My thoughts on 'MST3K: The RiffTrax Experiments (2026): Sting of Death'

Crow T. Robot, Mike Nelson, and Tom Servo are back, baby!

For a show with a relatively simple premise—a human and two robots watch old, "bad" movies and make fun of them—Mystery Science Theater 3000 has a remarkably complicated broadcast history, perhaps the most convoluted since SCTV. Let's see now. (Deep breath.)

It's baaaaaack!

After beginning as a local show in Minneapolis in 1988, MST3K moved to a national cable network first known as The Comedy Channel and then Comedy Central for seven seasons (1989-1996) before being canceled. It then ran three more seasons (1997-1999) on The Sci-Fi Channel, was canceled again, then lay dormant until a two-season Netflix revival (2017-2018) nearly two decades later. When Netflix was no longer interested in continuing, series creator Joel Hodgson tried to produce and distribute the show independently for one additional season (2022) before running out of money. And now, thanks to a very successful crowdfunding campaign, the series has re-re-re-re-relaunched in 2026 as MST3K: The RiffTrax Experiments.

Along the way, like any long-running sketch comedy show, MST3K has seen numerous writers and performers come and go. Hodgson himself left the show during its fifth season on Comedy Central. Some of the show's alumni have appeared in very MST3K-like spinoffs of their own, including Cinematic Titanic and The Mads are Back. The longest-lasting and most prolific of these, by far, has been RiffTrax, featuring the same lineup as the Sci-Fi Channel version of the show: Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett. RiffTrax launched in 2006 and has steadily produced new material ever since, including numerous episodes that have been shown in movie theaters via Fathom Events. So these guys have been working together fairly steadily in the decades since the Sci-Fi era of the show ended.

The movie that saved MST3K.

For the inaugural episode of MST3K: The RiffTrax Experiments, Nelson and company have chosen Sting of Death (1966), an absurd, low-budget monster movie made in Florida. I used to own this film on a double feature DVD from Something Weird Video, where it was paired with Death Curse of Tartu (1966), but I foolishly sold some of my SWV discs to a used record store over a decade ago. Not sure what I was thinking at the time. I must've really needed the cash.

I have just returned from a theatrical showing of this new MST3K episode, and I will kill the suspense by telling you now that I heartily enjoyed it and would recommend it without reservation to all fans of the series. Sting of Death will be playing again on September 13, so if you're reading this article before then, you still have a chance to catch it on the big screen and should do so. For one thing, the movie itself looks incredible. They found an extremely crisp and colorful print of this film, and the often-garish fashions and decor really pop off the screen, as does the lush Florida scenery. 

The MST3K-specific material—the theme song, the host segments, and the iconic countdown sequence—looks good, too. That crowdfunding campaign left the cast and crew with a generous (by MST standards) budget for sets, props, makeup, etc. This is probably the "fanciest" the show has looked since the ill-fated 1996 spinoff film. But it's not so polished that it's no longer recognizable as the "cowtown puppet show" we've come to love.

Comedically, this episode feels very similar to the Sci-Fi Channel era of the show. When Mike, Tom, and Crow are in the theater, riffing away, it feels like no time has elapsed whatsoever. The movie itself is perfect for what MST3K does: campy, far-fetched, shoddily-made, numbly acted, stubbornly illogical, and extremely of its time. If you threw the year 1966 into a blender and pressed the "FRAPPE" button, Sting of Death is what might emerge. The film has the look and feel of a 1960s Herschell Gordon Lewis cheapie, minus the gore. It's not surprising to learn that Lewis associate William Kerwin wrote the script (under the name Al Dempsey).

The plot centers around Egon (John Vella), a disgruntled lab assistant whose slight facial scarring has somehow made him a societal outcast and laughingstock. From his creepy shed in the Everglades, he plans his jellyfish-based revenge on mankind. We have all the stock characters here: the square-jawed hero (Joe Morrison), the damsel in distress who exists mainly to get abducted (Valerie Hawkins), the dull scientist who provides exposition (Jack Nagle), and a lot of expendable nobodies for the monster to kill. For added fun, Neil Sedaka sings the non-hit "Do the Jellyfish." Just about everybody smokes constantly, the cops are useless, and people who should not be wearing short shorts do so anyway. That's Sting of Death.

As for the riffing, I appreciated that it made little to no effort to be topical or timely. It certainly wasn't political, in case you were worried. It just felt like three friends goofing on a cheesy sci-fi/horror movie. Honestly, if you've taken in any RiffTrax content over the last 20 years or so, you'll know exactly what to expect from Sting of Death. This is comedy comfort food, the cinematic equivalent of tuna noodle casserole.

P.S. The episode is (for the most part) formatted like any other installment of MST3K, except there's only one sketch during the movie. It occurs at the midpoint or "intermission." But are we being shortchanged on host segments this time around? Not hardly! Nearly all this material has been shifted to the end of the program. The credits run forever, so we get two additional host segments and a mail segment as the names scroll by.