The Cinematic Titanic School Of Bad Filmmaking
How to make a film the MST3K alums will notice (not that they really want you to)
How to make a film the MST3K alums will notice (not that they really want you to)
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Despite spending the better parts of their careers in the murkiest depths of the celluloid swamp, Joel Hodgson and Mary Jo Pehl have nothing but respect for the bad films they’ve inflicted both on themselves and the viewers of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Cinematic Titanic. “I think when we’re riffing, people might think we’re trying to be snarky, when actually we have great affection for all these movies,” Pehl says. “It’s not easy to make a movie. It’s not easy to make a great movie. And believe it or not, it’s not easy to make a bad movie.” To prove Pehl's point—and with the caveat that the cast hates to see filmmakers tank their movies on purpose—Decider presents this crash course for wannabe Ed Woods trying to bungle their way into Cinematic Titanic's repertoire, courtesy of Hodgson and Pehl. (For further study, catch Cinematic Titanic tomorrow night at the Paramount.)
Basic criteria
Mary Jo Pehl: There has to be enough space between the dialogue for us to plug a comment in. You also have to be able to see the movie. Some of these older or poorly done films, they couldn’t afford lighting packages, so you can’t see what’s going on onscreen. You have to be able to see something to remark on it.
Mary Jo Pehl: There has to be enough space between the dialogue for us to plug a comment in. You also have to be able to see the movie. Some of these older or poorly done films, they couldn’t afford lighting packages, so you can’t see what’s going on onscreen. You have to be able to see something to remark on it.
The visuals
Joel Hodgson: I think it’s so much about what’s on the screen. That’s where 60 or 70 percent of what we do is really happening.
Decider: Can you think of any specific examples?
JH: This movie we’re writing right now called Brides Of Blood Island has the worst monster I’ve ever seen in film. He’s just this green, gooey monster. And there’s a moment—I don’t want to give too much of it away, because I think we’re going to do it in Seatlle—where he finally gets killed, and he turns back to his pre-mutated self, and he’s got pants on all of a sudden. I guess it’s like the Hulk, right? Like he became Bruce Banner and his pants were okay. But it’s one of those things where you just have to say, “Geez, how’d his pants get there?”
MJP: I continue to be fascinated by these futuristic movies where women are still put in really restricting, revealing costumes, because I can tell you that is not the way of the future. [Laughs.]
D: Is it too easy to pick on special effects?
MJP: I think it is now, because of how far special effects have come in the last 10 to 15 years. When we were on Mystery Science Theater, we would do these Rocky Jones movies, and you could clearly see the string holding the cardboard spaceship through a star field that was just velvet with holes poked through it, and a light shining behind. And we have a real affection for that, because they were doing the best they could with the budget they had and the tools they had.
D: What about movies like Doomsday Machine, which can’t seem to keep its spaceships straight?
MJP: [Laughs.] Yeah, they sort of quilted together all the special effects with no rhyme or reason for continuity. That is something we sink our teeth into. When we sense that the filmmaker just didn’t care, we’re going to go after that.
Pacing
JH: That’s what’s nice about older films: They were just more formal, so they have a little more space in them. People have learned—especially since you can edit on your laptop—that you can cover up a lot of junk if it’s really fast, if there’s a lot of stuff going on.
MJP: There have been films that had some pacing to them, but more often than not, these movies are padded. It’s actually a 10-minute move that they’ve managed to stretch out to 80 or 90 minutes. I think you can do almost anything with the pacing as long as you’ve got the other elements—say, bad costumes or silly characters. The pacing we can work with. It’s a lot harder when there’s a car chase that goes on for 20 minutes. That can really sit on your head.
Acting
D: How bad is too bad?
MJP: [Laughs.] I don’t think there’s such a thing as acting that’s too bad for us. Often you can tell when someone has just dug up a person because they needed someone to play the store clerk, or if it’s a producer’s girlfriend who’s dying to be in the talkies, but we definitely love the attempts at acting. And it’s not always somebody delivering a line really flat and self-consciously. It’s someone who, by God, is going to be the best actor ever with their one line. That’s always fun to see.
D: Who’s responsible for the best bad acting you’ve seen?
MJP: One example, taking us a bit afield, was Roddy McDowall in Laserblast. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The tone of his acting is different from the tone of everybody else’s acting, and that’s something that can be very jarring—when someone is attempting Shakespeare and everyone else is in a community theater production.
Tone
JH: [The films] have to be really serious—they have to be earnestly trying to motivate the audience. Once we started doing Mystery Science Theater, there were filmmakers who caught on and said, “I can see by the way this is going this is a movie that’s going to be on Mystery Science Theater. So I’m going to behave like I’m in on the joke.” Movies like that we can’t use at all, because you can’t do a joke on a joke. People actually write us and say, “Will you consider using our movie for Cinematic Titanic?” When they’re doing that, you go, “It’s likely that you’re winking at the camera already, and that won’t work for what we do.”
Joel Hodgson: I think it’s so much about what’s on the screen. That’s where 60 or 70 percent of what we do is really happening.
Decider: Can you think of any specific examples?
JH: This movie we’re writing right now called Brides Of Blood Island has the worst monster I’ve ever seen in film. He’s just this green, gooey monster. And there’s a moment—I don’t want to give too much of it away, because I think we’re going to do it in Seatlle—where he finally gets killed, and he turns back to his pre-mutated self, and he’s got pants on all of a sudden. I guess it’s like the Hulk, right? Like he became Bruce Banner and his pants were okay. But it’s one of those things where you just have to say, “Geez, how’d his pants get there?”
MJP: I continue to be fascinated by these futuristic movies where women are still put in really restricting, revealing costumes, because I can tell you that is not the way of the future. [Laughs.]
D: Is it too easy to pick on special effects?
MJP: I think it is now, because of how far special effects have come in the last 10 to 15 years. When we were on Mystery Science Theater, we would do these Rocky Jones movies, and you could clearly see the string holding the cardboard spaceship through a star field that was just velvet with holes poked through it, and a light shining behind. And we have a real affection for that, because they were doing the best they could with the budget they had and the tools they had.
D: What about movies like Doomsday Machine, which can’t seem to keep its spaceships straight?
MJP: [Laughs.] Yeah, they sort of quilted together all the special effects with no rhyme or reason for continuity. That is something we sink our teeth into. When we sense that the filmmaker just didn’t care, we’re going to go after that.
Pacing
JH: That’s what’s nice about older films: They were just more formal, so they have a little more space in them. People have learned—especially since you can edit on your laptop—that you can cover up a lot of junk if it’s really fast, if there’s a lot of stuff going on.
MJP: There have been films that had some pacing to them, but more often than not, these movies are padded. It’s actually a 10-minute move that they’ve managed to stretch out to 80 or 90 minutes. I think you can do almost anything with the pacing as long as you’ve got the other elements—say, bad costumes or silly characters. The pacing we can work with. It’s a lot harder when there’s a car chase that goes on for 20 minutes. That can really sit on your head.
Acting
D: How bad is too bad?
MJP: [Laughs.] I don’t think there’s such a thing as acting that’s too bad for us. Often you can tell when someone has just dug up a person because they needed someone to play the store clerk, or if it’s a producer’s girlfriend who’s dying to be in the talkies, but we definitely love the attempts at acting. And it’s not always somebody delivering a line really flat and self-consciously. It’s someone who, by God, is going to be the best actor ever with their one line. That’s always fun to see.
D: Who’s responsible for the best bad acting you’ve seen?
MJP: One example, taking us a bit afield, was Roddy McDowall in Laserblast. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The tone of his acting is different from the tone of everybody else’s acting, and that’s something that can be very jarring—when someone is attempting Shakespeare and everyone else is in a community theater production.
Tone
JH: [The films] have to be really serious—they have to be earnestly trying to motivate the audience. Once we started doing Mystery Science Theater, there were filmmakers who caught on and said, “I can see by the way this is going this is a movie that’s going to be on Mystery Science Theater. So I’m going to behave like I’m in on the joke.” Movies like that we can’t use at all, because you can’t do a joke on a joke. People actually write us and say, “Will you consider using our movie for Cinematic Titanic?” When they’re doing that, you go, “It’s likely that you’re winking at the camera already, and that won’t work for what we do.”
