Rating: Parental guidance suggested. Kids should be exposed to movies this bad.
Release Date: March 9, 2004
Run Time: approximately 4 movies long!

Extras: Interview with Kevin "Tom Servo" Murphy and Mike "Mike" Nelson

Ten-second Rundown: Bad movies are mocked with snide comments. Very similar to what the FanboyPlanet staff does at press screenings.

Unless you've been living on a satellite in space with screwball robots as companions and no contact with the outside world other than a mad scientist that forces you to watch awful movies, you're probably seen an episode or two of Mystery Science Theater 3000. However, if you fit the preceding profile, then you're in luck because MST3k seem as familiar to you as a home movie.

MST3k started in 1988 as the brain dropping of comedian Joel Hodgson. Armed with homemade puppets/robots, Joel and pals would watch bad movies and add the type of snide comments that you and your friends might make if you were funny. The show became a cult hit on Comedy Central and later on the Sci-fi channel and even had a limited theatrical release.

With the show gone, Rhino Home Video has set about the task of collecting the greatest bad movies from the show and packaging them for your eternal entertainment. Volume 5 continues that trend with an excellent outing of four shows.

Boggy Creek 2: The Legend Continues - Host and head writer Mike Nelson introduces each episode with a two minutes featurette where he gives out interesting facts about the episode to follow. For example, Boggy Creek 2 is actually the third Boggy Creek movie, but no one saw Boggy Creek 2, so they reused the name. Fascinating!

Merlin's Mystical Shop of Wonders - This one is truly horrible and I mean that in the most pleasurable way. Merlin returns to modern times only to find the world plagued with poor storylines, cheesy effects and the worst acting since Bush's 2002 State of the Union address. If not for the MST3k team, this movie would be unwatchable, which of course makes it the best movie in the collection.

Time Chasers - It's a cross between Back to the Future and Robocop. Not the greatest example of what the show was capable of but the running bit of the robots not accepting the male lead in the film is hysterical. The "commercial break" skits are also worth watching on this one, as they are more clever than they typically are.

Interesting note about this movie was the creators of Time Chasers were initially excited to have the movie be shown on MST3k, until they saw how badly it was ridiculed. That note is only interesting because I would have figured that was the norm.

The Touch of Satan - Another movie that would have been unwatchable without the MST3k treatment. It's about a man traveling to California who falls in love with a farmer's daughter who turns out to be a 127 year old witch. Classic boy meets girl, girl turns out to be a witch, witch has a sister that kills people with a pitchfork storyline.

Rhino did skimp on the extras as the only one of note is a 30-minute behind the scenes interview with actor, writer, producer Kevin Murphy and actor, writer, director Mike Nelson. It provides some insight into the creation and production of the show, but is too short to really put the (s) in extras.

With five volumes under their belt, I would have expected Rhino to produce a few more extras that can be added to all future volumes, but with four movies in each collection, there is enough viewing pleasure to justify the cost of the collection.

Overall, this collection, like most DVD collections of TV shows, is for the fans. Short on extras, but packed with jokes, MST3k fans should have no qualms about adding it to their collection.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. 5

Michael Goodson