The Final Sacrifice

Never was there a better example of a pig's ear being transmuted into a silk purse than this episode of MST3K. The incredible awfulness of "Final Sacrifice" became an enjoyable classic through the machinery set up by comedian Joel Hodgson, and carried on by his successors. Now, nobody expects a student film to be any good, so maybe this movie was an easy target, but as a result director/writer Greidanus has seen his work give people a good laugh and has achieved a measure of immortality, which is nothing to be sneezed at. I'm going to throw a bone to one member of the "Final" crew: I think the photography is pretty good for a student production. Cinematographer Jim Stacy actually brought off some interesting and difficult shots, though he doesn't seem to have followed this as a career.

The Final Sacrifice was clearly just sitting there, ripe to be mocked. It is a very low-budget, unknown Canadian stinker of a movie, full of unknown cast members and some terrible choice of music for the soundtrack and therefore was perfect for a good old MST3K shaming. Mike and the 'bots really do their job! This episode is packed with very memorable riffs, especially the constant use of the word "Rowsdower", and even Tom Servo's great little "Rowsdower, Rowsdower, bibbidy bobbedy Bowsdower" song, which was side-splittingly hilarious. The characters are messy and geeky, the dialogue (if any) is as cheesy as you can get, and the acting is pretty dreadful; all the elements are present for an absolutely classic MST3K episode. The segments are also very hilarious, as the 'bots loot the Satelitte of Love during a power outage, Pearl plans to take over the world one person at a time, starting with Todd Gunderson and Tom Servo, Servo tries to do a hilarious tribute to Canada, but Mike and Crow spoil it, everyone but Mike gets Bad Hockey Hair, as a result of being immune to Bad Hockey Hair, Mike comes down with Grizzly Old Prospector Syndrome and the 'bots start a non-threatening, muffin based cult. Pearl's plan has moved onto victim number two.

This episode is one of my honorable mentions, this is some pitiful attempt at making a fantasy film which is rather absent from this film much like its budget, let alone the story makes little sense. In a way the film is true to its title because that's exactly what it does with your time.

But this episode is really funny, really like how the MST crew are making some jokes about Canada but mainly the name of one of the main protagonists which I'll admit has to be the oddest name I've ever heard that last name that sounds like someone just crunched a bunch of random words together. There are a lot of memorable riffs here, though two favorite moments are a scene where the protagonist Zap is being chased on a steep hill by the hooded cultists and the MST crew, they all huff and puff, I'll admit hearing that makes me tired. But another is Crow trying to pitch the film as a TV series to Mike which cracks me up, I could think of better films to make into a TV series.

However, the highlight of the episode was hearing the MST crew sing "The Canada Song" it is just fraking hilarious this is one of my favorite songs from the crew and it's up there in my book with the "Blame Canada" song from "South Park". It was also hilarious seeing Tom in a Mounty outfit and get really carried away with the song.

Rating: 4 stars

"The Final Sacrifice" makes me ashamed to be Canadian and more specifically ashamed to be Albertan. I've always thought MST3k had a great feel of improvisation about it and this feel is so strong here that I doubt all of the lines here were written before the show was recorded.

This movie, from the acclaimed director of numerous 'making of' featurettes, Greidanus, the descendant of many great anuses is so hilariously incompetent in every manner imaginable that it's actually boring at times. Yes, boring. You actually feel bored if the bots shut up for a short while. It's THAT bad.

The riffs here are classic. Can't deny that. They range from clever jokes about Alberta (which worked well for this Albertan) to hilariously mean-spirited remarks about the film.

Classic MST3k.

10/10