Basil's Blog: MST3K: Episode 301

Monday, February 13, 2012

MST3K: Episode 301 - Cave Dwellers

I have decided to watch every episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 from the beginning. More about this can be found here. It began here.

Episode 301: Cave Dwellers

First aired: Comedy Central on 1 June 1991
Availability: iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Amazon DVD (Volume 2), Rhino (Volume 2/out of print), MST3KVideos.com

We all had the same reaction to the film

According to an interview excerpt with the actor that played the main villain in the film, David Brandon (AKA David Cain Haughton), at the last minute, a decision was made to abandon the script and improvised an entirely different movie.

Essentially, the movie was cancelled, but production of the movie was not. Which meant that they still had a film to make, the set and some costumes were already paid for, so...

Brandon seemed to have a good humor about it. And, from what I've read, the actor that played the hero, Miles O'Keeffe, enjoyed the MST3K riffing of the show, indicating he has a sense of humor about it, too.

It's hard to hate a movie like that. But not impossible.

The Frank Zappa/Freddy Mercury villain wears a bird on his head

I'm not a fan of any movie where the man's chest is bigger than the woman's, so it has that against it right off the bat. Then, the hard-to-follow plot. And the acting... well, some of it is really bad.

There's the villain (played by the actor mentioned above). Joel & the Bots thought he was a John Saxon-type, but I thought he looked like Frank Zappa and Freddy Mercury's love child.

The time-frame is unclear. I think it's post-apocalyptic, but I'm not sure. It would explain the hang-glider scene. I think.

There's no hot Japanese she-villain, but there is a Canadian heroine, which is close enough.

She's trapped in a bad movie

There's the old boring dude who's, well, old and boring, and who looks like a cross between Chris Cooper and Burgess Meredith. He's the hot chick's father which is a major plot point, I think.

Oh, and an H-bomb explodes, for some reason.

Put all that together and what do you have? Fodder for J&tB. They have some fun with this one.

You wonder if drugs were involved in the making of this movie. I think they alluded to that with one riff in particular: "How much kief is in this movie?" "Miles O'Keeffe."

Lots of things that just seem so out of place. It must have been hard to riff those. You just have to laugh or ask, what's that got to do with anything?


What's up with the hang glider?	What's up with the H-bomb?

The Host Segments were fun, too. The parody of the opening credits were spot on. And the Foley lesson was fun, too.

The closing credits had a major change. No longer is "villains" misspelled. It simply went away.