Starring: George Mather, Esther Furst, Eddie Erwin, Austin Green. Writer: Lewis Simeon. Producer: Alfeo Bocchicchio. Director: Clark Paylow. Released in 1962.
Phantom Creeps – starring: Bela Lugosi, Robert Kent, Dorothy Arnold, Edwin Stanley, Dora Clement. Writers: George Plympton, Basil Dickey, Mildred Barish. Producer: Henry MacRae. Directors: Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind. Released in 1939.
Original air date: November 3, 1990
There’s a saying that goes, “You’re never too old to go back to school.” The students in this film took that axiom to heart. “Ring of Terror,” the film featured in this episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, follows a group of medical students as they continue with their studies and prepare to enter a fraternity. Problem is, they’re all well over 40. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, except that they’re supposed to be freshmen in college. Real freshmen. As in, they’re supposed to be 19 years old. I guess when they reach the end of their years in school, they really will be seniors! (Thank you, thank you very much. I’m here all week.)
This movie is ridiculously stupid. Is it supposed to be a morality tale, a campfire spook story, a character study of middle age adults looking to reclaim their lost youth? I can’t tell. And it’s another in a long line of MST3K movies that could actually be about a 10-minute short film, but instead is stretched into a feature. As a result, we get some very long scenes and needless characters. This film is a joke, except that no one associated with it understands that.
Joel and the robots do a decent job ripping on the film, especially the characters’ advanced ages. But it’s not as sharp as the previous episode and, as a result, the boring stretches in the film weigh down the episode. It’s not a terrible episode, just not one I’d consider re-watching often.
“Ring of Terror” follows med student Lewis Moffit (George Mather), as he studies corpses, makes out with his girlfriend, and acts like an oddball because he’s not afraid of anything. Why that makes him an oddball, I don’t know. Slowly, very slowly (this is a padded movie, after all), we learn Moffit has trouble in dark rooms, especially ones that have corpses lying around. Apparently it stems back to some childhood trauma that he doesn’t want anyone to know about. Word gets out about this fear and the fraternity elders devise a creepy hazing event for him. He must go to the graveyard and steal the ring off a cadaver the students worked on during an autopsy. Hence, the ring of terror.
Again, it’s a story that could have been told in half the time it takes to show a “Twilight Zone” episode. But since this movie is more than an hour long, we get a lot more crap. For instance, there are several long scenes of Lewis and girlfriend, Betty (Esther Furst), where they are making out or arguing that his medical career will be too stifling for her. There’s one terrible scene where Moffit tells Betty how much he hates “They.” He also reiterates to her that he’s afraid of nothing, “Except our intimacy,” Crow says. To illustrate this, Moffit fights off a snake that somehow crawls into his car. Betty tells her friends all about it: “We just had a rendezvous with a rattlesnake,” she says. “Didya touch it?” Crow asks...
There’s an extended scene where the med students’ professor (who looks to be about the same age as everyone else) performs an autopsy. It goes on and on and on, with plenty of scenes of students leaving so they can hurl. Lovely.
Then there are the fat people. They eat and they eat and they eat, and all the thin students find this hilarious and make fun of the fatties. And the movie hammers this home so many times. “Alright, you’ve made your point about them being fat. Now just stop it,” Joel tells the movie.
What is most odd about the film is the needless bookend scenes. I guess it’s there to ramp up the tension, but like the rest of the movie, it’s slow and pointless. The movie opens in a graveyard, where a narrator introduces the movie, then walks around the graves stalking and stepping on his cat, Puma, a name he utters about 4,000 times in one minute. Poor cat. “I’m calling Betty White,” Tom Servo says after the narrator’s foot clamps down on Puma’s tail.
The best jokes come at the expense of the students’ old age. Everyone looks like they should have their own kids in college. Who thought it was a good idea casting people in their middle years? “We’re thinking of taking advantage of the freshmen’s osteoporosis,” Crow says, mocking the senior fraternity guys. “Could you get that son?! Oh I forgot, I'm a College Student,” Servo quips when Moffit asks his friend to do something. “Oh, to be 40 again…” Servo later muses pretending he’s the professor.
You get the idea. The age jokes come often and fast, and are funny enough to make the episode watchable. The sketches that mock the film are great, as well. Joel and the bots come up with the idea of the “Old School,” a college for the elderly. Students can take classes in Advanced Nodding Off and Television as a Drug. And at this school, it’s always a good day for a BM, Servo reminds us. They also mock the autopsy scene by performing one on a hoover vacuum. It’s very funny and the bots can’t handle the brutality of it.
In keeping with the film’s theme, the Mads come up with a real life game of “Operation,” and Joel develops the “pin bolus.” Both are funny and creative.
But just when you though the episode was over, the Mads spring a surprise; Joel and the bots must watch another installment of “The Phantom Creeps.” Wonderful. It’s the only time the Mads send the short at the end of the feature. Like any serial, this one runs out of steam quickly, right around this third chapter, “The Crashing Timbers,” actually. And there are 12 parts to whole serial! Luckily, this will be the last time MST3K shows “The Phantom Creeps.”
Like the previous installment, Dr. Zorka (Bela Lugosi) still lurks around, invisible or otherwise, looking to keep his inventions from the Feds and other nefarious parties. There are chases, gunfights and that giant robot, but it’s all confusing and uninteresting. Plus, everyone looks exactly the same, except for Mr. Lugosi. Crow even wonders how they can tell themselves apart. As in the other chapters, Joel and the bots rip into the serial by saying ridiculous things in the Bela accent, which is sometimes funny. What is kind of humorous is TV Frank’s song at the end of the show, which is an ode to Zorka’s long suffering chauffeur.
As I said earlier, this will be the last time “The Phantom Creeps” will be featured on the show, and the last time a serial will be featured until the fourth season. The repetitiveness of serials weighs down the show after a while and I think the writers realized this. Still, anytime that big metal beast is on screen it makes me laugh. I can’t really help it.
“Ring of Terror” is an average episode with some genuinely funny moments, and others that drag. Still, it should serve as an inspiration for anyone looking to go back to school. Hell, these guys are older than most graduate students. So go out there and learn!
Rating: **1/2
Side note: This episode is available on Rhino’s box set Volume 11. And it’s not out-of-print!
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