Stage Review: OMG! It’s a Sci-Fi Shpider!

Force of Nature Productions mocks bad movies and the execs who make them

Taking aim at corporate executives, product placement, and bad sci-fi movies, Force of Nature Productions scores easy laughs by hitting easy targets, and that’s not meant as a backhand compliment: their latest effort is a double bill about a fictional network churning out bad movies by the boatload, and with jokes flying fast as machine gun bullets, they score more bull’s eyes than an Olympic marksman trying to prove pinpoint accuracy.

Currently at the Brickhouse Theatre in North Hollywood, Shpider! and The SyFi Channel Focus Group are are separately ticked productions linked by the titular network. The first is a full-length play about the making of a ridiculously awful movie featuring a shark bitten by a radioactive spider; the latter is an anthology of short plays based on pitches heard in the the first play. Although each one works as a stand-alone, their cumulative impact makes them worth seeing together. Both depict deliberately bad productions to humorous effect, so being a fan of sci-fi schlock is certainly helpful but not absolutely necessary.

Stage Review: Shpider!

Written and directed by Matt Ritchey (Romeo and Juliet in Hell), Shpider! depicts desperate execs at the shlocky SyFi Channel attempting to create a cheap movie by firing cast and crew and doing everything on their own – from writing to acting to special effects – with predictably dire results.

At first, the targeting of bad movie clichés is merely chuckle-inducing, but the comedy improves as it intersperses scenes from the movie with the behind-the-scenes efforts of the execs. Budget overruns necessitate uber-cheap special effects. Attempts to achieve DEI in the script either backfire or create supporting character subplots awkwardly shoe-horned in. And last-minute rewrites result in clunky dialogue and sudden shifts in tone that befuddle the already incompetent performers.

Eventually, the absurdity builds until it hits that magical critical mass where everything becomes funny no matter how silly it is. And you have to give the play credit for making its low-budget production values part of the story, particularly the deliberately silly shpider costume – which becomes part of the commentary on what a bad job the execs are doing.

Stage Review: SyFi Channel Focus Group

Happy Deathknight. Photo: Carlos R. Hernandez Photography

Romero & Juliet. Photo: Carlos R. Hernandez Photography

Scenes from the SyFi Channel Focus Group: Happy DeathKnight and Romero and Juliet

Before settling on a mutant shark, the execs in Shpider! throw out several other ideas: “Happy DeathKnight,” “Romero and Juliet,” “Waco Bakeoff,” etc. A scene from each of these rejected pitches is depicted in The SyFi Channel Focus Group, which invites the audience to weigh in with their opinions. The running joke is that feedback is not solicited about the shows themselves but rather about how to best highlight MetaboLYTE, the breakfast energy drink that makes product placement appearances in all of them (and in Shpider!). The focus group moderator is particularly interested in flavors that would compliment the network’s seasonal programming (pumpkin-mango for Thanksgiving, perhaps?).

As with most anthologies, not every episode is a winner, and sometimes cheesy premises sound funnier than the actual results, but as with Shpider!, the cumulative impact of the silliness grows and grows until just about everything seems laugh-out-loud funny. Once again, we’re seeing deliberately bad productions that run the risk of becoming the thing they intend to spoof, but the low-budget effects (e.g., a slow-motion bullet depicted by having an actor carry it across the stage on a stick) are truly hilarious.

Shpider! and SyFi Channel Focus Group Review: Conclusion

As longtime fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000, we enjoy seeing cheesy movies lampooned, but the double bill of Shpider! and The SyFi Channel Focus Group offers a little more than that. The corporate machinations may be exaggerated, but they are not unreal. The guy playing the minority character wants to be more than comic relief, so his character gets his own subplot shoe-horned into the script. The women object to the male execs sexually objectifying the female characters, but when the women execs sexualize them, it’s empowering. And for all the desperation about creating a hit movie, ultimately the real goal is to sell the sponsor’s product.

This is best personified in the SyFi top executive portrayed by Sebastian Muñoz in both productions. On the one hand, the guy is a walking cartoon characterization of an obnoxious corporate boss; on the other, he feels completely authentic (as Mrs. Hollywood Gothique said of the performance on the way home, “He must have worked for someone like that”). That little bit of authenticity anchors the spoofery in at least a semblance of reality, making the silly “onscreen” shenanigans even funnier. If you enjoy seeing bad movies raked over the coals, Shpider! and The SyFi Channel Focus Group turn up the heat with a dose of corporate satire that really burns.

Shpider! and SyFi Channel Focus Group Trailer & Photos