Cinematic Titanic’s The Oozing Skull
As awesome as the four FILM CREW discs are, I got the biggest “original MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000” contact high yet from CINEMATIC TITANIC. After all, it’s a project featuring MST’s first trio of stars – creator Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu and J. Elvis Weinstein – as well as two later players in Mary Jo Pehl and Frank Conniff. Silhouettes, wisecracks and totally shitty movies – MST is pretty much back, kids, just minus the robots and network interference, and with the added bonus of a rhyming name.
The first CINEMATIC TITANIC project is skewering THE OOZING SKULL, aka BRAIN OF BLOOD, a 1972 mad-scientist cheapie directed by Z-movie legend Al Adamson. The roast starts with little fanfare and zero introduction; as it begins to unspool, our five principals take their spots on a stair-stepped balcony silhouette on both sides of the screen. Some are seated; others stand; all poke holes in this turd with razor-sharp wit.
There’s no “getting used” to it, nor “settling in.” So “on” is their rapport, it’s as if these guys never stopped working together in the first place. Rather than stop the movie as MST episodes did for transitionary host segments, Hodgson and company merely pause it to make some extended comment that requires more attention, such as bosomy starlet Regina Carroll’s horrendous makeup job.
I barely remember plot points from the mind-numbing SKULL, but that’s because there were so few. In a nutshell, an old coot of a scientist needs to transplant a brain ASAP – like, now – so he’s forced to pick the nearest body: his facially challenged mongoloid retard henchman. The (comparatively) smart brain doesn’t cotton to his new host body, so he takes advantage of his newfound brute strength and goes bonkers on everybody. And there’s a midget sidekick, who bears the brunt of many, many jokes … all merited, in my view.
There are no extras on the disc, but who needs ‘em? The feature alone is all you need for your humor RDA. Welcome back, guys; please don’t leave again. –Rod Lott