MST3K Episode #804 - The Deadly Mantis

Talk about a drag. This movie is one of the slowest movies I've ever seen on MST3K. It drags on FOREVER. I wouldn't call this movie one of the worst films on MST3K ever (compared to Manos: Hands of Fate and The Beast of Yucca Flats) but it's definitely at the point of being unwatchable. There's quite a few times when you just want to stand up and leave the room.

Now, the MST3K comedy is great, but it's almost not enough to keep you seated. I actually had to turn this one on and off several times and pick it back up again it was so bad. In this film, NONE of the actors are even worth naming.

The story is so hard to follow also. Mostly because it's just that boring. So The Deadly Mantis is about just what the name implies, a giant prehistoric mantis. The opening credits are the mantis' body suspended in ice at the North Pole. Because of global warming (I guess, it's never directly mentioned) the polar ice caps are melting. As it melts, a giant prehistoric mantis (about 5 or 6 times bigger than a 747) wakes up out of the ice and starts eating people. It starts out at an airbase (in Alaska or Canada!? I don't think it's ever explained...) where it intercepts a plane carrying to American soldiers.

The base goes on alert and finds crashed ship, but no bodies. Inside the ship, they find a giant thorn-like claw. They take it back to the military base for study. They bring the claw to Colonel Parkman, who decides to have it investigated to see what it is. After bringing it before a military council of some sort and they decide to have it sent to a paleontologist, Dr. Ned Jackson.

This is where the movie really begins. So Ned Jackson starts studying the claw, along with his annoying sidekick, photographer Marge Blaine, who apparently is tired of hanging around Jackson because he doesn't ever have any good stories (a stale romance is implied but isn't really admitted). After some study, Jackson believes the claw to be from a pre-historic giant insect and Marge gets excited as she finally gets her story. The two race to the military base to meet up with Col. Parkman.

When they get there, who should attack? The Deadly Mantis, of course! So the mantis attacks and they manage to escape and leave to Washington D.C. where Colonel Parkman and Marge start up a romance that is anything less than completely overt (at one point they're in a car together, kissing when Marge says they should go home and Crow says, "But there's a mantis in my pantis", one of the best MST3K lines ever). Together, they figure out that the mantis is going to try to fly south to it's normal habitat (how it got to the North Pole is anyone's guess in the first place) in South America or Africa. The mantis is then intercepted in Washington and attacked. Fleeing away, it then flies to New York.

Marge, Parkman and Jackson all follow to New York, where someone (the police, the army, normal citizens? Who knows!) traps the mantis in a traffic tunnel. The three go in to try to kill it and somehow, Parkman gets a hold of some gas bombs that he just starts launching at the mantis. After a few well-placed bombs, the mantis dies. After it's dead, Marge starts to take pictures and the mantis' claw starts to move and almost kills Marge. Parkman dives in and saves his woman while Jackson just stands there laughing. When Parkman asks why he's laughing, Jackson says, "Oh, don't worry, he's dead. Insect's bodies tend to still move even after they die." And that's pretty much the end of the movie.

Wow, I can't believe I actually described what happened. I can't believe I actually remembered. I must say I had to read a little bit more to jog my memory about this film because I'm telling you, it was awful.

(from left to right, Ned Jackson, Marge Blaine, Colonel Parkman)