Quick! Stake the channel!
The Experiment
We begin this experiment with the brand new theme song and title sequence. While it is nice to see Tom Servo flexing his ever present musical talent, it is not especially great. The effects they use, the fanfare they add to it and just about all of the visuals don't really add much of anything to an already great theme. It comes off a bit like they were trying too hard.
Then we see what happens when a pandemic hits and they are forced to adjust the way they create the host segments. It shows. They literally green screen everything and sadly MST3K has always been cheap in its effects and nowhere is that more visible than in these skits. You can see the struggle they went through and you can see how it makes these segments very awkward.
The good notes are that we get to see the new Gizmoplex in the form of the Kingadome. We also get to see all of the cambots we will be seeing a lot of in the future. Beyond that, it's a bit unforunate that they were forced to reach such depths because of this problem the world is having. I am not blaming them, nor am I going to deduct points from the episode as a result. The real point is the movie and the riffing thereof.
Santo in the Treasure of Dracula
El Santo sends a woman back in time to a previous life in order for her to find Dracula's treasure. What they don't know is that they are putting her in great danger, and a man in a black mask is moving to thwart them. Then they wrestle.
What makes this movie bad?
First and foremost, as bad as the dubbing is, our hero and Mexican celebrity legend is religated down to a spectator for the first part of his own movie. We literally sit there and watch this seemingly different film play out like one of those old Hammer films to watch a Vampire Hunter take down Count Drac-- I mean, "Alucard". For a while, it appears that Santo will be doing nothing other than watching things play out. Thankfully, they bring it back to the current timeline and Santo plays more of a main role.
Our side villain, the black mask man, comes out of nowhere and appears randomly. Then, after some of the worst build up, he becomes a main player and starts screwing up Santo's plan. This is awkward to say the least because he is rather pathetic as villains go. Alucard himself is rather pitiful as well, so the villain element in this movie is severely lacking.
The Riffs
The riffs in this episode are golden! It is clear that they took the criticism to heart and slowed the riffing down to a more leisurely pace. They have some great riffs going for this movie. It is definitely refreshing and invokes a great deal of relief to see that they put such care with the jokes. With Santo and Dracula, they put their best foot forward and showed us there is nothing to worry about, the riffing is still great.
The great part is that it's just so easy to riff. Santo at the TV, the forced wrestling subplot, the terrible development and blatantly reused sets. It all culminated in a movie that begged to be riffed.
The Episode
Segment problems aside, this was a solid riff. With such a silly movie, it's almost impossible not to laugh. It's also got a lot of nostalgic qualities, as with Samson vs the Vampire Women, it's always fun to see a silver masked guy take down a bunch of bloodsuckers. The unwarranted wrestling, the terrible chroeography and the on-time riffing mixes very well together. Now we are ready to begin this season anew! I'll be covering them along the way, don't you worry.