Just watched MST3K episode 'Lost Continent'...

Have you ever watched an episode of MST3K where the movie was so dull and boring that it seemed to go on forever? You think the movie is finally over when suddenly there’s another Joel and The Bots interlude and all you can think is “What! There’s another 20 minutes left in this film? You have got to be kidding me!”

I just watched Lost Continent. The movie starts good enough. A rocket is lost during a test flight and a mission is organized to go find it. The squad is led by Cesar Romero, the dad from Leave it to Beaver, a few stereotypical scientists, and the comic relief. Their plane goes down and they find out the rocket is somewhere on top of a mountain. It is here that the movie takes a left turn. Actually, a left turn, into a ditch, off a cliff, and into an abandoned rock quarry where the car explodes on impact. They spend 20 minutes rock climbing. They get to the top of the mountain and spend another 20 minutes wandering around doing nothing. Then they find the rocket and leave. The end. A 20 minute movie stretched out to an hour and a half.

I've seen reviews of Lost Continent, so I was prepared for the rock climbing scene that drags on and on and on and on and on and on… But nobody warned me that everything after the rock climbing is just as boring and just as full of nothing. It’s not like there weren’t opportunities for action. They find the rocket, but it’s surrounded by dinosaurs who, for some reason that wasn’t fully explained, still exist in this dinosaur’s utopian world on top of a mountain. The scene is perfectly setup for our heroes to distract the dinosaurs with a crazy death-defying plan in which everybody risks their life and somehow makes it out alive. But no. They shoot guns, the dinosaurs leave, and they get what they need from the rocket. They could have placed some obstacles to overcome when removing the info from the rocket. Nope. They hop in and 10 seconds later they hop out. No problems at all. Then the comic relief is attacked by a dinosaur. “Finally”, I thought. “Now we’re going to see something!”. Shot of the dinosaur charging, shot of the comic relief screaming, and then cut to the remaining crew heading down the mountain. No shots of the dinosaur slashing, no shots of dismemberment, no shots of the dinosaur enjoying a feast of the soft, warm, internal organs. I was expecting at least a death scene where the others gather around Mr. Comic Relief and try to comfort him. He lifts his head and with his last remaining breath, he says “Tell my airplane… that I loved her… uuuuuuuggggghhhh!”

There are some movies that are so bad, they’re good. Hercules Unchained comes to mind. Then there are some movies that are so incredibly bad, they’re not even good. Manos, Hands of Fate comes to mind. But at least you can enjoy the MST3K version of Manos. I can’t remember any of the riffs from Lost Continent because I was so focused on the nothing happening in the movie. Lost Continent wasn’t just bad, it was wrong. It made me angry. It makes me want to throw a large, heavy object through my TV screen.

I feel a little better now. Thank you.