List the top 10 films you'd want riffed

[Compound]

...wait. The Suburban Sasquatch people did Fungicide? Dear lord. I've seen that one. It was... certainly recorded on some sort of video tape

[athanatic]

.. Airwolf...

They could do just the 2 episode "pilot" which is one story or the Movie which is after season 4, I think, but only if they are cheap or free rights since the video is not super simple to get.

I will bet he will do it, you could get Ernest Cline (Ready Player One) to guest. He is a big enough fan for do Slam Poetry in Texas (OK, Austin) about it, and it is hilarious! http://www.poetrypreservation.org/performances/airwolf-0

[Deep_Hurting]

I've been working on this list for almost 20 years. Every single one of these films should have been on MST3K, and most of them are in the public domain.

#10 -  Phantom From Space (1953)  (Copyright Status: Public Domain)
While I'm linking to the archive.org version, Legend has released a very nice cleaned-up colorized print of this one, so there's absolutely no reason not to riff that version if they can get it. This movie is the work of W. Lee Wilder, who also brought us the Peter Graves classic Killers From Space and involves an "invisible" alien who crashes his spaceship on Earth and then spends most of the movie wandering around naked in Griffith Observatory floating items around on strings. The alien can't breath our atmosphere (I hear you, buddy) so even though he's invisible, he wheezes like Darth Vader when he's not wearing his space suit, which looks like someone put the Robot Monster costume on backwards. You'll thrill at the most nondescript and interchangeable cast since Radar Secret Service, and almost feel sorry for the poor asthmatic alien who mainly just wants to get the hell out of L.A.

Alternatively, I'd also be willing to accept any of W. Lee Wilder's other sci-fi horror films, including The Man Without a Body, which I haven't seen yet, but features a mad scientist who specializes in transplanting monkey heads via poorly done matte effects, who schemes to replace a dying businessman's brain with that of the rotting cranium of Nostradamus, as one is wont to do in these situations.

#9 - Fiend Without a Face (1958) (Copyright Status: Public Domain)
Not actually that bad a movie, but it is the epitome of atom age goofiness. You can't go wrong with invisible monsters that want to take over an army base to steal our nuclear weapons that look like stop-motion brains that crawl around on a spinal column that they also use to strangle people and take over their bodies. I'd say this one ranks up there with This Island Earth in terms of being a classic.... that is also incredibly riff-worthy based on the goofiness factor alone.

#8 - War of the Robots (1978) (Copyright Status: Public Domain)
A cheap Italian Star Wars knockoff starring Toblerone! This movie should have been called War of the Gold Lamé Jumpsuits and Blonde Wigs because that's as close to robots as you're going to get. The space suits and wigs in this one give Moon Zero Two a run for it's money, despite being filmed almost a decade later. This is actually one of three movies in a "series" that all look like they were filmed on the same afternoon.

#7 - The Gypsy Moon (1954) (Copyright Status: Public Domain)
BOOPIE! The entire collection of Rocky Jones "movies" are in the public domain, and there are about 8 of them that never got riffed on MST3K, as well as a couple of stand-alone episodes that would make great shorts. I'm not necessarily suggesting they do all of them, but a few wouldn't hurt. I wouldn't even mind if Bridget at Mary Jo wanted to take a stab at these, since they seem to really enjoy doing the 1950's stuff.
At any rate, this is the second "movie" that introduces John Banner's boisterous Bovaro character from Crash of the Moons. It's also full of all sorts of goofiness including space music that can drive people insane, hypno-rays, and putting out a fire on the outside of the spaceship (with a hose.)  Don't worry, Winky and Bobby are just as punchable as you remember.
Also creepy fun fact... the guy who played Winky was only in the first half of the series. They replaced him for the second season with a different sidekick after he got arrested for going on a drug-fueled bender and holding up a prominent Hollywood hotel at gunpoint before jumping bail and fleeing to Mexico, where he ended up writing a bunch of bad checks and getting in a gun battle with local police. 


#6 - Puss in Boots (1961) (Copyright Status: Public Domain.... I think?)
Perhaps you've heard of a fellow by the name of K. Gordon Murray who brought you a little cinematic gem called Santa Claus (and also Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy and the three shorts that make up Santa's Village of Madness)? Well, Puss in Boots is another batshit insane childrens' movie imported from Mexico, recut and redubbed by Murray (with random musical numbers added). This is easily the most insane movie he imported next to Santa Claus vs. The Devil.
The main problem with this movie is that while you can find original cuts of most of the movies Murray imported from Mexico and Germany, the Murray dubbed versions are hard to find because the IRS seized all his pictures due to tax evasion and he died of a heart attack before he and his family could get them back. The original prints are gone, and the company that held the 16mm versions that were used to release a few of his pictures on VHS during the 90's (round about the time MST3K picked up Santa Claus) went bankrupt in the early 2000's and liquidated their entire inventory to the public.
I don't actually know how that works in terms of copyright, but I believe since Santa Claus is public domain, his other films are too. The main difficulty is finding copies. I actually happen to have copies of two of them. The Golden Goose (1969) and Puss In Boots. The Golden Goose has already been posted to archive.org, but my copy of Puss In Boots has some extremely bizarre audio issues that I want to attempt to clean up prior to posting.


#5 - The Devil's Eight (1969) (Copyright Status: Unknown. Could be Public Domain or really cheap since it's free on Amazon Prime?)
This is the movie Ross Hagan made back to back with Sidehackers (aka. Five The Hard Way). It's a shameless rip-off of The Dirty Dozen, where a federal agent tasked with taking down a moonshiner (who is apparently the head of a criminal empire and can whack any damn federal agent he pleases without fear of repercussion) so he gets the brilliant idea of enlisting the help of a local chain gang to stop him because... uhh... reasons. This movie contains almost as much stupid as Sidehackers and The Hellcats, but is thankfully less rapey.


#4 - Ator: The Iron Warrior (1987) (Copyright Status: Unknown.)
Yes, there was another Ator movie, and it makes even less sense than Cave Dwellers and The Fighting Eagle put together. As you can see from the trailer, for this movie, Ator has ditched Dong (Thong?) as his personal trainer and fully embraced the power of the wet look. It's also got whatshername from Devil Fish in it, if that's a selling point.

#3 - Terror Beneath the Sea (1966) (Copyright Status: Public Domain.)
How the hell did this one never make it onto MST3K? It's one of the most riffable movies of all time, and public domain to boot. Terror Beneath the Sea is basically what would happen if Japan remade Creature from the Black Lagoon into Mighty Jack by way of The Green Slime. Though to be fair, you can't really blame just one nation for this masterpiece; it's one of those Japanese/Italian/American co-productions with a huge multinational cast where everybody speaks their own language then gets redubbed later (even the people who are obviously speaking English.)
You've got plenty of goofy underwater model shots (still making lots of bank turns), remote-controlled cyborg fish people that look like cross-eyed Sleestaks that have been spray painted silver, a dollar store Blofeld knock-off in wrap-around Italian sunglasses who can control his cyborg army via a sophisticated machine with three whole dials, and it stars Sonny Chiba about a decade before he became a martial arts legend. (Though he obviously wasn't paid enough to kick any fish person ass.) The print is also surprisingly gorgeous for being public domain.


#2 - Dimension 5 (1966) (Copyright Status: Unknown.)
I love it when Rifftrax does a goofy 60's spy flick, and the only thing better than a goofy 60's spy flick, is a goofy 60's spy flick that's also a time travel espionage thriller starring a ton of guest actors from Star Trek and Odd Job the "hat killer" from Goldfinger. This movie has just the right amount of cheese, as it tries desperately to pass itself off as a sci-fi James Bond on the same budget as an episode of Time Tunnel.

Comparatively, it's not even that terrible a movie. It actually reminds me a bit of the Gary Seven episode of Star Trek, and is definitely a cut above The Human Duplicators and Women of the Prehistoric Planet, which were also written by the same guy. I'd say it falls nicely into that category of films that would be just barely watchable on it's own, but infinitely better when enjoyed in the company of some professional riffers.


#1 - Golden Needles (1974) (Copyright Status: Unknown.)
I saved the best for last. Because how can you possibly top a confusing Hong Kong martial arts remake of The Maltese Falcon starring Joe Don Baker?
It's right at the top my "must be riffed" list, since it's such a perfect storm of conflicting movie tropes, bad acting, crazy plot holes and continuity errors, and Joe Don responding to every situation with his trademark mix of hunger/confusion.
Surprisingly, it had a decent budget, and a comparatively big-name cast...even including Joe Don, who was at the height of his career after just having made Walking Tall. Golden Needles was a commercial flop, however. Joe Don plays your usual Mitchell-y non-action action hero, who's supposed to be some sort of soldier of fortune who gets hired to track down a stolen statue containing magical acupuncture needles that can grant everlasting life if used correctly. Burgess Meridith plays the bad guy, and at one point they got Jim Kelly to wander onto set and perform a fight scene and then wander off again. Literally nobody in this movie seems to have the slightest clue what the hell is going on (reportedly, the English and Hong Kong directors couldn't understand each other, and nobody understood the script.) It's just one big confusing mess with the occasional fight scene tossed in to liven things up. 

[Jed McCloud]

My top 10 films that scream to be riffed:

10. Pushed To The Limit
9. Beyond Fear
8. Streets of Rage
7. American Angels: Baptism of Blood
6. Slithis (or Spawn of The Slithis...Quentin Tarantino actually liked this film?)
5. Any Lorenzo Llamas film (we can only fit 10 films on this list, so take your pick)
4. Enter The Ninja
3. Shakedown (The one with Sam Elliott and Peter Weller...There's like a gazillion films titled "Shakedown")
2. The House of Exorcism
1. Space Jam: A New Legacy

[FilmNerd87]

10. Sniper: Special Oops, I mean Ops (2016)
     Top billed Steven Seagull, I mean Seagal, only appears for only 10 minutes and spends most of those minutes just sitting in a chair. He even has a
     body double for when his character carries a wounded man up a flight of stairs.
9. Secrete of the Andes (1998)
     Boring kids movie with profanity and gross sexual innuendos including a shrink looking at porn.
8. The Little Patriot (a. k. a. Sign of the Otter)
     Boring, unrealistic, cartoonist British soldiers, historical markers visible in historic sits.
7. Elizabeth Gail: Mystery At the Johnson Farm
    There's no IMDb or even DVD copy for this poorly acted "mystery"
6. Bon Voyage! (1962)
     Mind-numbingly boring, aimless Disney "classic"
5. Jet Attack (1958)
     North Korean jets are obviously American, stock footage is from World War II in Europe instead of the Korean War, the Polynesian culture stands in for
     Korean culture, lame efforts at comic relief 
4. Blood and Honor (a. k. a. Battle for Glory)
     An Atlanta-burning fire of a period piece, top billed Miles O'Keeffe finally appears toward the end and then just disappears
3. The Proud and The Damned (1972)
     It took three years for the film to find distribution. It takes like forty-five minutes for the plot to get started. At the end when it said
    "written/directed/produced by Ferde Grofé Jr.," I said, "oh, that's who to blame."
2. Jet Pilot (1957)
     John Wayne called it his worst movie.
1. Arrival (2006)
    Yes, I said it. I fell asleep while watching this "masterpiece." My friend who picked it out apologized to the group for taking us. 

Dishonorable Mentions: Battle of the Bulge: Wunderland (2018), The Timber (2015), The Devi's Acid (2018), Revolution (1985) Karen (2021)

[ihavemyreasons]

10)
Any Elvis movie
They'll never get the rights for a VOD release, so would have to be an MP3. Doesn't matter which one. They are all riffable.

9)
City on Fire (1979)
Made for TV movie disaster flick done by MST3K during the KTMA run. Not big on reriffs and this was at the point in the KTMA run when the show was beginning to better resemble what it would eventually become, but movie is available in much better video quality than any of the KTMA VHS rips and features a silly plot with a whole gaggle of 70s stars overacting.

8 )
Airport 1975 (1974)
Almost any of the whole string of 70s airplane disaster movies would do, but I'd go with this one based the volume of recognizable actors in this one. We get Charlton Heston, Karen Black, George Kennedy, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Helen Reddy, Linda Blair, Sid Caesar, Larry Storch, Jerry Stiller, Norman Fell, Beverly Garland, Gloria Swanson, and Erik Estrada to name a few. Might seem like a tough riff as a whole hell of a lot of it was parodied so well in Airplane! (1980) but I'd love to see them give a try.

7)
Queen of Blood (1966)
John Saxon, Basil Rathbone, and Dennis Hopper in a pseudo remake of a soviet sci fi horror flick. New movie shot with special effects scenes inserted from soviet original and another soviet film.

6)
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
Long intro set to a Bowie song would make for tough riffing. After that it's a total shit show with actors that are less convincing than actors in a James Nguyen film at portraying humans. And lots and lots of silly hats and ridiculous costumes.

5)
Freejack (1992)
Emilio Estevez during the brief window in his career when he was getting starring roles outside of Disney hockey movies.  Buster Poindexter playing the annoying character that he played in the half dozen or so movie roles he had in the prime of his career. A dimestore Emperor Palpatine as the villian with Mick Jager as his Vader. Set in the distant distopian future of 2009.

4)
White Comanche (1968)
Spaghetti western with a double dose of William Shatner who plays 2 roles.

3)
Planet Earth (1974)
Gene Roddenberry TV movie that was a pilot that never made it to series. Post apocalyptic earth something, something....plot contrivances don't really matter. It's planetbound Star Trek with a mutant Spock and John Saxon in the Captain Kirk role out Shatnering Shatner.

2)
Space Raiders (1983)
One of Roger Corman's many attempts at ripping off Star Wars. The main hero is probably supposed to come across as a Han Solo clone but is instead unlikeable jerk. Seems to be made with kiddies in mind, but an awful lot of killing if that was the intended audience.

1)
Moon Trap (1989)
Walter Koenig and Bruce Campbell (in a not intentionally comedic role) and a killer alien robot that assembles itself out of office equipment

[FilmNerd87]

Flaming Star, in which Elis plays a Native American, is awful