At Anorak: 5 Sci-Fi Movies that Didn't Deserve the MST-3K Treatment

My latest article at Anorak gazes at five science fiction films that got roasted on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988 -1999) but that, in fairness, were not awful. 

Or, at least they were not as awful as MST-3K’s regular fare (Manos the Hands of Fate, Space Mutiny, The Creeping Terror, Eegah, Future War, Monster-A-Go-Go, etc…).

Here’s asnippet:

TO the delight of virtually everyone, the late, great Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988 – 1999) seems to be experiencing something of a pop culture resurgence these days.

April 1^st  of this year saw former Mystery Science Theater 3000 stars Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy return to top form in National Geographic’s Total Riff-Off, and the cable network Retro TV recently announced that it will begin airing MST-3K reruns starting July 5, 2014.

Among other triumphs, the award-winning Mystery Science Theater 3000 brought attention to some of the world’s most unbelievably bad and obscure movies, like Manos, The Hands of Fate(1966), Red Zone Cuba (1966), Wild World of Batwoman (1966) and Space Mutiny (1988).

Yet the brand of negative, mocking attention that an MST-3K spotlight could bring was also capable of irreparably harming a movie’s reputation, and sending its IMDB scores plummeting.

Over the years, several movies that had — before Mystery Science Theater 3000 — not been considered half-bad, saw their reputations altered forever for the worse after they were included on the program.

With that idea in mind, let’s gaze at five science fiction films featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 that are much better than their presence on this beloved and legendary “bad movie” series suggests.