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MST3K 703 - Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell

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“ This movie is like playing Doom when there's no monsters or opponents. ”
- Mike


The Movie[]

Main article: Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell (film)
Deathstalker

Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell

Synopsis[]

John Allen Nelson plays Deathstalker, a medieval adventurer who meets a princess. She dies, then he meets her identical sister. They have to find a stone and save all creation from the villain.[1]

The Episode[]

Host Segments[]

Crowhair

Crow's new hair

Prologue: Mike introduces Tom and the Satellite of Love as we wait for Crow to show up. Crow has a new lease on life as he has traded in his net for a toupee.

Segment One: Dr. Forrester is accosted by his mother who has a parasite and is begging for attention. The robots egg him on by pretending to work for a fast-food burger joint.

Segment Two: The Bots throw a Renaissance Fest for Mike and fleece him for all he's got. Mike loves every second of it because he had never been to one on Earth.

Segment Three: Mike comes back for more, but Tom and Crow have lost interest. They do humor him a little, but in the end they all try to go and pet the dead camel.

Deathstalker2

Pearl is sick

Segment Four: Dr. F goes to the store to get Mother some Robitussin and she is in need of entertainment. Crow/Art happens to be walking by the view screen when he is nabbed to read Love's Sweet Throbbing Gondola.

Segment Five: Mike reads a letter and Tom eventually succeeds at hammering out a new Great Ring of Power, a la Lord of the Rings. We jump cut to Dr. F walking a glass of tainted milk out to mother (in homage to a famous scene from Suspicion). At the last second, Clay turns on himself and chugs the beverage himself.

Stinger: Trashy Chick's mother saying, "Potatoes are what we eat!"

Obscure References[]

  • "These two? The Merchant and Ivory of Mexico."
A reference to Merchant Ivory Productions, a film production company well-known for its sophisticated British period films.
  • "Hey, can we jam a lime wedge in his mouth?"
The director's last name is the same as Corona, a Mexican brand of beer often served with a lime wedge stuck in the neck of the bottle.
  • "Looks like they're shooting a Men Without Hats video."
The sequence with peasants running around at the festival resembles the music video for the song "The Safety Dance" by the band Men Without Hats.
  • "So... Michael McDonald is fighting the guy from Loverboy!"
Michael McDonald is an American singer who was the front man for The Doobie Brothers during the late 1970s, when he had thick hair and a beard. The Canadian rock band Loverboy is best known for their 1981 hit "Working for the Weekend" and for their long hair. Later, during the fight, Servo sings lines from the Doobies hit "Takin' It to the Streets" whenever 'Michael McDonald' appears on screen. At the end, Mike cuts off Servo as he launches into "What a Fool Believes".
  • "Go Blaze!"
A reference to Blaze, one of the "Gladiators" from American Gladiators, a TV show where contestants compete against bodybuilders in a series of events. The practice fight in the film resembles the show's "Joust" event.
  • "A Power Rangers coin, everyone!"
A reference to Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, specifically the first three seasons, where the heroes' powers are derived from special coins infused with mystic energy.
  • "Andy Travis, hero!"
Andy Travis is the southern, feathered-haired radio station programming director on the original run of the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati.
  • "Why does he have Björn Borg trussed to the wall?"
Björn Borg is a former world tennis champion from Sweden, with long, blond hair.
  • "So Douglas Brackman rules their kingdom...?"
Douglas Brackman Jr. (played by Alan Rachins) is one of the attorneys on the TV drama L.A. Law. He is bald, with short dark hair on the side of his head.
  • "We're the knights of the round table..."
Opening lyrics to the "Knights of the Round Table" song from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
  • "Lodac, are you talking to the toilet again?"
Lodac was the villain played by Basil Rathbone in The Magic Sword (from Episode #411).
  • "Nick and Nora Charles!"
The Charleses are an erudite husband-and-wife detective team created by Dashiell Hammett, portrayed by William Powell and Myrna Loy in The Thin Man movie series.
  • "O-E-O, yo-oh!"
Castle guards are riffed with a rendition of song known as "March of the Winkies" from the movie The Wizard of Oz.
  • "I'm going to read every Crankshaft ever published!"
Crankshaft is a serial comic strip that debuted in 1987 about a curmudgeonly school bus driver of the same name.
  • "Hey...from Denver?! I did Superstar with this guy!"
Mike pretends to recognize a new character, claiming they both were in a production of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar.
  • "They made a saddle out of Grover!"
A saddle with shaggy fur is compared to blue-furred Muppet monster character Grover from the children's television program Sesame Street.
  • "We didn't get the radon test done."
Creeping fog is riffed as the consequence of ignoring the threat of radon gas seeping into a home, though radon is colorless.
  • "The fog cruises in on little cat feet!"
A pastiche of the opening line of Carl Sandburg's poem "Fog" from Chicago Poems - "The fog comes on little cat feet".
  • "I should be playing canasta with Saruman!", "I've got to tell Radagast, he won't believe it!", etc.
References to the various wizards from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
  • "Jerry, no! Too soon!"
An attacking specter with wild gray hair and a beard resembles Jerry Garcia, the late frontman for American rock band The Grateful Dead who passed away in August of 1995.
  • "A couple of falderals!"
Riff on lyrics of the lighthearted song "The Happy Wanderer".
  • "Ava Gardner!"
Princess Elezina somewhat resembles the late actress Ava Gardner.
  • "She got it from a man who said 'Brandy ... my love and my lady is the sea'"
  • "A port on a western bay that serves a hundred ships a day..."
Lines from the song "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" by Looking Glass.
  • "Conquistador, your stallion stands!"
The peppy strings of the soundtrack prompt a quote from the Procol Harum song "Conquistador".
  • "He's Hasselhoffing it big-time!"
Deathstalker is sucking in his gut in the same way that David Hasselhoff often did when appearing shirtless on on the TV adventure series Baywatch. John Allen Nelson was later a recurring performer on Baywatch.
  • "Answer unclear, ask again later."
A misquote of one of the twenty stock answers on a Magic 8-Ball toy.
  • "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine...!"
The chorus to "This Little Light of Mine", a children's gospel song (and church camp sing-along standard).
  • "Clint Howard in - The Bruce Springsteen Story."
A scruffy character bears a resemblance to both actor Clint Howard and American musical icon Bruce Springsteen.
  • "My name is Prince and I'm funky."
Quote from the song "My Name is Prince" as Troxartes coyly reveals his masked face. In the music video for the song, pop star Prince appears in a costume that obscures his face.
  • "This movie is like playing DOOM when there's no monsters or opponents."
Mike riffs shots of empty castle passageways as similar to the video game DOOM, which allows the player to roam levels without fear after enemies have been killed.
  • "I'll mail you back your Foreigner tapes."
Marinda and Deathstalker parting is riffed as a romantic breakup, whereupon each party agrees to return the other's possessions, in this case a collection of cassette tapes by the rock group Foreigner.
  • "I've seen her dancing by a pool with Spuds MacKenzie."
Spuds MacKenzie was the dog mascot for Bud Light beer during the 1980s. He was often depicted partying with scantily-clad and fashionably-coiffed young women.
  • "It's the Judean People's Front! Or the People's Front of Judea..."
A reference to the in-fighting revolutionary groups in Monty Python's Life of Brian.
  • "Our long national nightmare is over."
U.S. President Gerald Ford's words upon pardoning former president Richard Nixon.
  • "Get to the choppers!"
A play on Arnold Schwarzenegger's delivery of the line "Get to the choppa!" ("choppa" meaning helicopter) from the 1987 action movie Predator.
  • "Is my Aunt Minnie in there?"
Reference to a scene from the Marx Brothers film A Night at the Opera, wherein people are continually knocking and entering an increasingly crowded room, including one woman who says this line.
  • "I gotta start the smoke, stir the sauce -- all the time watching the helicopter."
Reference to Henry's narration in the "paranoia" sequence near the end of the mafia film Goodfellas.
  • "They're ruining Andy Capp's pigeon cages!"
Deathstalker and Troxartes break a wooden pen that resembles a pigeon cage. Andy Capp is a British comic strip whose titular character enjoys pigeon racing.
  • "They're playing the chord from A Day in the Life."
The soundtrack's long sustained note is compared to the similar ending of the song "A Day in the Life" by The Beatles.
  • "He looks like Sam the American Eagle."
Sam the Eagle is a stern, heavy-browed and smooth-headed Muppet character.
  • "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."
This line is said at the end of 1974 mystery film Chinatown after a character witnesses another character's murder.
  • "Have to say, she was all-righta!"
A reference to the long-running slogan of Ore-Ida potato-based frozen food company - "Ore-Ida, it's all-righta!".
  • "Tron!"
The special effect of Troxartes' body disappearing resembles the digitizing and uploading of humans into the ENCOM gaming grid in the 1982 science-fiction film Tron.
  • "Getting all Keith Emerson-y on us."
The soundtrack is similar to synthesizer work of Keith Emerson from the prog rock trio Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
  • "You can dance if you want to..."
The beat of the synth-heavy ending credits music is similar to the pop song "Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats (see above).
  • "Is this side two of Terrapin Station?"
Mike compares the quirky, synth-heavy ending credits music to Terrapin Station (notably the song "Terrapin 1") by the Grateful Dead.

Callbacks[]

Behind the Scenes[]

MST3K cast[]

Notes[]

  • Crow's net is referred to sometimes in the series as a Lacrosse helmet, when it is in actuality, a Canadian Cooper XL7 fg Hockey Faceguard.
  • Note that Crow and Tom’s name tags say "Mary Jo" and "Paul."
  • The background music in Deep 13 when Crow reads to Pearl is the opening choir music from Days of Our Years in The Amazing Transparent Man.
  • This is the favorite episode of Ballyhoo Motion Pictures founder Daniel Griffith. When Shout! Factory acquired the rights to release it on DVD, it was his intent to produce an epic documentary on the film. However, he had to scale back his plans when it proved that Thom Christopher was the only person attached to the film who was willing to take part.[2]
  • The Love's Sweet Throbbing Gondola prop is made from a copy of "Tiger's Eye" by Karen Robards.

Goofs[]

  • At several times in the theater Crow's silhouette doesn't sync to his dialogue.


Video releases[]

MST3K Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell (DVD)

MST3K DVD Cover

References[]

  1. ↑ Deathstalker III. CultCelebrities.com. Retrieved on April 29, 2019.
  2. ↑ Behind the Scream: Daniel Griffith on Ballyhoo Motion Pictures


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