Our Top Ten “Mystery Science Theater 3000” Episodes Of All Time

I was introduced to “Mystery Science Theater 3000” back in the nineties when it was on Comedy Central. It was a show where you’d sit down to watch a guy and two robots mock a really bad movie. You weren’t just the spectator, but you got to laugh along with them, and could even mock along with them. It lasted ten years, and it still hasn’t quite worn its welcome with fans. We followed the show from Comedy Central in America to Syfy, and mourned its end. We still mourn its end. At last, we present to you our definitive list of “Our Top Ten Mystery Science Theater 3000” episodes of all time. These episodes can be purchased from Shout! Factory, or if not available, can be found on Youtube and other online video sites.

Feel free to list your own in the comments! Without further ado.

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Creature Crypt, Week 1: “The Last Halloween” Aliens; Gizmo

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“Creature Crypt” is a four part weekly column that spotlights two creatures from our childhood that made us in to rabid horror fans. These are the creatures that scared us, wowed us, made us cry, and made us hope they weren’t under our bed.

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Halloween (1978) (35th Anniversary Edition) [Blu-ray]

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Compared to other John Carpenter films, “Halloween” demonstrates an amazing amount of restraint for the director. Which is not to say the chaotic elements of “The Thing” and “Assault on Precinct 13” aren’t amazing, but Carpenter displays a surprising competence for pulling back as he does with unleashing hell on a slew of characters. Like many of Carpenter’s films, “Halloween” is also relegated to a limited setting, where the slasher tropes for hundreds of other slasher films would be built. There’s a small town, a curse, a crime that resonates within the community, and a virginal final girl who would stand off against the monster.

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Saturday the 14th (2013)

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What does your average run of the mill slasher do on his time off? Eventually your hockey masked slasher has to unwind and recharge right? Kristjan Lyngmo’s short animated film is rather genius, in that it not only features a hockey masked slasher, but one of a lineage of hockey masked slashers who divides his time between murdering hapless campers and coming home to deal with everyday problems.

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The Walking Dead: The Oath [Web Series]

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 It’s a small world, after all! Set immediately after a zombie siege on a survivor camp, Karina and Paul flee from a horde of the undead. In a scenario similar to the episode “Wildfire” Karina and Paul decide to escape the clutches of the dead. Little does Karina know that her only surviving companion Paul is bleeding to death from a mortal wound during combat. Ashley Bell and Wyatt Russell give solid and compelling performances as the pair of survivors sticking to their own oaths that could guarantee them survival. They both want something different and have varying outlooks on the new world ahead of them. Karina is hopeless and lingering on the edge of insanity, especially when she discovers Paul is bleeding badly.

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Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)

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It’s Jason vs. the eighties version of Carrie White. Because… why the hell not, right? At this point the Paramount series had just about run out of ideas for characters. Tommy Jarvis imprisoned Jason in his underwater chamber doomed to float for all eternity, and there was really nowhere left to go from here. It’s almost like the ending of “H20.” Laurie Strode chopped Michael’s head off. The end! But is it? Yeah, it is. Oh really? No. No it’s not. Aw hell, let’s squeeze another sequel out of our corn holes! I need a new Porsche!

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Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark [Paperback]

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“The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out. The worms play pinochle on your snout.”

When I was in fourth grade, my school had their yearly book fair. It was a time where kids could go to a large class room where Scholastic Books would litter the entire room with their merchandise for prices ranging anywhere from 25 cents to ten dollars. Of course when I spotted “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,” I snatched it up and re-read it at least five times. Which is saying something for a kid who, at that age, took every possible excuse to not read. Alvin Schwartz’s book is one of the first introductions to horror and urban folklore. And judging by the many other nineties kids, Mr. Schwartz’s book was a source of horrific inspiration for them, as well.

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Dead Before Dawn 3D (2012)

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Watching “Dead Before Dawn” try to be funny is like going in to a third rate haunted house in the sticks on Halloween. It’s nice you’re trying really hard, but you really aren’t doing what you intend to. “Dead Before Dawn” tries to be many things, and one of them is a comedy. While it did elicit genuine laughs from me sporadically it manages to miss more than it hits. In fact by the end, the joke went on almost way too long. I was pretty relieved it ended or else I was afraid I’d begin to hate it.

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