Negative Rifftrax effect

[Variety of Cells]

I'm all for riffing good movies, but there are some side effects to it.  My parents had never seen Halloween before they watched the Rifftrax.  And afterward my father was convinced that it was a horrible piece of trash that wasn't scary at all. 

I don't think that's true.  It's a pretty good horror film.  But with Mike and Kevin cracking jokes through the whole thing, it's not scary in the least.  They also point out some things that you don't normally notice, and their cracks about the pacing were funny, but I believe the slow shots help create the mood. 

My father isn't the only one who's been affected in this way.  I've seen it here on the boards too.  Some people seem to think films are absolutely horrible after they have been riffed.  And so many people have said "I can't believe I used to like that movie."  These films aren't trash, that's no longer part of the criteria.  They can just be made fun of.

These films may laps quite often, but on the whole they are decent. We need to be careful in what we consider horrible movies, lest out expectations be raised so high that we can no longer milk entertainment from any film.

[this post does not apply to crossroads]

[Pak-Man]

I used to love X-Men, still love X-Men. I suspect the same will be true for Matrix. However if I anticipate that I might enjoy a movie and I haven't seen it yet, I try to watch it unriffed first. I did this with Fifth Element, and I'm glad I was introduced to it in this way. On the flip side, I thank my lucky stars that I didn't try to watch xXx or Crossroads without the help of Mike.

It's also fun because you start to imagine the things Mike's gonna rip into. You'll start snickering at the most inappropriate times and you'll do it WITHOUT the Trax! :^)

[Petey Wheatstraw]

If anyone hears the Night of the Living Dead commentary and tells me it's a bad film, they'll get a swift smack upside their head.

I've read that fans of This Island Earth were pissed when it was featured in the MST3K movie, and everyone who saw the film went out and voted "1" on TIE's IMDb entry.

Movie fans these days can't think for themselves; if it's old, it's "bad and poorly made and stuff." Last I checked, the lack of expensive CGI and special effects doesn't effect the quality of a film; it's how well it's written, directed, and acted.

I can't stand most of the movies that come out today. I prefer pretty much anything made before 1983.

[Tarantulas]

It's just me, but I think colorizing NoTLD takes away from the scare a bit..  It seems less "gritty", and real.

Not that I didn't buy it, and enjoy watching it

[SmilinJackRoss]

I might be in the minority here, but I thought Halloween was a pretty stupid movie.  I know there's some fans of the movie here, I'm not trying to pluck anyone's feathers out.  But nothing really happens until the last 20 minutes or so, and that one actress who has to wash her clothes is a really bad actress.  And she gets "stuck in the window" for some wierd reason.  But I've never been a fan of horror, I've always considered it to be a weak genre.  I loved the riffing.

[Petey Wheatstraw]

It's just me, but I think colorizing NoTLD takes away from the scare a bit..  It seems less "gritty", and real.

Not that I didn't buy it, and enjoy watching it

I thought that they should have used a better print. The print they colorized is often out-of-focus at certain points, which makes for some bad colorization at times. There are plenty of good moments, but overall, it just doesn't feel like it was shot in color. All of Legend's other cult films were carefully restored, and perfectly colored, and all feel, to my eyes, like they were shot in color (well, except for Reefer and Plan 9, which were intentionally unrealistic in order to play up the camp elements of the films).

Night of the Living Dead is the one film of the two available as RiffTrax classics that I don't recommend purchasing if you want to listen to the commentary. While Plan 9 looks and sounds absolutely perfect through Legend's release and is absolutely essential for every cult film fan, Legend's Night ain't exactly essential. It's worth a look, maybe, if you want to see it in color, but if you already own another release of the film, or haven't already bought the disc, I wouldn't call owning Legend's disc to be absolutely essential. I'll stick with the Legend copy because I had already paid for it before RiffTrax was ever conceived of. If Legend decides to work with Romero and put out a different release of the film including all the extras from the Millennium Edition and a new color version and Mike's commentary, I'd definitely get rid of my current copy in favor of the new release.

[Bob M.]

I might be in the minority here, but I thought Halloween was a pretty stupid movie.  I know there's some fans of the movie here, I'm not trying to pluck anyone's feathers out.  But nothing really happens until the last 20 minutes or so, and that one actress who has to wash her clothes is a is a really bad actress.  And she gets "stuck in the window" for some wierd reason.  But I've never been a fan of horror, I've always considered it to be a weak genre.  I loved the riffing.

Ditto for me. I've never been a fan of the horror genre in general, so I've never found any love for Halloween, despite a crush on Jamie Lee Curtis way back in the day

[gammer]

[this post does not apply to crossroads]

...or Road House, or Cocktail, or Top Gun, or Point Break

[mrbasehart]

It's just me, but I think colorizing NoTLD takes away from the scare a bit..  It seems less "gritty", and real.

Not that I didn't buy it, and enjoy watching it

I agree.  The black and white kind of reflects the bleakness of the characters in the movie.  I think the colour effect works against Carnival of Souls too.  They're still beautifully done, though.

[Variety of Cells]

[this post does not apply to crossroads]

...or Road House, or Cocktail, or Top Gun, or Point Break

I disagree.  They are not good films by any standard, but they are not horrible.  They are shot with a level of competence, they tell a story, and they entertain.  The cinematography may be bland, the story may be childish and predictable, and the entertainment might be fleeting, but all of the elements are there.

Maybe a better way to put it would be this, they are not Manos.  I'm not suggesting that we overlook their faults, Rifftrax is all about pointing them out.  But people go on about Top Gun as if it were Manos, and it's just not, period.  The story makes sense, the characters have motivation, the actors are actually acting, and I don't want to tear out my eyes after watching it.  They really aren't terrible films.  If you throw enough money at anything you are going to get a mediocre movie, which is what we have here, heartless, robotic movies. They aren't horrible, they just aren't quite human.

[Pak-Man]

I don't think the intention is to make the movies look bad, or even to do bad movies. That was a theme on MST when they had a budget, but I think the point now is to make us laugh at movies: Good or bad. If I interpret Mike's writings correctly, he seems to very much enjoy Lord of the Rings, but there's murmurings about riffing it.. :^)

[Yarg]

In my opinion a couple of the movies Rifftrax had done probably deserve to be seen once straight up before watching them with the Rifftrax commentary, especially if you like those types of movies. Definitely Night of the Living Dead, which I think is one of the best horror movies ever made. But personally I hope Rifftrax sticks to crappy movies, because they're a little more fun. The funniest MST3K episodes were the ones where they really either hated the movie and weren't afraid to say it or when they were just amazed by its badness.

I really don't think Rifftrax commentary is all that different from a lot of the commentary tracks on regular DVDs though, except it's funnier. Even good movies sometimes when you get the directors in front of them and they have to keep talking through the whole movie they'll start making fun of them. With those you should definitely watch the movie alone before turning on the audio commentary.

By the way I hope Mike does the sequels to Halloween too because I think all of them are perfect candidates for his commentary.

I'm not really worried about a lot of people having a negative opinion of Halloween either because of Mike's commentary, since about 75% of horror movies since then have been rip-off versions of Halloween.

[mrbasehart]

I think that when you listen to a Rifftrax commentary, you aren't paying full attention to the movie.  Mike provides a distance from the movie, which can destroy things like suspense or atmosphere.  Halloween is all about atmosphere, but because you listen to Mike, all you really see of the movie is people walking.  A LOT.  Still a good film, though.

[ScottotD]

Horror is my favourite genre, it's probably also the easiest genre to dismiss but I've never seen why a movie  that can make you scared is considered less worthly or sillier than a movie that can make you laugh or cry (or hurl) Halloween has lost a lot of it's impact thanks to the endless imitations over the last 23 years I think it stands up on the whole, especially when you consider it's budget, etc actually the mocking aspect of Rifftrax is the reason I haven't bought and may not buy the Halloween Rifftrax. 

Personally I'd never seen Top Gun before and it seemed like it'd be pretty unwatchable without rifftrax.

If anyone hears the Night of the Living Dead commentary and tells me it's a bad film, they'll get a swift smack upside their head.

Movie fans these days can't think for themselves; if it's old, it's "bad and poorly made and stuff." Last I checked, the lack of expensive CGI and special effects doesn't effect the quality of a film; it's how well it's written, directed, and acted.

I can't stand most of the movies that come out today. I prefer pretty much anything made before 1983.

While I fully agree with your stance on Night, I think you're being pretty hypocritical by dissing people who don't like classic and then writing off anything made in the last 23 years.

[Variety of Cells]

Horror is my favourite genre, it's probably also the easiest genre to dismiss but I've never seen why a movie  that can make you scared is considered less worthly or sillier than a movie that can make you laugh or cry (or hurl)

Because it's much harder to make people scared than it is to make people laugh and cry.  People can easily relate to slipping on a banana peel or having some one in the family die, but not many people can relate to being chased by a super-human psycho killer.  People's suspension of disbelief often does not include talking bloodthirsty dolls and zombies.  Horror is not something we feel everyday.

There is also this.  People don't want to be scared.  All through our childhood we are told there's nothing to be scared of, and called a cry baby if we are scared.  It's seen as weak to be scared, so therefore our guard is up during horror movies, especially for males.  They will look for every reason not to be scared.  And if the only thing to fear is fear itself, then unless you're watching the movie Fear, there's nothing to be scared of.

Personally, I am not able to suspend disbelief for most horror movies.  The only way a movie scares me is if it gets inside my head and makes me fear the real world.  And what realllly turns me off in horror films is CGI. If I can tell something is CGI there is no way I'm going to be scared.  I don't mind CGI in other films, but silicon and kero syrup is much scarier than pixels.