Origin Stories

[Al]

I was surfing the internet in search of a review of The Crow. I can say with a degree of certainty it was either the fall or winter of 1998, because by the time The Phantom Menace came out, I was a dedicated reader. I had recently discovered the joys of creating themed desktops on Windows '98, and, for a spell, there was nothing more intoxicating than finding a half-dozen still images from a movie and creating new icons for My Desktop, Network Neighborhood, and the Recycle Bin. I had done The Blues Brothers, Indiana Jones, and Blade, among others, but, as I said, today I was looking for The Crow. When one does a movie-themed desktop, it becomes quickly apparent that movie review sites usually have the best screencaps and that www.mrqe.com is your best friend. So, as I sifted through site after site, my eye was caught by the rather unique title, The Mutant Reviewers from Hell. Naturally drawn to something so ludicrous yet compelling, I double-clicked. There were no pictures inside, save the box art and a little spinny film reel, but nearly eight years later, I'm still here at least once a day.

What's the point of my winding little tale? That whether it was at www.mutantreviewers.com, mrfh.cjb.net, or that old geocities site that has a name much too long to remember, everyone reading this post at one point decided to click on a wonky little link somewhere in the world wide web and wound up through the rabbit hole at The Mutant Reviewers from Hell. That was my story, what's yours? There was some oddball movie or some crazy feature that brought you not only into the website but eventually into this forum. So what was it? You don't need rambling paragraphs like me, just a couple of sentences. There must have been something. Everybody dish!

Al

P.S. I know we did one of these a long time ago back on Delphi forums (and maybe once before on the original forum host) but I enjoyed it enough and think our roster of forum regulars (and lurkers! you can post too!) has changed enough to warrant doing it again.

[blinkfan]

I also found mrfh from movie review query engine. I liked this site because it was the only site that kept my interest. And because of this site i am now the proud owners of army of darkness and the crow.I have already professed my undying love to this site.

[TheOogieBoogieMan]

Great thread idea, Al! Gather around, lads (and ladies), and I shall tell you a tale...

I first found the site almost five years ago, when I was a fresh-faced (well, pimply faced, more like) boy of 13. I was in my school's computer lab, and I was supposed to be doing some assignment, but I didn't like my teacher, so I decided to shirk my work (rhyme alert). Out of boredom, I typed "Ghostbusters" into Google (I'm assuming I had just seen it for the first time), not really expecting anything. I didn't type in "Ghostbusters review" or "Ghostbusters quotes" or anything, just plain old "Ghostbusters". It wasn't long until I saw a link that read "The Mutant Reviewers From Hell do Ghostbusters," or something to that effect, and I couldn't resist. It was just an odd little site; it featured a sci-fi-ish name, one of the reviewers on staff was named PoolMan, the reviews were actually entertaining, and were accompanied by nifty cartoon drawings (courtesy of DnaError at the time). And the rest, as they say, is history...

I remember, in the beginning, I would have to google "Ghostbusters" whenever I wanted to visit MRFH, cause of the long site address. Don't ask why I didn't think to just bookmark the site, cause I really don't know.

[Ms. Jellybean]

My story isn't nearly so exciting... it just started out at that mecca of film sites, IMDb.com. I was looking up The Princess Bride, it being one of my favorite movies, of, well, ever. (I know, exceptionally poor language, but I don't care.) I was almost literally going down every single link on the sidebar. Why? Boredom.

Then I clicked "miscellaneous" under "External Links," and one in particular caught my eye. Oh yes. "The Pit of Despair." After browsing the somewhat short contents, I thought it would be interesting to click on a link towards the bottom of the home page that said "Mutant Reviewers From Hell."

I've been here ever since. Okay, it took me about a year to finally join on the forums, but regardless.

[Lissa]

I found it after watching October Sky. I completely fell in love with Chris Cooper's performance in that, and wanted to find out a bit more about him. So I googled him. At the time, he was relatively low profile, so there was like one fan club, and Clare's "You Know, That Guy" on him. Clare's article was more interesting than the fan club, although I'll give the club credit and say they weren't screechy "I want to MARRY him!" fangirls. I forget what prompted me to start posting on the forum, but the rest is really quite undramatic.

[sarahbot]

Wow. Other people were brought here by October Sky, Ghostbusters, Princess Bride . . . I almost feel a tad ashamed I came here by way of Adventures in Babysitting. Hey, what am I saying, it's a classic! Anyway, the college guy Elisabeth Shue ends up with in the end looked really, really familiar to me, and I couldn't figure out why; heck, I still don't. And MRFH is fourth on the list when you Google that movie. So here I am!

[Head Mutant]

I think it's always interesting to see how people found us... if nothing else, it's a kick in my pants that I need to head over to IMDb and make sure that all 960+ movies we've done have the correct links.

Where's our intern, anyway?

This is an interesting little story... back in Colorado, I started seeing a girl, but I had to leave for a weekend. During those two days, she made it a mission to read the entire website, start to finish. I think she went blind. I've never heard of someone doing this since, which would probably be a week-long feat at this point.

[StarOpal]

I was looking for something on Empire Records, I don't remember why, Google-d it, and I found MRFH.
It wasn't until I looked through the list of reviews that I was hooked though. When I saw 'they' had Dead Again I was shocked, so then I looked further and there was The Spanish Prisoner. I knew this was the place for me. Movie reviews and features that are done by people who love movies. That would be about two years ago.
The first time I posted was to suggest a movie, but I joined... I think it was for the last time there was a Mutant Baby Names suggestion thread. Pretty sure.

[Genetic Mishap]

I have no idea when exactly I first stumbled upon MRFH. I remember in the early days I would IMDB Tremors or Adventures of Ford Fairlane, and working my way through the whole site. It was either '98 or '99.
So, here I am.

[Magill]

I know I got to the site of of the "external reviews" page on IMDB, but I don't remember what movie prompted the visit. This was back probably in 98 or 99. I didn't start posting to the forum until 2003.

[Spiderdancer]

It was my sophomore year in college. I suddenly had access to free dvds from my local library, I could watch as many movies of whatever rating I wanted, and then I stumbled across a film review online and fell in love with the whole concept. I became a complete twerp on this topic almost immediately, started lecturing my friends on the importance of framing, and began writing mini-email-reviews for Siblings 1 and 2 (the Film Cynic features actually look very much like these).

I found MRFH through MRQE while looking for a review of something obscure - I think it was "Waxworks." Then I read a couple of features that I absolutely loved, especially Justin's Locker Room Analysis, and that kept me coming back.

I've sent our Fearless Leader the odd email between then and now when I really liked something or disagreed with one of his reviews (a case in point being the Vin Diesel Voice = Porn Star Voice remark). Then I entered the Film Script Contest. Then I won a dvd of Battlefield Earth, which I still have and am keeping for posterity for when posterity refuses to eat its vegetables.

Then, one miraculous day while I was online at my horribly boring temp job, MRFH announced they were looking for new Mutants.

O Frabjous day.

[TheLuckyOne]

I swear The Crow has some kind of power to draw people here... like Al, I first stumbled onto MRFH while looking for reviews of it. Read Justin's review, checked out the bios page and (if we're being totally honest here) thought Andie was pretty cute, so decided to stay and poke around the site a little. Liked what I saw, wondered if they were hiring, pondered applying when Andie and DNA left but didn't, then after Alex and Bobbi jumped ship figured "what the heck?" and... well, here we are. I think any day now Justin's going to stop referring to me as the intern, so life is great!


-D

[Head Mutant]

Andie? Are you sure you didn't mean Kyle? You just can't quit the boy, can you.

[Big T]

Hmmm, let me see... well I haven't been poking around here for nearly as long as most of the people who have posted here but I shal share my story none the less.

I had just finished this cool program for young adult canadians that gave me experience and insight into life, then I got a job and began saving money in case life should ever find me Anyways, this was 2004 and I only ever came online to read an online comic or play a free game. I never really read movie reviews because the reviewers in my local paper have very different tastes than myself. So, I decided to go looking for some movie reviews. Through Google I happened to find www.mrqe.com, the site that many have metioned, and thought that this was the best place to begin my hunt.
Using the first movie that came to my head I searched for reviews of Troy, thus did I stumble upon Kyle's review. This was my first glimpse of the mutant reviewers site. It was only after reading a few more reviews that it dawned on me that this fine web site should be in my favorites and frequently frequented (hoo boy, it's funny cause it made sense). A few months later I joined the forum (first one I had ever joined by the way) and thus did I enter the strange dimension of the mutants.

[dajaymann]

During the fall of 2002 I was working a dead-end job at a Nextel store that was absolutely dead. As in NO ONE ever came in for days at a time sometime. So, instead of doing something studious and going above and beyond my job description with extra work and trying to lure people into the store, I instead embraced the initiative-destroying lures of the internet. Eventually I found this site. Heck, I don't even remember exactly how I found it (I was doing a LOT of random surfing and web searches) but I found it, liked it, and the MRFH forum became my first forum as well.

For some time, while I was still working at Nextel, I'd check in every single day but lately I check in once or twice a week. Since discovering MRFH I've witness the wonderous birth of my daughter, and hey, now I have another one on the way! I've also traded in my dead-end job at Nextel for pretty much the best job evar: Radio DJ.

So, anyone wanna talk about mithril?