35 years ago, The Final Sacrifice was released in Canada. 27 years ago, Mystery Science Theater 3000 made the film widely known to Americans. This week, it’s being reviewed at B-Movie Enema.

Hmm… One of those things is not like the others in terms of significance.

If I may, I’m going to pull the curtain back on the behind-the-scenes business of this review. Listen, I covered Space Mutiny at some point in the past. I had to dance around carefully to not make too many jokes similar to those in that classic episode of MST3K. I need to be careful here too, but there is one thing I wanted to mention because it’s kind of perfect. While this article is being released on March 28, I am writing this article on Super Bowl weekend.

Now, I want you all to know that I am a super cool jock. I have EXTENSIVE knowledge about the Super Bowl. One of those two previous sentences is an exaggeration, the other most definitely is not. The fact that MST3K makes constant reference to former All-Pro Dolphins Running Back Larry Csonka as the character Troy’s father is fucking amazing. And, yes, it is a perfect joke. The guy looks just like Csonka did after his football career and during his Miller Lite commercial era.

But I need to try to back off as much as possible on the MST3K jokes in this movie. Let’s do something MST3K doesn’t do, and get into some of the background of The Final Sacrifice. This was originally dreamt up by director, writer, and editor Tjardus Greidanus when he was still in film school at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. Greidanus basically completed this film with school equipment and about $1500 CAD. The script was also co-written (while still uncredited) by co-stars Christian Malcolm, a classmate of Greidanus who also played the aforementioned Troy, and Bruce J. Mitchell, the man, the myth, the legend himself – Zap Rowsdower. I suspect Greidanus allowed Malcolm and Mitchell to adjust their own dialog since the entire movie rests on their characters and the interaction they have with one another.

Since The Final Sacrifice, Christian Malcolm had bit parts in other shows and movies, including appearing in the highly rated HBO series Band of Brothers. 1990 was all Bruce J. Mitchell had in film and TV. Aside from appearing in this movie, he also had a part in a season 4 episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater. Both were probably more often seen in stage productions while Mitchell also worked as a musician here and there. Sadly, Mitchell passed away in 2018 at the age of 73.

On the other hand, Tjardus Greidanus went on to do a lot of different stuff. He mostly worked on what would be more along the lines of documentaries or special interest types of films and shorts. For the most part, he did a lot of “making of” shorts for movies. He specifically made several for the films of director Michael Mann. However, he did episodes of HBO’s First Look series that often gave behind-the-scenes looks at films that were heading to theaters in the coming weeks or months. In 2013, he made a film called A New York Heartbeat in which he cast a relative newcomer and soon-to-be Lois Lane, Rachel Brosnahan.

Maybe the most interesting direction his career took was as a strong proponent of vaccines. He’s made at least three documentaries about the creation of the Polio vaccine, something many believe is the greatest medical achievement of the last 100 years, if not ever. So, if you think his appreciation for the Polio vaccine meant he had a very firm side to take when COVID-19 came along, you’d be right. In 2022, he made the documentary Virulent: The Vaccine War which shone a light on the anti-vax movement in America and how a strange and often confused intersection of beliefs of personal freedom and opposition to anything seen as “unnatural” often led to vaccine hesitancy and, worse, conspiracy theory rose and caught a great deal of fire when the COVID vaccines were rolling out. Considering it’s his lowest community-reviewed documentary on IMDb, I’m going to guess it got review bombed by anti-vax nuts.

Before we dive into The Final Sacrifice, I do need to talk about one thing as it pertains to Mystery Science Theater 3000. You may notice that I’ve either written reviews of several movies that were made famous to viewers in the 90s or I’ve hosted some of these movies on B-Movie Enema: The Series over the years. There’s more than the obvious reason that I’m paying some appreciation to that series I love when it comes to why I select movies made far more famous by MST3K than anything else.

You see, when a movie is shown on MST3K, most of the time, viewers aren’t seeing the full films with the riffing done over the top of that. MST3K occupied a two-hour time slot when it aired on TV, regardless if it was Comedy Central or SciFi Channel. When you remove the time needed for commercials, you are usually left with somewhere around 90-95 minutes for MST3K to operate within. There were several host segments, and there were full-blown opening and ending credits consistent with the lengths expected for television shows of the era. That usually means the films had to be trimmed down to about 80 or so minutes in total. Maybe if it was in the earlier era when they had about 95 minutes, it would be trimmed to about 85 minutes. That means entire scenes or segments were excised from the films they riffed. Most of the time, what was cut was mostly inconsequential, but sometimes it was a major thing that happened in the plot of the movie.

This was specifically the case with the movie The Sidehackers. The writers (who were often also the exact same people seen on screen during episodes) were astonished when they discovered this biker exploitation film featured a brutal rape and murder of the lead character’s fiance at the hands of the villains the hero had just befriended. The brutality and subject matter unnerved the cast and crew and the entire scene of the character being killed was obviously excised from the broadcast and it required Trace Beaulieu, as Crow, to quickly state that the guy’s girlfriend was killed so there could be sense made to why the lead was now on a revenge arc.

Now, ALL of the previous three paragraphs were written to say that The Final Sacrifice is only 78 minutes in length. That leads me to wonder if what they aired WAS the entirety of the film. It also lends a little credence to a joke they had when riffing during the movie’s closing credits that may also be more than just a joke. I’ll circle back around to that at the end of the review. So, now, without any further delay, let’s meet Troy, Rowsdower, and the evil leader of the Ziox cult, Satoris.

The movie opens in the past, seven years ago, to be exact. Satoris, played deliciously over-the-top evil by Shane Marceau, is with one of his cult members in the woods of Alberta. The cult member appears to be new as his branding with the Ziox symbol is freshly healing on his arm. Elsewhere, several other members of the cult are chasing a mustachioed man through the trees. Apparently, the shotgun being loaded by the new cult member is for when the cult members in the woods chase the guy to where Satoris is waiting with that new guy. A gunshot is heard indicating the man being chased has been killed.

We now transition to the present where teenager Troy McGreggor, the son of the man who was hunted in the cold (literally cold) open, is visiting his father’s grave. When Troy returns home, he goes into the attic where he finds some old family stuff being kept by his Aunt Betty, his father Thomas’ sister. Troy is uniquely interested in trying to find out why his father was killed. He’s also trying to figure out what happened to the bonus monies from when his father played in Super Bowls VI, VII, and VIII.

Okay, seriously, that is the last time I bring up a joke from MST3K’s episode.

Troy finds all his father’s stuff regarding this Ziox civilization. It’s not explicitly said in these early scenes, but Thomas McGreggor was an archaeologist. The Ziox was an ancient, but advanced, civilization in what is now the Alberta wilderness. It’s basically like another kind of Atlantean-like civilization, but one where everyone is wearing denim on denim. The cult that killed Thomas worships the Ziox and also seeks to find the ruins to gain power from it and so on and so forth. I’m guessing there are diamonds there or gold too. Seems like that’s always part of these lost civilizations that someone would want to find.

And maybe brand new jean jackets.

Among the stuff that was kept in a trunk in his aunt’s attic was a letter to someone named Mike Pipper. Thomas explains to his partner Mike that he had a close run-in with the cult and has destroyed all but one copy of the stuff he found. Troy is a studious type and attempts to locate the phone number of Mike Pipper but there is no information the operator could provide. So, he immediately gives up and decides to never again search for clues as to what his father was killed for.

Nah… I’m fuckin’ with ya. Troy is determined to solve the mystery around his father’s death and figure out more about the Ziox. He just needs to find Mike Pipper and, I suppose, tell his Aunt Betty to stay out of his way. She’s surprised, and mildly upset, that Troy found the trunk in the attic of his father’s belongings. She is one of these types who thinks there’s no point in grieving the past. It’s why she keeps Thomas’ stuff hidden from Troy, Well, also, maybe, with one more rewrite, she is kind of like Luke’s Uncle Owen in A New Hope. She might be fearful that Troy will be too much like his father and end up getting himself gunned down by the same cult.

I dunno, in all the times I watched this episode on MST3K, I always assumed that Aunt Betty was keeping his father’s stuff away because she was aware of why he was killed. It’s never exactly stated why, other than she’s a “stiff upper lip” type that she wanted Troy to forget about his father and not pursue the same things Thomas did that led to his death. Anyway, I guess I have to either accept the stuff on screen or go with my headcanon because we never see Aunt Betty again in this movie.

The next day, the cult already knows about Troy’s existence because they go to his house to get his father’s stuff. I guess it took about seven years for the cult to discover where Thomas McGreggor lived. And… I gotta be honest here… It’s not like Troy, a little pipsqueak that looks like an even less manly version of a young Ben Shapiro, is gonna be much of a deterrent to his father’s materials on Ziox.

Also, remember that I said that Christian Malcolm, playing Troy, was a classmate of director Tjardus Greidanus in college and this was made as a student film. Either Christian Malcolm was a very young college student, looked very young, or perfectly played this character very young. Everything about him screams 14-year-old. Also, he asked Aunt Betty about his father as if he never really knew him. That means he is intended to be quite young.

I will give this movie credit for this shot for sure because I have always liked it, and whoever came up with the idea to do this shot was onto something.

Satoris and his goon squad invade Troy’s home looking for the map to find the ruins of the Ziox civilization. It’s really the only thing the cult wants. I like that Satoris has this unnaturally low voice. It’s obvious that Shane Marceau’s audio was edited to be slowed down and looped back into the movie, but it does work for the villain. It also adds to his gleefully evil voice and demeanor as Satoris.

Troy is able to escape with the map and outruns a goon on his bike. This eventually leads Troy into the orbit of this movie’s hero… no, fuck it, he’s the Greatest Canadian Hero. Oh yeah, I’m talking about Zap Rowsdower.

Rowsdower is a drifter. Think back to the 2000 X-Men movie. Remember when Anna Paquin’s Rogue ran away from home after she nearly killed her boyfriend when he kissed her and her mutant gene came to life? She finds Wolverine who clearly lives out of his truck. Well, they must have gotten the idea from The Final Sacrifice and Zap Rowsdower. I guess that makes Rowsdower the Canadian Wolver… wait. Never mind that.

Just… my point is that Zap Rowsdower is a drifter and we don’t know why he’s a drifter yet.

He discovers Troy in the back of his truck which is how Troy eventually slipped the entire cult chasing him. Rowsdower was driving by and Troy managed to grab on and hop into the back. Now, Rowsdower doesn’t exactly dislike Troy, but as they make their way into town, considering this is the middle of nowhere in Alberta Canada, I’m going to guess the name of this town is something like Moose Guts or something, Rowsdower calls the cops to get rid of Troy. As he calls the cops, he sees Troy try to take off with the truck because the cult is closing in hot on their tail. This time Rowsdower has to jump into the bed of the speeding truck.

The cult tries machine gunning the truck, nearly hitting both Troy and Rowsdower. However, luckily, Rowsdower’s greatest superpower is to always have empty beer bottles around. He uses beer bottles to make bombs. and then dumps all the bottles under the cult members’ car tires forcing them off the road. Oh, and for the bombs? The second greatest superpower possessed by Rowsdower is the fact that he’s a two-pack-a-dayer so he’s got a lighter to light the stuff he puts into the empty beer bottles that can be used as bombs.

Rowsdower is truly the best of us all regardless of country of origin.

That night, Rowsdower explains to Troy that he’s mixed up in some heavy shit. The goons trying to kill Troy are part of a cult. They believe they are descendants of the Ziox civilization. The Ziox ruled the world and the cult believes it means they are entitled to rule the world too. Troy asks how he knows all this stuff. Rowsdower just says he’s been around. Rowsdower also says he hasn’t always been a drifter.

When asked what happened to make him a drifter, Rowsdower rubs his left upper arm before telling Troy to get some sleep.

The next day, Troy asks Rowsdower to help him figure out what is behind his father’s map to the Ziox ruins. Rowsdower says Troy should be in school and not chasing after lost civilizations. I should mention that the main reason why Rowsdower is stuck with Troy right now is because, in the car chase with the Ziox cult members, Troy wrecked Rowsdower’s truck. This left them basically stranded. The truck is basically out of commission, forcing them to walk… somewhere… Maybe back to Moose Guts. Rowsdower doesn’t really want Troy around because as it is discovered that this kid is missing, it’s going to call some unwanted attention onto him and he’d rather keep his nose clean.

When Troy goes to retrieve some water for them to make their long trek on foot, he sees something off into the distance that he recognizes from his father’s map. When he walks toward the stone structure, he discovers an underground tunnel. When they investigate, they find all sorts of Ziox sculptures also similar to what is on the map. As Troy ventures further into the tunnels and gets separated from Rowsdower, Rowsdower is knocked out and captured by Satoris and the cult.

Something is revealed from the night before that we should have already picked up on. Rowsdower is a former member of the cult. Satoris wants him to reveal where Troy is so he can obtain the map. When Rowsdower claims to not know, Satoris has his goons work him over.

We also get a lot of information about why it’s so important this cult wants to find the Ziox ruins. They find the ruins, it will unlock a thing or some such business that will restore the Ziox civilization to power. Because Satoris is the leader of this cult and the one who plans to unlock this power, he will lead the Ziox whose dead will rise from their graves and swear an oath to him. With this army of the undead, he will be able to conquer the planet. I think. Anyway, it has something to do with the Ziox dead rising from their graves, swearing themselves to Satoris, and Satoris becoming A-1 Cool Dude.

But! Rowsdower escapes! He gracefully, and totally purposely, tumbles down a hill away from the goons. Like a real fuckin’ hero.

So, yeah, Rowsdower is now stuck with trying to help Troy. It doesn’t help that the goons tried to kill him first by taking him off to the woods where he will either be beaten or shot to death, then tried to run him over with a truck. Oh, yeah, and I guess he has something of a heart trying to beat through all the Canadian Fried Chicken he eats on the daily because Satoris did say he would need to have a human sacrifice for his plan to come to fruition.

Luckily for Troy and Rowsdower, the cult never doubles back once they search a spot in the woods because they never think to look around the tunnel to see if Troy slipped out nor do they check to see if hitting Rowsdower with a truck would stop him. I mean… Of course, no measly truck would be able to stop Rowsdower but you know what I mean. In fact, their inability to immediately backtrack ends up getting one guy killed by Rowsdower snapping his neck and taking his gun. Taking his rifle leads to a couple more members of the cult getting killed too.

These are the guys who are destined to rule the world. My money’s on Rowsdower.

Alright so, after a harrowing escape, Troy and Rowsdower slip the evil cult, but when Rowsdower removes his jacket, Troy is stunned to see the Ziox branding on his arm. He explains that he joined them years ago and it all started with hearing the sounds of drums in his dreams. It was like something was calling to him. Of course, it had something to do with Satoris or the Ziox civilization and maybe he’s a descendant or something. When Satoris discovered that Rowsdower was only a half-blooded Ziox, he got tossed. You know what Rowsdower is, though? Full-blooded badass.

As the duo slips away from the cult, they discover a cabin sitting in a clearing. They get inside and are able to hide in a crawlspace while the goons toss the joint. They barely escape being discovered before the goons move on. Again, these guys don’t ever backtrack so this is as good as forever being safe if they just stay in this ramshackle cabin. The cabin is not abandoned, though. Hiding in the attic is a guy who can best be described as a grizzled prospector (I know I know… another comment made in the MST3K episode but that’s what he looks like and talks like).

You’re not going to believe who this guy with the 1840s gold rush outfit and a voice that seems to come straight out of Yosemite Sam is… Yeah, this is Mike Pipper, Thomas McGreggor’s old partner. I can’t stress enough how much of a cartoon character Pipper is.

At least this Loony Tunes character provides some helpful exposition. Basically, he explains what we saw but Troy didn’t fully know. They were researching the Ziox. Satoris wanted their information. Thomas was too stubborn to hand over the information regardless of the threats from the cult. Satoris killed him for the information. Pipper remained in one of their field stations they used during their various hunts ever since.

He explains the Ziox civilization was highly advanced. However, when things got rough, the citizens turned away from science and toward superstition. Apparently, despite being science and technologically based, the Ziox still had a god. That god cursed them and flooded their great city leaving the survivors to roam the outside world aimlessly. There was an idol that was created when that superstitious period kicked in that supposedly will be used to restore the civilization. Pipper doesn’t believe the idol is real. The Ziox civilization was real but maybe not the idol.

So, one thing Mike Pipper reveals to Troy alone is that he recognizes Rowsdower. I mean, how could you possibly forget a beefcake like Zap Rowsdower? Pipper said he was with Satoris the night Thomas died. Pipper is NOT sure if Rowsdower was the one who actually killed Troy’s father. Troy doesn’t want to believe this. After all, Rowsdower has helped him to this point. Okay, maybe begrudgingly, but he’s helped save his life and he’s fought against the cult. Still, Pipper advises Troy to not trust Rowsdower.

As we enter the final confrontation in The Final Sacrifice, Troy is adamant about finding the idol to restore the Ziox civilization as Pipper said it would be the end to Satoris’ power. I think. Man, I’m not sure. It was hard to follow exactly everything that came out of his ravaged voice box. Rowsdower is struggling against his half Ziox blood and the brand on his arm is burning. He dreams of when he was branded and initiated into the cult. The next morning, Rowsdower and Pipper wake up to discover that Satoris has kidnapped Troy to be sacrificed.

Pipper gives Rowsdower a shotgun and a horse to go save Troy and, maybe, kill all the cult members? Yeah, we know Rowsdower is totally going to kill some guys here in the conclusion. What’s kind of funny is that Rowsdower shows up where there are a bunch of goons and he fires at one of them, misses, gets the rife karate kicked out of his hands, and then has to kill the guy with his bare hands. So now he has no gun, he’s being chased by the entire cult, and he climbs to the top of a cliff where he has no other way to get away other than falling to his death.

He’s a great superhero.

I mean he IS a great superhero! He does get to Troy and manages to get Troy a knife to cut himself free all while Satoris has his back turned. That’s some stealthy work for a hard-wheezin’, booze-guzzlin’, hockey-haired, man with great taste in Canadian tuxedos. But… When he tries to attack Satoris with a torch by swinging it at him, Satoris catches it with a single hand and overpowers Rowsdower.

It is revealed in this fight that Rowsdower did NOT kill Thomas McGreggor. When the cult ran Thomas to where Rowsdower and Satoris were waiting for him, Rowsdower refused to kill the man. So, Satoris did it, but for breaking his soul bond and not obeying, he ex-communicated Rowsdower and basically made it so that he would be tormented for all the years since.

Rowsdower is able to light Satoris on fire with the torch, but when Rowsdower is knocked to the ground, it looks like our hero is going to be killed. Instead, Troy has freed himself and uses Pipper’s shotgun to shoot Satoris. When he finally burns, it also destroys the idol. The legend is then realized with the destruction of the idol and the return of the Ziox civilization. The cult members all march into the city to return to the civilization while Troy and Rowsdower watch.

It’s not entirely said if the return of this great and powerful civilization spells doom for the rest of us, but here we go.

The Final Sacrifice really isn’t that bad of a movie. It is obviously cheap, but it is a complete story made very economically. There are very few actual characters with speaking lines so it’s not like there was a whole lot that would have made the movie cost too much. It mostly restricts itself to an easy-to-film place, the outdoors. Christian Malcolm and Bruce J. Mitchell are pretty good as Troy and Rowsdower. I mean, yeah, Troy is kind of whiny, but he’s not useless and he’s meant to be a kid so it works. I already praised Shane Marceau as Satoris. The absolute craziest performance comes from Ron Anderson as Pipper. That’s a memorable guy and a memorable voice making for a memorable performance.

I don’t think it should be glossed over that this movie has hallmarks for what would make for a good MST3K episode. Troy is kind of a dorky kid. Rowsdower is a schlubby hero with a mullet and constantly drinking beer. This would attract MST3K like moths to a flame. It’s a relatively silly plot in terms of a giant civilization being brought back from ancient times. These are all things that make sense for the show to spoof.

But here’s the thing… I actually think The Final Sacrifice is perfectly fine as an early 90s, likely straight-to-video, adventure movie. For years, the only way to have seen the MST3K version of this movie was to either have seen it and recorded it off of SciFi Channel or bought the DVD set that it was released on. Once the DVD went out of print, there was no way to see it through official channels. The legend was that the rights owners of this movie really disliked how this movie was treated by MST3K. I do not know for sure if that was true. It’s also possible the movie’s rights were complicated or there was a desire for the rights owners to profit over the MST3K version which might, honestly, be well within their rights to reasonably request.

Whatever the reason was, I do think the original film, which I believe was shown on MST3K in its entirety based on what I just saw without the riffs, is perfectly fine for what it was. Now, one thing at the end of that classic episode of MST3K that I wanted to make a comment on. A big part of the final riffs in the movie, during the movie’s credits, was a series of pitches of how to advance the adventures of Zap Rowsdower and Troy. It was like they were pitching a television series where these two would go around from town to town and solve mysteries and save the day.

Considering this is a 78-minute film, it could be plausible that this movie could have created a backdoor pilot for a TV series. Why not? The way this movie is created, how it was produced, and how it plays out, it does feel like a TV movie or the start of something more. I really do not believe that Greidanus intended that when he came up with the idea, but I could buy it if you found out that it was kind of a starting point for a series of some sort.

That brings up something else as to why I think this movie is perfectly fine for what it was… Greidanus was a college student when he made this movie. This is hardly the worst or least cohesive student film ever made. If there was a problem between Greidanus and how MST3K spoofed the movie, I’m sure it could be looked at as Greidanus felt it was unfair for them to go so hard against a student film.

I don’t know and I don’t really care. It’s a great episode of MST3K and it’s a perfectly fine movie.

But let’s finish things up here. Next week, we begin a whole month of movies made directly by Troma. Oh yeah, let’s take a trip to Tromaville and get into the muck! We kick things off with their telling of a classic love story. Join me for 1996’s Tromeo and Juliet! See you then, and my parting contemplation for you all…

ADDENDUM: Below is the interview I had with director Tjardus Greindanus and score composer Rob Skeet about their The Making of The Final Sacrifice Kickstarter and just discussing the film, how MST3K saved it from absolute obscurity, and its legacy since.