911 – Devil Fish
éééé
Things I liked in the movie:
The shame of being an electrician.
European promiscuity.
The brilliant plan to cross a shark and an octopus to make a profit.
Impressions
This is a fairly good episode with a few really funny riffs. I’ve watched it three times now and I always find some funny riffs I didn’t remember. The monster is sort of a shark crossed with an octopus, which may be a metaphor for the story, which is sort of a badly edited Jaws crossed with Prophecy. The shots of the monster show it to be either a squid, a giant bass, or several acres of lava with a turtle eye. Because the movie was filmed in Italy and the actors have a euro-chic thing going on, the riffs are mostly along the lines of “That’s Euro-funny” and “I’m not from Italy!”
Synopsis
This movie has a fairly complex plot involving seemingly unrelated parties whose interconnections become clear as the movie clunks along. The primary players here are:
1) a large, vague fish with a turtle eye and Jaws music (Crow: They simply play the Jaws theme backwards!; 2) a super skinny eurotrash dolphin trainer, Stella, whose boyfriend Bob is a marine scientist who spends hours at sea drinking beer; 3) the world’s handsomest and coolest TV repairman and his lazy but frisky lady employee, and 4) a bunch of horny, mean old people who work for WOI, a corrupt and evil marine science institute. The first half hour of the movie establishes all this, and shows us that all the women in this movie are quite randy and faithless.
A giant fish is attacking people, apparently hungry for human feet. Bob the marine biologist and the local Sheriff conduct an investigation, which uncovers some shenanigans by WOI, which include killing their own employees, messing with RNA, and cheating on each other.
Eventually, the WOI plot is explained. WOI made the creature for profit! Booinnnggg! All the bad WOI people are killed or arrested. The biologists find and kill the creature, but not without killing a few dozen redneck extras first.
Host Segments
Prologue: Mike Nelson tells us how he was pursued by agents of a secret government project intended to erase his existence. He warns, “Nothing is as it seems!” The ‘Bots appear and return his wallet. Crow reassures us that everything is exactly as it seems. Pearl and company are having a luau in the castle. Apparently she has some guests who thought the castle was a cruise ship. She sold 2500 tickets to the cruise and planned to abscond but this couple came early and now she has to fake a cruise. Mike and company are forced to make ice art with some ice cubes to help make the cruise look more authentic. Crow makes Michaelangelo’s David.
Second: Mike and the ‘Bots discuss how smart dolphins are. They can sort of talk, swim, flip, eat . . . well, maybe they’re dumb. Mike calls “Blowie the Dolphin” on the telephone and asks him if he’s smart, but Blowie just squeaks and clicks. Mike tells Blowie he’s stupid and makes fun of him. In response, a dolphin warbird decloaks near the SOL and menaces the crew. They resolve that dolphins are smart . . . but touchy.
Third: Gypsy reports that Pearl is sending an electrician up. Mike jokes that “Everyone knows about electricians.” He mocks the electrician for a little while and then a dolphin warbird uncloaks off the port bow. Electricians formed a pact with the dolphins for protection. Mike is forced to apologize sincerely.
Fourth: Mike and the ‘Bots look vaguely Italian. Pearl is using a filter to make them look Italian like the actors in the movie so her “cruise” passengers won’t catch on that it’s a MST3K episode. She turns the filter up and they become more and more stereotypical.
Final: Crow admits that WOI was on the right track – trying to raise profits by combining a shark with an octopus. But maybe they should have tried a poodle and a fly. Pearl is still trying to convince her guests that they’re on a cruise. Pearl has to shoot Bobo with a tranquilizer dart, upsetting the guests.
Stinger: Bob shouting “I know!”
Funny Riffs
One of the devil fish’s tentacles knocks the table around on the deck of the boat
Mike: Our special tonight is devil fish with satanic green beans and deep lucifered potatoes.
As a helicopter flies up
Crow: They’re gonna airlift us out of the movie! We’re over here!
As Bob looks intensely at the gauges on the boat
Mike: A beer is in trouble somewhere!
Stella’s hair is ratty.
Stella: I just don’t understand what happened to those dolphins.
Mike as Stella: They took my conditioner.
Bob tells Stella “Listen to this” and then plays a tape recording he made on the boat. No sound comes out.
Tom Servo as tape player: Glug glug glug glug. Pssst. Glug glug glug glug. Psst. Glug glug glug glug. Burp.
Bob: I picked it up at 10:18. It lasted 3 minutes.
Tom: Like my last twelve-pack.
Bob is looking at pictures of the victims’ severed legs.
Sheriff: What do you think? You know more about sharks than I do.
Crow as Bob: Well, he needs new pants.
After the electronics guy gets hit on by two girls, discusses his vacation, and then gets into a fight with thugs who break into his shop:
Crow: He’s enjoying the bold, adventurous life of a TV repairman.
Sandra: Two geniuses should never work together.
Crow: But these two guys will be fine.
One of the electronic doohickeys isn’t working
Tom: We are having tentacle difficulties.
At one point, Bob yells at electronics guy, “How you would know, electrician!” He says electrician contemptuously.
Later as they enjoy beers together
Mike: Sorry about that electrician crack earlier. My father’s village was attacked by electricians.
The screen goes blue. It’s a bad shot of murky water.
Tom Servo: This scene omitted for content.
Bob is creeping slowing along the deck.
Tom Servo: Slowly I acted . . . step by step.
The movie shows a huge tentacle:
Tom Servo: It’s so big it’s an eleventacle
WOI dude: (Bob) Hogan really hit the jackpot this time. Shame he’s dead.
Tom as other WOI dude: My files show it’s not a shame, sir.
The devil fish is killing and eating the casual laborers hired to hunt it.
Mike: A lot of guys named “Bo” were killed that day.