Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXIX

The latest boxed-set quartet from the long-running series—in which terrible movies are screened with snarky commentary delivered by a man and his robot companions imprisoned on a space station—is evenly split between episodes starring Joel Hodgson and others with Mike Nelson as host. Hodgson mocks Untamed Youth, a 1957 teen-rock-exploitation drama directed by Howard W. Koch and starring Mamie Van Doren and Lori Nelson as hitchhikers en route to Los Angeles who are arrested for skinny-dipping. The Pumaman is a 1980 Italian Superman take-off helmed by Alberto De Martino (and riffed on here by Nelson) about a mild-mannered archaeologist (Walter George Alton) who turns hapless flying superhero via his ancestral UFO puma power. Nelson was also the top-liner for filmmaker Will Cowan's The Thing That Couldn't Die (1958)—the story of a 500-year-old decapitated wizard (Robin Hughes) terrorizing a California dude ranch (!). Finally, 1961's Italian Hercules and the Captive Women, from Vittorio Cottafavi, perfectly sets up Hodgson and the robots with the plot's revelation that Hercules (Reg Park) faces the power of the god Uranus. Each movie is packaged here separately, so collections carrying this perennially popular series have the option of lending out individual films. Extras include introductions by Hodgson, behind-the-scenes featurettes, and interviews. Highly recommended. (C. Cassady)