CT: Doomsday Machine

The movie featured in the first Cinematic Titanic, Brain Of Blood, renamed The Oozing Skull thanks to rights issues, was kinda rubbish. There I got that off of my chest. And yet it had something, chlamydia possibly but I digress. There was an air of creepiness, and a plot that given a bigger budget and more talented director, writer, actors, crew, catering, etc. could have been decent. The same cannot be said for Doomsday Machine.

Supposedly it's actually three different movies welded into one heap of shit, kind of like those cars they used to sell in private garages, the back was a jeep, the front a mini, that kind of thing. As such the opening features some Chinese people killing their own in an indiscriminate way so they can take pictures of a giant Tom Servo in a cage. Shamefully this appears to be movie number 1, and I say shamefully because if we'd stuck with it it may have been fun. In those first five minutes there's death and sneaking about buildings and photography. Oh and the coolest thing I've seen this year when the spy bird deals with a guard dog by throwing a live cat at it. Genius!

Sadly that's about it for super-cool Chinese cat murdering and on to the main section involving one of those sci-fi films where a crew go up into space, dodge some asteroids and then die one-by-one. There's sexual politice, Yank vs. Damn Ruskies, oh and the whole world dies while they're away, whoops. And if that gets really uninteresting for you just wait for the last ten minutes. Yes with ten minutes to go film number three strides in, trampling all that went before with staggering inaction and the ability to completely change the actors involved. Plus there's the wondrous decision to have a seen of tension acted out by two people behind blacked out helmets. Worryingly the 2001-like ending suggests sequel. Before you clench your bumcheeks so tight you fold inside out, it probably didn't happen. I say probably.

So the film's Manos bad, as pointed out by Frank in a recent blog post, but what of the riffing? It's good I'm happy to report. Everyone has clearly benefited from getting the first one out of the way and doing some live shows. There are still a few stilted readings of lines but you can forgive that when so much is good. They only do two of the stop movie skits and they both kind of go nowhere, but there is an opening scene that attempts to explain the premise this time.

So there's a lot to love, but the main danger of CT2 is that Doomsday Machine the movie may do a lot of people in. There's always been that fine line between great riffing and God-awful movie in all of the riffing projects and for some people the worse the movie the harder it is to enjoy the humour being mined from it. Thankfully I tend to enjoy the bleaker efforts, the Coleman Francis trilogy are personal favourites when riffed. Unriffed they actually killed the neighbours dog, they're that powerful. Doomsday machine may only finish off a goldfish unriffed, but that's not to be sniffed at. If you enjoy movies that can off pets and very funny people ripping it to shreds then Cinematic Titanic: Doomsday Machine is for you.

P.S. Those outside the U.S. may have had trouble getting the first Cinematic Titanic thanks to rights issues involving the film used but thankfully Doomsday Machine provides no such obstacle. You can get the DVD or download it here. Don't go to those arseholes on ebay, buy from the source people!