
Mystery Science Theater 3000 Volume XXII (Shout Factory), features episodes of the groundbreaking TV show about a stranded spacecraft and its occupants ( Joel Hodgson or Mike Nelson, and a few feisty robots) forced to watch bad movies. This new collection has some hilarious highlights, including Time Of The Apes (pictured below), culled from a 1974 Japanese series about a scientist and some children who are accidentally frozen and wake in the future where apes rule. Sound familiar? Mighty Jack is another Japanese 007-type spin off about a secret organization out to thwart the evil crime syndicate known as "Q". The Brute Man is a B movie starring Rondo Hatton as a man suffering from an actual disfiguring disease who was shamelessly exploited as a horror figure in several movies. Here he's "The Creeper." But my favorite is The Violent Years, about a group of bad teenage girls who rob gas stations, smash up schoolrooms for fun and at gunpoint sexually assault unwary men. Their motto: "So what!" During a shootout with police one girl says in astonishment: "They're shooting back at us!" The "bots" wisecrack that this movie (penned by Z-grade legendary director Ed Wood) is "the feel good movie of 1956".
