The Film Crew Hollywood After Dark
August 2007 Reviewed by: Marc Mickelson Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

The Film Crew is Bill Corbett, Kevin Murphy and Mike Nelson, the creators of Mystery Science Theater 3000, the cult fave that ran on Comedy Central and the Sci-Fi Channel for more than a decade. The plot device of MST3K, as its fans affectionately called it, led to all manner of silliness: a human and a few robots adrift in outer space critiqued dreadful movies and punctuated their commentary with skit comedy. The Film Crew does the same wisecracking in the background of really bad movies, but their professed motivation is more straightforward -- they're simply adding commentary tracks to DVDs. The Film Crew's comedic dissection of Hollywood After Dark is therefore a direct-to-DVD affair -- you won't find it on any cable channel. More releases are planned for later this year, when Corbett, Murphy and Nelson send up Killers from Space, Wild Women of Wongo and Giant of Marathon.

Hollywood After Dark, a.k.a. Walk the Angry Beach, is a 1968 film starring Rue McClanahan, who is best known for her extensive TV work, including the senior-citizen sitcom Golden Girls. In Hollywood After Dark, she's Sandy, a young woman who comes to Hollywood to become an actress but ends up a stripper. She meets Tony, a well-meaning junk dealer who awkwardly tries to woo her. Of course, Tony dies in the end, along with Sandy's dreams of stardom. I am giving nothing away by divulging this much of the plot. The movie is mostly a vehicle for some very dated strip routines. The grotesque characters are so broadly drawn that they have little chance of actually gripping an audience.

Like the films covered on MST3K, Hollywood After Dark is so bad it's good, and the commentary points out the movie's many flaws for big laughs. Take the kitchiness of a bad horror flick, throw in a pack of groan-inducing one-liners and some artful mockery and you have an idea of the humor here. It's crude, goofy and sophisticated all at once.

The video is rough in spots and the sound has dropouts, but both add some B-movie authenticity. The only extra is The Film Crew's "Ode to Lunch," the reading of a satirical poem that you can miss. After watching the movie, you may want to watch certain parts a second time just to see if another viewing illuminates the convoluted plot a little more. It doesn't, but that's part of the fun of watching really bad movies.

Like MST3K, The Film Crew: Hollywood After Dark is an acquired taste. Some people won't be able to sit through 90 minutes of smart-alecky remarks about a very bad movie, and others will find the combination of schlocky movie and rapid-fire ridicule irresistible. Yes, The Film Crew imitates MST3K's shtick, but they are the people responsible for the original, so it's not pale imitation. Watch this DVD and you might be hooked.

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