"Devilfish"

Review by Giggles (2/28/03)

OVERALL SCORE:8/10

With how the movie has been arranged, it’s in one’s best interest to try and sort the ongoing plotlines as though watching a real complex mafia movie--- well, a mafia movie that someone has taken a pair of malicious scissors to and patched it up with edible paste.

The editing (see CHEESINESS below) is so horrible that it is a wonder that I understood this movie after watching it more than several times. In a nutshell, this is a JAWS ripoff that tries to include a little bit of intrigue into the corruption of some sort of an environmental, scientific research company (W.O.I.).

The devilfish is a creature that is part octopus and part shark and it kills whenever the bozos in the movie go looking for it (all except for an opening sequence that sets up that this is an aquatic monster movie). The first kill in the movie calls for the main title DEVILFISH to appear, but I guess the filmmakers didn’t think the first sufficient, so later we get to see it again along with the other credits.

Basically, this story is as follows: boy meets skinny girl, boy gets it on with a mulatto girl, boy meets drunkard Dr.West, boy has beer with the doctor, boy sees the devilfish, boy has beach-sex with anorexic previously mentioned. Boy finds out West is eaten by devilfish--- Budweiser can slow production once more. Boy and skinny girl live to conquer the beast. Boy gets to go on vacation and take the bamboo shaft with him.

To some of your chagrin, you will notice I left out the part of W.O.I.. I did so because I’m still befuddled as to what their purpose is in the movie, other than giving extraneous details about the devilfish and arriving at the conclusion that its weakness is fire.

Without Mike & Crow & Servo, this would be a movie you would watch maybe three or four minutes of before turning it. Thanks to their efforts they have turned a waste of reel into a good time.

PLOT GRADE: 1/6

Note: the movie can receive a 6 and still have a lackluster plot. This is a rating system designed for bad movies in relation to other bad movies.

Where to begin? This one has it all.

First: The acting and dialogue is horrible. Most of what is said is gratuitous and informative. Most of the people talk as though the words were written lines--- they have nothing funny to say (you laugh at them, not with them), and the characterization is limited to Dr.West and Peter getting into a 2 second verbal melee (West has a Euro-Tantrum).

Second: The editing: someone could write a dissertation on how bad the editing is in this movie. Before a scene has ended it cuts to another scene and before that scene has ended, it returns to the previous scene just long enough for the viewer to get an eyeful before it retreats to another scene (this happens especially in the beginning of the film).

Third: Special effects… we get to see the same shot of the devilfish about seven thousand and twenty-two times, none of which are inspiring. Just when the monster is about to eat someone they cut to something else to avoid showing it. The underwater scenes are murky blue as though we are in an Untidy Bowl.

Fourth: The sound is a funny thing too because these people’s lips are speaking the English words but the dubbing is off and the voices don’t seem to fit the lips. The mulatto girl has an irritating way of saying something and then letting it trail off into nothing, and she besides that, she “dresses like Robin Williams.”

Fifth: The casting agent who helped on this film should be executed for making the sex-pot in the film a rail of a girl with a shark fin of a nose, ratty bleached hair, and unnaturally taut skin. Plus, why in the hell are the sexual encounters even part of the story? You need hot, attractive people who you somewhat care for to make this kind of cinematic entrance (metaphorize that last part as you will). But regardless of that, the sex is way out of place. I think they were going for the “Friday the 13th” fuckathon that preludes a murder, and yet, in those films a girl might see a man’s bare ass and a guy might see a pair of bouncing mommy-mugs, but in this movie, I’m glad I didn’t get to see the skinny girl get naked. The nudity is probably cut for MST’s purposes. Regardless, the characters have as much chemistry as two pieces of chalk rolling together. When Peter and the waif go to “get it on” on the beach, I could have watched two dung beetles hump and got more turned on.

There were other movies at this time that were doing far better with far less. JAWS had an expensive shark, but for the most part it wasn’t used it the film. If there was more substance to “Devilfish” than it would have still sucked, but at least it would have appeared like a human being made it.

CHEESINESS:

(4 outta 4)

This is a funny episode. The interludes are decent. Mike and the Robots seen through the “Racial Slur” lens was particularly amusing. The “in-theater” humor was more than amusing. I laugh more and more every time I hear the W.O.I. computer say, oh so robotically, “I…love…you…Da-vis.” And then Mike says similarly, “Hi… hon-ey.”

Aside from that, the Bots and their human stab fun at the people in the movie, making the devilfish seem like the best actor/ess in the entire film. The “beery guy,” Dr.West was the butt of many of their alcoholic jokes, and of course Peter and he were also labeled as incognito Italians throughout. Plus, the classic scene where Peter descends some stairs and flashes one of his balls (it is covered up my a MST3K globe (I’ve never seen the need for this in any other episode)), and Tom shouts in horror, “Ah! In-coming!” Later, they will make reference to this event, saying that Peter “Hung one out for fun.”

Indeed. That’s true freedom there, baby