Interview with RiffTrax writer Sean Thomason

No one did more to raise the profile of terrible and obscure old movies than the crew at Mystery Science Theater 3000, and their current venture, which has broadened its scope to include current Hollywood blockbusters, is called RiffTrax. Behind the funny is a small crew of writers, including Sean Thomason. Sean recently e-sat down with Nerds of a Feather to talk cult movies.

NF: For anybody out there who's not familiar, can you give us a little background on what RiffTrax is and where it came from?

ST: The basic idea is, we make movies funny. A movie plays, and a trio of comedians -- Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett -- chime in with jokes, riffs, and/or hilarious lines from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land (usually not that). If the concept sounds similar to Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K), that's because RiffTrax was created by Mike, former host and head writer of that show, and Kevin and Bill voiced the robots. Mike had always had the idea that it would be fun to riff major studio movies of the sort MST3K didn't have access to, and finally, with the internet and mp3s, the technology was there to do it easily. So we do big blockbuster flicks, like the Star Wars prequels or Transformers (pardon, I have to spit on the ground in disgust every time I mention that movie) with an mp3 track that people can download and easily sync up to the DVD at home. We also do older, cheesy Z-grade type movies. Since those are public domain, we're able to provide the video along with the jokes in one downloadable file.

NF: And you guys are doing two special programs in theaters this week and next. Can you talk a little about those?

ST: Yes! These are actually encore presentations of our two most popular live shows to date, Manos: The Hands of Fate, and Plan 9 from Outer Space. They're arguably two of the worst movies of all time, and perfect fodder for us. The way these shows work is that, through a company called Fathom, our guys perform a live riff of a movie in one theater and have it beamed to over 500 movie theaters nationwide. We throw in some bizarre short films and a few other surprises as well. MST3K fans might remember Manos from the show, but we revisited it and wrote a completely new script. Which was fun for me, since I watched that episode back when it originally aired. I think it was a special kind of torture for the other guys to have to return to that movie. That was a lot of fun for me, because I enjoy other people's suffering.

Here's a link to info and tickets for both of these shows, airing one night only on January 24th (Manos) and 31st (Plan 9).

NF: How does the RiffTrax process work? Where do the movie ideas come from, and how many of you are involved in getting these things up on their feet? Do you work in a writer's room environment, or slave away in joyless little cages churning out jokes?

ST: It's basically Thunderdome, but with more flamethrowers and creepy little dudes riding on our backs. But on the days we aren't fighting to the death, we're looking for movies. The ideas generally come from one of us writers -- Mike, Kevin, Bill, myself, or Conor Lastowka -- and then we'll screen it to see if it might work, looking for funny moments and general things that we could dig into. Sometimes we get great suggestions from fans, too, which is nice because we're pretty lazy. It takes a lot of screening to find something that works, because we have pretty specific yet hard-to-define needs. It's very much a "you know it when you see it" thing. Once we find something good, we go off and do the bulk of the actual writing on our own, then bring it all together and make it work as a whole. So it's really a combination of the writer's room thing and the joyless little cage thing you mentioned. And Thunderdome.

NF: One of my favorite things about RiffTrax is that the delivery method and technology you mentioned make it possible to take on not just the public domain films that MST3K was known for, but also the big blockbusters. Do you prefer working on one kind of movie versus the other?

ST: That's a good question, and it really does vary case by case. But on the whole, I enjoy working on the old movies more. With those you're more often dealing with a hilarious level of ineptitude, movies so strange and naively crafted that sometimes it feels like they must've been made by aliens, or ambitious raccoons. The big blockbusters are fun too, but since the craft and production values are obviously much better, the jokes tend to be about the weak story logic and lazy cliches they rely on. Like characters yelling "MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!" or "Talk to me, people." That said, I grew up on superhero comics and Star Wars, so it's fun when I get to dig into that knowledge for a nerdy obscure reference while we're riffing something like Thor. Of course then the other guys call me a geek and make me wedgie myself, but it's worth it.

NF: I want to come back to the question of terrible movies. I did a series over the summer probing the question of what is the worst movie ever made, and of course Plan 9 and Manos figured large in those discussions. What do you think makes the difference between an awesomely bad movie and just an irredeemable rotten egg of movie stink?

ST: It's so hard to define, and it's one of those things we're looking for when we screen stuff. You want movies that are bad, but not so bad they actually crumple your soul and make you wish you had never seen them. You still want the movies to be fun in some demented way. I think a big factor in that is what the filmmakers were going for. It's best when you can tell they really thought they were onto something, they were honestly trying to make something they thought was good, but just didn't know what the hell they were doing. I think Plan 9, Manos, and a more recent favorite of mine, Birdemic, all fall into that category. Nowadays "bad movies" and the whole ironic culture of it has become such a phenomenon that you get people making bad movies on purpose, and to me that's a cynical, unenjoyable exercise. If someone made something really awful on purpose, there's not much we can do with it, and I don't see the point.

NF: Do you generally enjoy movies regarded as terrible, apart from the ease with which they can be made fun of?

ST: I do, thankfully, otherwise I don't think I'd last very long at this. I spend more of my time watching terrible movies than good ones. Even back in high school, my best friend and I would go to the video store and rent the crappiest-looking horror movie we could find. Part of that seed was probably planted by watching MST3K, which is kind of a weird "the circle is now complete" thing. But also I think it's that a really terrible movie can surprise you more than a slick, conventional film. When you're watching something that's totally off the rails, made by people who don't really know how you're "supposed" to make a movie, you get all these odd little moments that you don't get with normal films. And they can grow on you, too. Admittedly, I may have Stockholm Syndrome with it, but at this point I genuinely love watching Birdemic. Every scene is hilarious to me, and there's always some new madness to discover. I feel the same way about Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny, which is such a spectacular mess it barely even counts as a movie.

NF: MST3K was directly responsible for saving some of these movies -- like Manos -- from the ash heap of history. I'm a giant nerd and think these movies are intrinsically valuable, but I'd love to hear a perspective from inside the brain-trust that's both saving them and (justifiably) ridiculing them. Do you think these movies are valuable, and if so why?

ST: Mike and I have talked about this, and we both feel like it's one of the cooler things about this whole project. We get to find and sort of curate these weird cultural artifacts that are mostly forgotten. Sure we're picking on them, but we're also showing them to a wider audience than they would've found otherwise. I think there's a value to them -- maybe not the same value as a classic film like Casablanca or, y'know, Beyond Thunderdome -- but it's still an expression and a record of what people at a certain time and place were thinking, what was going on in pop culture at the time, that you can see in whatever they were trying to accomplish. Plus a lot of them have women in skimpy outfits, and there's no denying the value of that.

NF: Word. But to totally shift gears here, you guys know the folks over at Stone Brewing Company, and I want to mention this because you worked on something that I think is wonderful and not enough people have seen. I know you know what I'm talking about, so can you give us some background about that?

ST: Beer! Beer is a big part of San Diego culture, and we're all craft beer fans. My fellow writer Conor is especially into the whole scene (this is my sly way of calling him a drunk). Our friends at Stone show RiffTrax stuff at their brewery in the summer, and one time Conor and I were there and saw this video they had made with local brewers, celebrating the greatness of craft beer as a movement, taking on the big guys like Budweiser. We totally agree with the sentiment and I love local beer, but we felt like the video was maybe a little...serious, considering we're talking about beer here. So we decided to make our own funny version. We were a little nervous this might destroy our relationship with the guys at Stone, but luckily they dug it and posted it on their own site. It got passed around a lot, and I've even been recognized a couple times by waiters at local restaurants. No free beers yet, though. HINT.

(FYI - Sean is the guy with the *bleeping* mouth on him and the survival knife in the following video: - ed.)


NF: On that note, what would you say that a) your favorite beer is, and b) your favorite nickname for beer? I'm partial to barley pop, but that's just me.

ST: My favorite beer is probably Alpine Duet, an IPA. Alpine is a local brewery and it isn't widely available, but it's fantastic. Ballast Point is another great brewery here, and their Sculpin IPA is hard to beat. Plus it's named after a really ugly-ass fish. My favorite nickname for beer is probably Hungry Hungry Hoppos. See, because it's a pun on "hops"? Okay I just made that up, but now it's my favorite.

Cult Films 101: The Worst Movie Ever Made

So far in our survey of cult films, we've tried to zero in on films with merit, however modest. But there's a cottage industry out there -- and let's be honest, it's far more mainstream than most actual cult films -- built around the idea of The Worst Movie Ever Made.

Strange there hasn't been as much debate about
The Worst Chair Ever Made.

But what does "The Worst Movie Ever Made" even mean? The most inept? The least coherent? Something that advances a morally repugnant ideology (the highly praised Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will, for instance)? The most insulting to the audience's intelligence? It's a fraught question I'm not entirely sure I know the answer to, but let's jump in.

Best-Loved Worst Movies

Troll 2
The subject of the documentary Best Worst Movie, Troll 2 is not the sequel of Troll, nor does it actually feature any trolls. But while bad, it ranks low on the utter incompetence scale. It had a decent budget and was shot by film professionals. They did not, however, tend to speak English, so the resulting dialogue spoken by the non-professional actors is pretty stilted and unintentionally laughable. It's not so much that it's inept, it's just that every single creative decision made in the movie was terrible.

Plan 9 from Outer Space
I talked about this Ed Wood movie as an example of the "Guilty Pleasure" variety of cult films. It's a bad movie, particularly in the acting and set-decoration departments, but it gets a lot of unfair knocks against it, such as day and night continuity errors when a lot of films in the 50s still used the time-honored day-for-night photography trick because of slower film speeds. It's my favorite film on this list.

Manos, The Hands of Fate
Also the subject of a documentary, this time called Hotel Torgo, Manos, the Hands of Fate was made on a bet by a fertilizer salesman, was forgotten after a single screening in El Paso, Texas, but rose to prominence after receiving the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment, earning distinction as one of the worst movies the crew had ever seen. But there are some memorable elements, like Torgo, the weird satyr servant of The Master, the Master's ceremonial robes with giant, red hands on them, and a protracted fight between ladies wearing granny panties. Look, I'm not saying it's good, I'm just saying you won't forget watching it.

The Room
This train wreck has been a fixture in Los Angeles ever since I moved here, but much like the Springfield Tire Fire, its stink has spread. It ranks high -- so, so high -- on the utter incompetence scale, and gained notoriety for it. For years now, it has regularly sold out midnight screenings, and has even been shown at the American Film Institute. It just goes to show, kids, if you make your movie, and make it bad enough, people will take notice.

Only slightly less offensive than seeing writer/director
Tommy Wiseau naked in The Room.

Maybe Actually the Worst Movies

There are only two movies I would not willingly endure again due to their utter and complete awfulness. There are other movies I'd rather not see again because of their content, but these two movies are the cinematic equivalent of that single tear that leaks out of your eye while the dentist scrapes your gums to shreds with that little metal hook they have.

Birdemic: Shock and Terror

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies 

They continue to arm-wrestle in my brain over which is the worst movie I've ever seen.

They Really Should Have Known Better

Hollywood, bless its little Botoxed heart, will occasionally line up its utterly unparalleled storytelling, production, marketing, and technical skills behind a pile of poo that somebody along the line should've smelled, scooped, and disposed of way before anybody had a chance to buy a ticket to the thing. Usually, these movies result from an actor/producer's inflated ego, a contract with a star that has to be honored with a movie release, no matter how bad the finished product, or just terrible, terrible luck. As Bill Murray told Elvis Mitchell, nobody wants to make a terrible movie. Even the terrible ones require long hours and tremendous amounts of work. When it comes to Hollywood misses, the end product often looks beautiful and is technically excellent, but the story, script, utterly uncharismatic acting, or confounding direction make it largely unwatchable. I personally find these the least enjoyable "bad" movies because they are often dishonest and cynical money-grabs by people capable of much, much more. But to each his or her own...

The usual suspects in this category are too numerous to mention, but include Battlefield Earth, Catwoman, Freddy Got Fingered, everything by Uwe Boll, and Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever.

I believe that, ultimately, the Worst Movie Ever Made is one in which you can find no enjoyment whatsoever. And to be honest, that's hard to do because when it comes right down to it, we're still watching movies. Things could be worse.

Cult Films 101: The Guilty Pleasure

Welcome, thank you for coming. Please take your seats, we have a lot to cover. Today, we'll be screening Plan 9 From Outer Space, which many of you have heard is The Worst Movie Ever Made. Then, by a show of hands, we will select either The Big Lebowski or Bubba Ho-Tep as the film for next week's screening.

In this course, we will look at three types of films that generally achieve "cult" status:

1. Films whose reach exceed their grasp, and spectacularly so (the Guilty Pleasure)
2. Films that take an unconventional approach to narrative or subject matter (the David Lynch)
3. Films that become significant for reasons beyond their intrinsic merit (the Dementia 13)

First up, Plan 9 From Outer Space, written and directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr. This film, produced in 1959, was popularized in 1994 thanks to the Tim Burton film Ed Wood. This film is not -- not by any measure -- the Worst Movie Ever Made. It's not even Ed Wood's worst film...in fact, it's likely his best. Have any of you actually seen Glen or Glenda?, because that thing's just a train wreck.

Plan 9 is a prime example of your Type 1 Cult Film, the Guilty Pleasure. Notice the way the cardboard graveyard wobbles as people walk through it. Notice the blank wall that stands in for an airplane cockpit and the lovely curtains that form the interior of an intergalactic space cruiser. Wooden dialogue delivered by non-professional actors. It's all here. But also, notice the sincerity of all involved. Most of them genuinely believe in what they're doing here. They're excited just to be making a movie. We empathize with them, because we understand the joke, but they don't seem to. Watching them move and speak like no human beings have ever moved or spoken in real life is kind of touching...maybe even a little heartbreaking, isn't it?

But not everything about this film is terrible. The lighting is fine. The editing is consistent and looks reasonable enough. And the idea of "solarbonite," sunlight molecules that can be weaponized, is actually sort of interesting and taps into the late-50s zeitgeist. There are many films in the Guilty Pleasure category of Cult Films that cannot make even these modest boasts.

This brings us to the epic question of why do we bother with Cult Movies? There are some laughs in your Guilty Pleasures, sure, but intentionally funny movies are bound to have more. Watching great actors or directors in their first films has novelty value, but their later films are by far the greater achievements. So what gives?

Three reasons. (And these will be on the final.)

1. They are Outsider Art. Whatever the type of Cult Film, these movies are all created by either amateurs with no connection to the mainstream filmmaking establishment, or they represent film professionals intentionally subverting established forms. Both broaden the scope of human experience portrayed on film. In many ways, Manos: Hands of Fate, however abysmal in its technique, is a more honest reflection of real life in America in 1966 than something like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? because of what's not onscreen. The simple fact that it exists illustrates that the Hollywood Dream reached even to El Paso, Texas, and beyond, catching fertilizer salesmen, local theater actors, retired judges, and other regular people up in its mystery and promise. (Read about the effort to restore Manos from its original film elements here and here.) 
2. They are life affirming. These films, especially the Guilty Pleasures, are full of pathos. We instantly feel for these people (not the characters -- good lord, no -- but the actual people making the films), and we root for them. We understand that they have no idea what they're doing either in front of or behind the camera, and we wonder how we'd respond under similar circumstances. Because of that, the part of us that always roots for an underdog wants to see them and their celluloid babies succeed in spite of themselves.
3. We just like them, and that's totally ok. No explanations or apologies necessary. Sometimes, we just enjoy dumb stuff because it makes us happy.

Should we discuss The Big Lebowski or Bubba Ho-Tep next week? Let me know in the comments or on the Twitter @vkotrla.

Microreview [film]: Birdemic: Shock and Terror!

The Meat

How bad is this movie? Let me put it this way: If I had the option of a) being strapped to a chair and made to watch Manos: Hands of Fate repeatedly while being force-fed Funyuns and Big Red for an entire day, or b) watching Birdemic: Shock and Terror just once more, then you'd be sizing me up for a bib and wrist restraints.

Ostensibly, this is the story of a bunch of eagles and vultures that attack Half Moon Bay, California. Or more specifically, that attack the nine people in this movie, who are in Half Moon Bay. Everyone else seems to drive past and live their lives in relative ease, given the ongoing bird attack and global warming epidemic, which is repeatedly referenced. See, for the first 46 minutes, this is a series of largely unconnected scenes about literally nothing. Then at minute 47, exploding eagles arrive apropos of nothing, and the movie becomes a series of largely unconnected scenes about the maybe nine people imperiled by this bird attack.

This movie made me rethink my love for bad movies. And I've enjoyed many of the worst movies ever made. You can feel free to tell me in the comments why I missed the point or whatever, but I will expand on the value of cult cinema in a subsequent post, and for my money, even as cult cinema, Birdemic: Shock and Terror misses the mark. It may legitimately be the worst movie ever made and released in public. I'm sure far worse movies have been attempted and aborted somewhere along the line.

The Math

Objective Quality: 1/10

Bonuses: +1 for Whitney Moore, because a beautiful girl in both her underwear and a terrible movie is still a beautiful girl in her underwear; +1 for Becky getting killed while taking a dump in the underbrush (bird attacks render indoor plumbing useless).

Penalties: -1 for the worst CGI in the history of ever; -1 for literally every other single thing in this movie.

Cult Movie Coefficient: 1/10. Prosecutable as crime against humanity.

[See explanation of our non-inflated scores here.]