Best MST3K Episodes to Fall Asleep To

by Andy Ladewski

Welcome o' Tims of the Internet! Many of you don't know this about me, but I have problems sleeping. Since the advent of the streaming TV service I have been experimenting with different television programs and movies to find the perfect ones to fall asleep to. First off let me introduce you to the sleep gradient.

As you can see the sleep gradient shows "Too interesting" on one side and "Too boring" on the other with the sweet spot just right of center. Here is my reasoning. If the program is too interesting you want to stay awake to watch it, completely defeating the purpose of watching to begin with. If the program is too boring you will tune it out and think about all the various things in the real world that keep you awake at night. So the sweet spot is just interesting enough to make you forget your problems, and just boring enough to slowly lull you into a comfortable sleep. Mystery Science Theater 3000 or MST3K was a show in the late 80s and most of the 90s where a guy (Joel or Mike) Watched bad movies with a couple of puppet robots making wiseass remarks all throughout. Because they got some of the worst films in cinema history, its a great program to probe for the perfect falling asleep program! One thing to note, I like the Mike Nelson episodes of MST3K better than the Joel episodes. I haven't watched all the Joel episodes yet and this will most likely be another list. I just watched "Manos: The Hands of Fate" yesterday, It will most likely make the top 5!  

Cinematic Hell: Horrors of Spider Island (1960)

by Hal Astell

Director: Jaime Nolan

Stars: Alex D'Arcy and Barbara Valentin

Buy Horrors of Spider Island on DVD

You may have a picture in your mind of how a 1960 film called Horrors of Spider Island is going to play out, but you'll be wrong. You might be closer to the truth if you mishear the title as Whores of Spider Island but unfortunately not too much closer. Originally a German/Yugoslavian coproduction whose title translates to A Corpse Hangs in the Web, it ran 89 minutes long and contained quite a lot of nudity. Released Stateside in 1962 under the title of It's Hot in Paradise, all that risqué material is supposedly intact as it was an adults only release. Finally in 1967 it was trimmed down into this version, which supposedly runs 77 minutes but by the time it made it to the public domain box sets ended up as a mere 74. And whatever you think it's going to be you're wrong. Trust me. It's so bad that the director apparently took his name off the thing. He was Fritz Böttger but he's credited as Jaime Nolan and he never directed again.