Do you like comedy? Of course you do. How about the comedy stylings of a man stranded in space and a pair of wisecracking robots? This Thursday, you can get the full ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000’ treatment live in your local theater.
There are very few live events that I look forward to. I don’t see many concerts these days, and I don’t watch any traditional sports. Most of the big e-sport tourneys, I watch online. It’s just not practical to go to Korea to enjoy a match or two of StarCraft. There’s one thing that’ll get me out of the house for sure, though. That’s Rifftrax Live.
A few times a year, the crew at Rifftrax gets together to do a live event, which they stream to theaters across the country. It’s one hell of a good time. Sitting in a crowd of like-minded nerds makes it that much better. I’ve seen every one so far, and every time I’ve missed jokes because I was laughing so hard.
If you’re not familiar with the comedy team, Riffrax is made up of Bill Corbett, Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy of ‘Mystery Science 3000’ fame. They do the same ‘MST3K’ style riffing over movies. But rather than stick with old movies no one has heard of, they provide commentaries for new movies.
It’s impractical, expensive, and nearly impossible to get the rights to make fun of a new movie live, though. So for their events, we see a return to form. In the past, they’ve riffed on ‘Plan 9 From Outer Space,’ ‘Reefer Madness’ and even a series of short films, public service announcements and toy commercials for Christmas.
This Thursday, the crew is going to be taking on ‘House on Haunted Hill’, starring Vincent Price and directed by William Castle, who once worked as an assistant to Orson Welles. Clearly, Castle went in a different direction when he created a series of gimmicky horror movies.
Along with the main attraction, there will be shorts and likely a bit of music from the guys. Comedian Paul F. Tompkins will be joining the crew on stage for one never-before-seen short as well.
You can pick up tickets – and I recommend getting them in advance – over at Fathom Events. There’s also a trailer that completely fails to capture just how funny Rifftrax actually is.
