"So, are all these mountains hollow, or are we gonna have to guess which one?"
Kinga Forrester: Speaking of unspeakable pain, your movie today is part western, part monster movie, and all bad.
Film Featured: The Beast of Hollow Mountain.
The Segments:
Prologue- It's painting day on the Satellite of Love.
Segment 1
- Invention exchange time. Jonah invents the Disco Cannon, which instantly turns any room into a disco. Kinga "invents" a hot water cannon, for ships at sea to melt icebergs.note
Segment 2
- Crow and Tom Servo make up their own monster movie ideas. Tom's is a moody arthouse drama, Monster in Search of a Victim. And Crow's is pure middle-of-the-road popcorn fare: Bro-zilla.
Segment 3
- Tom Servo unveils his new line of high fashion clothes, the Style of Hollow Mountain.
Segment 4
- Tom Servo and Crow reenact the Mexican folk dance from the movie, scaring everyone else in the process.
Segment 5
- Jonah and the bots discuss other films that could be improved by having a dinosaur eat a major character out of the blue. Their dinosaur-ified version of My Dinner with Andre might just be the best movie ever.
Tropes featured in the MST3K presentation of The Beast of Hollow Mountain:
- Aside Glance: Invoked in typical fashion when Pancho looks out into the distance, while his son pleads for him to stay:Tom: Kids, am I right?
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Becomes a running gag in the last act: every time a character looks away and exits to the left, it's because they're suddenly distracted by their favorite TV show coming on. "House of Cards!"
- Bait-and-Switch: Crow complains about the eventual reveal that the monster is a Tyrannosaurus rex; the word "beast" in the title implied something hairier, like a yeti or chupacabra.
- Butt-Monkey: During Servo's fashion show, the Mads "loooooove!" all of the models... except Jonah. He's visibly bummed.
- Bystander Effect: "Great help, guys! Thanks for coming by and watching Jimmy single-handedly fight a dinosaur."
- Call-Back:
- "I'll never be... your Beast of Hollow Mountain!"
- "This is where the fish lives!"
- "____ of the Ooooold West!"
- Crow's drawings of Tippy the Turtle and a Pirate.
- Chew Bubblegum: "I came here to kick butt and chew bubblegum. And bubblegum hasn't been invented yet!"
- Comically Missing the Point: Either that or Crow was just winding Tom up for fun.Crow: Wow, Machu Picchu!
Servo: Machu Picchu is in Peru.
Crow: Huh, so they filmed this movie in Peru?
Servo: (angrily trying to lunge at Crow): Would you just-?! Oh! - Conspiracy Theorist: "Look, Jonah, chemtrails! What more evidence do you need? There's no beast of Hollow Mountain. They just think there is because of the barium in the air."
- Continuity Nod: One to the Joel-era theme song.Jonah: I'm turning this movie off!
Tom: You can't, we tried.
Crow: Yeah, we're made of those special parts. - Crack Pairing: "Pancho looks like if Teddy Roosevelt had a kid with Droopy."
- Cruel and Unusual Death: With emphasis on the unusual—Gypsy claims that Enrique is the only character in movie history ever strangled to death by a T. rex.
- Desert Skull: Actually used to decent effect in the movie itself — the story starts with Jimmy and Felipe looking for missing cattle, and the skull in a place it shouldn't be is a bad omen — but still lampshaded.Gypsy: (Delighted) Georgia O'Keeffe's been here!
- Developing Doomed Characters:
- The guys are all quite frustrated that pretty much the entire movie is made up of this, with the titular beast not showing up until partway through the last act. Initially they wonder what's taking the monster so long, then they start to doubt that the monster even exists.
- They even discuss the trope during one of the host segments:
Crow: Jonah, why do monster movies waste so much time with the humans before getting to the sweet monsters?
Jonah: Oh, suspense, plot, character development for increased emotional stakes.
Servo: Haha, very funny Jonah. We're serious here. - Didn't We Use This Joke Already?:Jonah: Has anyone said "Watch out for snakes" yet?
Crow: Yeah, I think we did that.
Jonah: Oh, we should have saved that for now. - Downer Ending: During one host segment, the bots discuss what kind of monster movie they'd like to make. Tom Servo wants to make a moody, dramatic, artistic monster movie. His description of the planned ending is such a downer that it leaves Jonah begging for Movie Sign. (Foreshadowing for Yongary, perhaps?)
- Drinking Game:Jonah: You could start a drinking game for every time you see a horse's butt in this movie.
Servo: What do you call it?
Jonah: I don't know, "Pancho"?
Crow: And then your kids can play the game of "Panchito", which is when they beg you to stop. - Dude, Not Funny!: No one buys that a drunk absentee father mourning his late wife is an appropriate subject for the film's comic relief.
- Eagleland: Jimmy is so gosh-darned American that he hums "The Star-Spangled Banner" to himself whenever he's alone.
- "El Niño" Is Spanish for "The Niño": "Rancho Bonito! That's Spanish for 'Ranch Bonito'!"
- Ensemble Dark Horse: When the beast of the title finally does appear, Jonah and the bots decide that the stampeding cattle make for much better antagonists.
- Establishing Shot: "Establishing Shot: The Motion Picture!"
- Evil Laugh: As Jimmy carries Panchito away in tears, the shot suddenly pans to the titular mountain, and Jonah adds a hammy, gloating laugh.
- Failed a Spot Check: The Beast should have been clearly visible, yet Enrique doesn't notice it until it growls. "My peripheral vision just kicked in."
- Fascinating Eyebrow: Sarita does some dramatic face-acting in this one. "That eyebrow's working overtime!"
- Foreshadowing: During the final segment, Jonah and the 'Bots ruminate on how much better various movies would be if "a giant dinosaur came out of nowhere and ate somebody."
- Freak Out: One of the host segments has Tom and Crow reenacting a folk dance from the movie, wearing strange
Nightmare Fuel-inducing costumes and not speaking at all. Jonah, Kinga and Max get increasingly terrified the longer the dance goes on. When Jonah reunites with Tom and Crow in the theater, Tom claims that it wasn't them dancing. - Global Ignorance: In one shot, Crow notices an old temple up in the mountains and mislabels it as Machu Picchu, much to Tom's annoyance (see "Comically Missing the Point"). This landmark is actually most likely El Tepozteco, an ancient temple located in the town of Tepoztlan, about an hour away from Mexico City.
- Homoerotic Subtext: Done to great effect when Jimmy ambiguously demands that Enrique "unbuckle [his] gun belt" and fight like a man; not only do the guys treat it like a "size contest", but Tom suggests that they might enjoy wrestling so much, they'll forget about fighting over the girl.Jonah: (As Enrique) ...I never realized your eyes were so beautiful.
- Insane Troll Logic: "I told him I wanted him to leave. Why isn't he staying? I guess I just don't get men."
- Insurance Fraud: As soon as Jimmy agrees to hire Pancho (a recovering alcoholic) and Panchito (a seven-year-old) as ranch hands: "That insurance money is as good as mine."
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: During the confrontation of Jimmy and the Beast:Tom: (To the MST3K theme) But the cowboy didn't like him, so he shot him in the faaaace!
Crow: Meta!- Also qualifies as a shout-out to a common mondegreen among fans of the show's early lyrics ("But his bosses didn't like him, so they shot him into space")
- Love Makes You Dumb:Enrique: Sarita. Forgive me. When a man is in love, he is not... not himself.
Crow: He is another, stupider man. - Metaphorically True:Servo: (as Panchito) Papa, I thought you said we were going to the Chuck E. Cheese.
Crow: (as Pancho) It's not Chuck E. Cheese, but there are mice here. - Mickey Mousing:Crow: (As Panchito is being stalked by the dinosaur) "Which way should I go? Do I follow the scary brass music, or the gentle, beckoning flutes?"
- Mighty Whitey: As Jimmy charges up and shoots the dinosaur: "Looks like a job for an American!"
- At one point Jimmy even whistles at Pancho and Panchito to come forward while in the middle of a friendly conversation with them, like he's commanding a dog. This doesn't go unnoticed.Servo: (As Pancho) "Now, granted, I've got problems, but I'm a human being! And in front of my SON?!"
- At one point Jimmy even whistles at Pancho and Panchito to come forward while in the middle of a friendly conversation with them, like he's commanding a dog. This doesn't go unnoticed.
- Misplaced Wildlife: "Judging by the sound effects, they're either in Mexico, or the Congo."
- Mook Chivalry: "This dinosaur is being very patient."
- Mythology Gag: When Jonah—disgusted with Jimmy's actions—attempts to turn off the movie, the Bots remind Jonah he can't do that because, "We're made of those special parts."
- Nobody Poops: Discussed. Part of Jonah's horror at Jimmy riding his horse into the cemetery is that, as he points out, it's an animal with no bowel control whatsoever that could lift its tail right over a grave.
- Not Even Bothering with the Accent: The Mexicans here all speak accented English, except for Enrique:Enrique: Speaking of disappearing...
Crow: (as Enrique) Has anyone seen my accent? - Obviously Evil: When Felipe hires two more ranch hands (who are secretly working for Enrique): "Well, they're clearly evil, but okay."
- Oh, No... Not Again!: When Jimmy notices that all his hired hands have disappeared overnight: "I didn't kill them in my sleep again, did I?"
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The Downer Ending to Servo's dinosaur movie leaves Jonah begging for Movie Sign to come early. And, unlike the last time Movie Sign was triggered early, this time Jonah really means it.
- Padding: "Nice to know after all the intense beast attack action, the movie will still take time to show us a man pensively tying up his horse."
- Punctuated Pounding: During the fight between Jimmy and Enrique:Tom: For the last time: Coldplay. Isn't. That. Bad.
- Rhetorical Question Blunder:Jimmy: If Panchito backs up his father, and I back up Panchito, and you back me up, how can we lose?
Crow: So many ways. - Running Gag:
- They sing a bunch of songs, replacing words with "beast" and "mountain".
- Alternately, variations on "He rode a <adjective> saddle..."
- Wondering when the monster will show up.
- Jimmy is barely literate, and struggles to read anything.
- Every time a character turns to the left and rushes away, it's because they realized their favorite TV show is on.
- Stock riffs:
- Shout-Out:
- "THAT'S MY PURSE, I DON'T KNOW YOU!!"
- "I want my two dollars!"
- "Oh, you know he's going to stumble on James Franco's arm."
- As the characters approach a cliff: "Just keep on driving, Thelma."
- "Body Blow! Body Blow! Uppercut! He's down for the count!"
- "Cheer up, Carlos."
- "No time for love, Dr. Jones!"
- "Same thing we do every night. Try to take over the world!"
- "They hate the tables! Stay away from the tables!!"
- Soundtrack Dissonance: "That's a lot of suspenseful music for two horses and a stick."
- Special Effects Failure: When the beast finally shows up over an hour into the movie, Crow expresses his disappointment over the lack of quality. Also, as noted by Jonah, there are so few shots of Jimmy and the beast at the same time, it's impossible to tell how close together or far apart they are, which rather hurts the tension during the chase scene.
- Surreal Horror: Making up for any lack of horror from the stop-motion dinosaur in a cowboy movie.
- The 'bots dance around the satellite in weird papier-mâché masks and costumes to the weird discordant festival music from the movie. Jonah and the Mads are curious at first, but then when the 'bots keep dancing, not saying anything, just mumbling incoherently...Jonah: Why is this happening, what's going on!? [getting more and more upset] WHAT IS HAPPENING?? WHY WON'T YOU GUYS TALK TO ME?!
Kinga: Tell us, TELL US, I'm going outta my FREAKING SKULL!!!
Max: WHAT HAVE WE DONE TO OFFEND THEE!? [...] WHO MUST WE KILL, TO SLAKE THY ANGER??!
Kinga: MAKE IT STOOOOOOOOOOP!!! - ...Later:Jonah: [back in the theater] What was that all about?
Servo: That wasn't us.
- The 'bots dance around the satellite in weird papier-mâché masks and costumes to the weird discordant festival music from the movie. Jonah and the Mads are curious at first, but then when the 'bots keep dancing, not saying anything, just mumbling incoherently...
- Taking You with Me: Felipe falls into quicksand, and lassos a nearby boulder: "If I'm dying, rock, I'm taking you with me!"
-
Throw It In!: Regarding the scene where Pancho falls and gets dragged behind his horse:Jonah: The amazing thing is, this wasn't even in the script. It just happened, and they let the cameras roll. - Toilet Humor: In addition to the example of Nobody Poops (above), there's the following exchange as Serita and Jimmy hurry out (separately) to Hollow Mountain to search for Panchito:Crow: (as Serita, hurrying toward an old shack) Oh, gotta go, gotta go, gotta go!
Jonah: (as Jimmy, riding up on horseback) Gotta go, gotta go! note
Crow: (as Serita, exiting the shack) Ahhh, don't gotta go! - Too Dumb to Live: Max could be forgiven for drinking from the hot-water hose of Kinga's iceberg-melting Invention the first time. The second time, only a minute or so later, is all on him.
- Under Crank: The film uses sped-up footage of cows walking to simulate a stampede, which the riffers definitely notice:Ranch Hand: Fools! They're running [the cattle] this way!
Crow: Well, not so much running as sped-up walking. But I take your meaning. - Walk on Water: Conversed when Panchito tries to run over the quicksand pit from earlier in the movie:Jonah: Is he expecting to hydroplane over the water?
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Upon first meeting Pancho, as he stumbles out of a bar, completely sauced: "So this is what became of The Most Interesting Man in the World."
