the table, you may ask? Well, he uses his amazing supersonic powers to shatter the speed of sound and…turn a gun into a banana.

And he’ll need every banana he can get his hands on because a nefarious bad guy played by Cameron Mitchell (Death of a Salesman, Frankenstein Island, Space Mutiny) has an evil island lair where he intends to start slow, really focus his energies, and take over one very specific three block area in the city of Richmond, Vir—we’re just kidding of course, he intends to take over the entire world. Fortunately, he has an ace up his sleeves: possession of the world’s lamest robot, which despite its slow movements and general clumsiness, can still shoot gigantic flames that appear to measure approximately a few degrees less than the core of the sun itself.

Can Supersonic Man outwit this foe and save humanity? Assume a rigid, very uncomfortable looking flying stance and join Mike, Kevin, and Bill to find out!

Silent Rage stars noted racist homophobic bigot Chuck Norris, noted cool director Stephen Furst, and noted dead guy Ron Silver. It also features a lot of confusion at just what kind of movie it is:

Take Chuck Norris. Pair him up with the guy who played Flounder in Animal House. Quickly ball that screenplay up into a wad and toss it into a garbage can where it lands next to a half-eaten ham sandwich because that is obviously a terrible idea and what have you got? Silent Rage!

Silent Rage has trouble deciding what type of movie it wants to be. For some scenes, it’s a really, really bad action movie about doctors reanimating a serial killer’s brain. For other scenes, it’s a really, really bad comedy about a bumbling deputy. And in others, it’s a really, really bad romantic love triangle between Chuck Norris, an ex-flame, and his mustache. But when you add all these disjointed elements together, the results are magic! (One of those crappy plastic magic tricks that you ordered from the back of a comic book when you were seven and even you knew it pretty much sucked but you had to pretend you hadn’t wasted your parents’ money so you bothered your dad with it when he was trying to watch football until he told you to go outside.)

The plot is fairly standard. Guy kills innocent people, doctor revives him, biker gang invades town, Ron Silver plans a surprise party for his sister, doctor goes mad with power, guy kills again, doctor ignores warnings, Ron Silver breaks his wife’s heart by telling her her cinnamon cake is no good, guy keeps killing, Chuck Norris kicks some guys. And at one point the guy who played Flounder in Animal House tells an anecdote about a dog that is so wildly misplaced and tone deaf you’ll wonder if just maybe he should be kicked in the nads in real life thirty one years after filming it.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you probably won’t be so silent about the great deal of rage you’ll feel. Join Mike, Kevin, and Bill for Silent Rage!

Contains a few brief scenes of nudity. No gorilla-grams are provided.