Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXXV

This latest compilation from the long-running comedy series hearkens back to a nice perk of some previous DVD releases in the franchise: for the re-titled Being From Another Planet, a shambling cheapie about a misunderstood alien mummy stalking a party-hearty college campus, bad-cinema purists have a choice between watching the MST3K spoof version with snarky commentary delivered by a man and his robot companions imprisoned on a space station, or the original 1982 version, Time Walker. For the remaining three titles, however, lovers of cheesy B-movies are stuck with the laughable riffs—which is fine, since that's the whole point of the show. Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell (aka Deathstalker III, if anyone cares) is a shot-in-Mexico 1988 sword-and-sorcery potboiler); 12 to the Moon is a low-budget 1960 movie about an international Earth space flight running afoul of (unseen) moon people (meanwhile, Mike Nelson and the robots cope with a visit from a singing, dancing, glamour girl derived from Design for Dreaming, a notorious 1956 auto-industry promo film). Finally, Roger Corman's infamous 1958 flick Teenage Caveman is mocked by series creator Joel Hodgson and the ‘bots. Extras include behind-the-scenes featurettes for all four films (and each movie is packaged separately, so libraries have the option of lending out individual titles). Highly recommended. (C. Cassady)