EVEN DeepER Blurting!: DOA: X113

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DOA: X113

Posted by DexterBG on 1/5/2008, 5:58 am

This is Dexter's Opinion About - Experiment #113 of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Which in this case was the movie called "The Black Scorpion". Another tale from season one without a stinger. Get it?

I've seen this experiment's feature sometime before, on the AMC channel I think. But watching the actual MST3k version, I swear I didn't remember seeing some of the movie's scenes. Could BBI have had a longer print than AMC did?

There are two particularly annoying elements to this movie. A gigantic scorpion that oozes slime from its mouth. And a small mexican boy that oozes far too much charm. He's worse than that kid in the Lassie serial. This movie is one of the very few (if not the only)
Warner Brothers movies to ever get MSTied.

The movie begins with a U.S. geologist Dr. Hank Scott, visiting Mexico during some volcanic activity. And he has a local geologist in tow, Dr. Artur Ramos. Soon they hear weird noises, and discover a dead police officer. I'm reminded of a similar scene that appeared in the movie "Them!" This happens more than once in the movie. And we see the possible origin of the infamous "baby rattler" joke. The recovered infant is taken to a nearby village. Where the two geologists stay the night. In the morning they go back up the side of the volcano. But they rescue a pretty lady, Teresa Alverez, who got thrown from her horse. They take her back to her ranch, and promise to return for dinner.

Then they're called to the town pathogist's office of Dr. Jose de la Cruz, where he tries to explain what killed the man they found, without using the words scorpion venum. But he keeps hinting that he suspects it. So he has samples sent off to "The Great Velazco". The two geologists go with Teresa, to her ranch, and where they have dinner. This is where the annoying little mexican boy, Pedro, first appears. A rock sample cracked open by Dr. Ramos, releases a small scorpion that comes to life. The ranch phone rings, signaling that the lines are back up. As Teresa listens, the lineman is attacked by a giant scorpion, that we see for the first time in the movie. Everyone heads out to see what they can do about this. Including the little Pedro and his dog. Who manages to encounter the monster before anyone else does. They adults catch up to Pedro, and shoot their guns at the monster.

There's some more volcanic activity, for unexplained reasons, while the scorpion attacks the village and ranch. Buildings fall, and peasants flee. Meanwhile the scorpion footage switches back and forth, from finished Willis O'brien product, to an unfinished product of a black featureless scorpion superimposed over live film of humans running. The mexican army finally shows up, as well as Dr. Velazco. He confirms the poison is from scorpions. A bit late as we've seen. Then it's back to the volcano to try and gas the scorpions inside. They find a big crack in the earth, where a horse's rider falls in. The pair of geologists propose to go down for a look. And wouldn't ya know, that annoying little Pedro had to stow along with them (unbeknowns to the anyone). First in their jeep, and then down in the cable car.

They witness a lot of underground battles between giant scorpions and other freakishly large insect life. Pedro wanders off while this is happening. And gets chased by a Trapdoor Spider. The scientists kill it and rescue Pedro. A one large scorpion sees and destroys their lift chair. They escape, clinging to the cable, after the men above send it back down. After this they all decide to blow up the cavern entrance, to seal in the freshness... I mean the scorpions.

The Hank Scott goes back to Teresa to enjoy his evening off. The next day, at the local geologist's office he gets a phone call to come down to Mexico City to confer with some officials. They don't let on that there's more to this than a social call. Once there, they explain that the cavern they sealed up probably connected to a larger system of tunnels with many exits. So the scorpions would find their way out farther south of the volcano. They propose to kill the scorpions with a large dart filled with a poison. But they never do make the stuff.

The Hank goes to dinner with Teresa that evening, as she came along. But we next see a train being stalked and attack by several giant scorpions, in the middle of the night. The monsters go after the passengers who try and escape. Hank hears this on his car radio. And the scorpions are headed for Mexico city. But a largest scorpion killed off the others, so the filmmaker would only have to pay for one on film, from now on.

The army gets it's weapon ready to kill the single scorpion. It amounts to being a large Tazer, juiced up to 600,000 volts. They setup at a local stadium, with dead cattle as bait. As the scorpion wanders into town and then the stadium, army tanks crowd it into position. And they fire the electrified dart at it. They miss the first time. And one of the army guys gets shocked to death, recovering it. Then Hank and the other geologist take over and shoot at it again, and this time they hit it. And when the volts are applied it gets slowly fried to death.

As they look upon the dead creature, Dr. Velazco makes plans to render out its venom for future study and use. But Hank just wants to go off and have another dinner with Teresa. Thus proving once more that the mexicans' work ethic is stronger than the americans'. But our educational system, makes even the most boring rock scientist, a crack shot with a big dart gun.

I found this a very difficult movie to get thru. Perhaps it was just the season. But the purplish tinted "Black and White" film was quite depressing. And it was easy to lose one's place in the plot. If not viewed in one sitting. And the creature noises were multiple layered, and quiet overbearing. The effects shots were very economized. In most cases they were done with "rear projection" screen tricks. Either the actors worked in front of the screen, showing the monsters. Or the monsters were animated in front of a screen showing the actors.

All other times the two were never shown together in the same shot. The "Black Scorpion" title came about because the producer only paid for part of the work to process the live footage to the stop action footage. All they did was to use the live footage and a high contrast negative of some of the scorpion movements, used in the rear projection cavern shots. And combined the two to get a half finished effect shots of the scorpion in Mexico City, and the small town. The results was a black featureless blob that was shaped like a scorpion, running past the buildings. But everywhere else, the scorpions were all a glossy medium gray color. Probably made of clay or wax.

Prologue Segment: The Bots have thrown Joel a party, and spiked his drink with motor oil just to see him spit. He does, as soon as they tell him the mix.

Host Segment One: In keeping with the party theme of the last segment, Joel has invented the adult sized party whistle/tongue-thing (what the hell are those things called anyway?!). It's several yards long, when it uncoils. The MADs' invention had accidentally given Dr.E a huge alien head, and Dr.F a skeletal head and body. I'm thinking it was an evolver booth from one of the old Outer Limits episodes, "The Sixth Finger". Dr.E looked a lot like David McCallum character's extra smart. The MADs spend the rest of the experiment trying to reverse themselves.

Host Segment Two: Joel and the bots speak mock-spanish, which here is mostly in mexican food names. Meanwhile Cambot translates on screen, with words that have little to do with what's being said. But somehow it all makes sense.

Host Segment Three: Crow and Servo rag on Joel's weird human habits, like sleeping. Meanwhile Gypsy keeps doning more parts of her Scorpion disguise, but is ignored by the others. Then she swallows Servo whole, and there's an explosion of smoke from beneath the console as Servo cries "Ouwee!" He's Ok by the start of the next reel.

Host Segment Four: The bots have made a minature of the SoL bridge, complete with Joel doll. Joel reminds the bots that this movie featured the special effects of Willis O'Brien. Who was Ray Harryhausen's mentor. Which clears up that confusion.

Host Segment Five: Joel and the Bots read some fan mail. The second letter seems to psycho-analyze Crow's Crowness. Crow doesn't appreciate the advice, and calls its author a loser. The MADs still haven't returned to their normal appearance, but Larry thinks that the swelling has gone down. No Stinger clip after the credits.

Notes: The movie's voice actor as radio announcer, playing all parts (name unknown) was also the announcer voice of some of the Quinn Martin Tv series, like Barneby Jones, and The Invaders. Some of the sounds made by the scorpions were lifted from "THEM!" and was the sounds that the giant ants made in that movie.

Connections: Richard Denning, who plays Dr. Hank Scott, also appeared in "Day the World Ended" (1955).

This could be my last review for a while. I'm having a bit of a health issue. If it's worse than I think, then I may not finish doing the season one reviews. Thanks for reading them, in any case.
-Dex-