MST3K Escape 2000 - Review

Episode 705, Escape 2000. Not to be confused with the Brian Trenchard-Smith film Turkey Shoot, which is also known as Escape 2000. This is the 1983 Italian film Fuga dal Bronx, which is Enzo G. Castellari's followup to the previous year's 1990:The Bronx Warriors.

Escape 2000 follows the misadventures of Trash (Mark Gregory reprising his Bronx Warriors 1 role), as he attempts to stop Henry Silva and his army of men wearing ineffective fireproof suits from disinfestating the Bronx in order to build a better, kind of futuristic looking Bronx. "Disinfestate" apparently just means "to set people on fire", so clearly native Bronxians like Trash want no part of it. Joining Trash on this epic anti-Silva crusade is the partially insane badass Flank (or Stroke, or something) and his androgynous, prepubescent offspring Junior. (There's also some weird Jerry Lewis/Nosferatu lady with them for a while as well, I didn't catch her name though. She mostly just yells.)

As a big fan of bad post-apocalyptic films of the 1980s, this is one of my favorite episodes. Partly because these types of movies are a blast on their own, but the hilarious onslaught of riffage just adds to it. The guys are just scatting and bebopping allover this one. It does start off a tiny bit slow, but by the end the jokes are just relentless. Escape 2000 also features one of the all-time great characters ever in a movie on the show in Toblerone. Played by Antonio Sabato of all people, Toblerone is so incredibly over the top that Mike, Tom and Crow cheer whenever he makes an appearance. I haven't them this happy about a character since Kline in The Sinister Urge. I recommend this one to any fans of Italian schlock and the music of Francesco De Masi.

Now seriously guys, leave the Bronx.