After Summer Fun, the next film on Severin’s Ray Dennis Steckler box set was Reading, PA, a four-part, four-hour (FOUR) shot-on-video documentary (cough, cough, home movie) in which Ray took his video camera, tooled around his hometown and attended his high school reunion. Sigh. Friends, I love Ray as much as the rest of you. However, I just did not have the fortitude to sit through it. Maybe there will come a day when I revisit it. That day ain’t here yet.
So, let’s just move right on to the final film in the Steckler collection, which also happens to be the final film in his filmography, One More Time. I had never heard of this one before, but as it turns out, it’s a shot-on-video sequel to his magnum opus, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. As far as forty-five years later shot-on-video sequels to horror-musical cult classics go, I’m sure there are worse ones out there.
Steckler returns as Jerry, now an old man who spends his days wandering around the Santa Cruz pier while a narrator pontificates about God knows what. When he does sleep, he dreams of footage of The Incredibly Strange Creatures. He goes to his shrink and tells him about his dreams, but he isn’t a big help. Jerry then goes to the amusement park in his dreams and visits a fortune teller who is amassing her own army of zombies.
It's nice to see Steckler, wearing a hoodie just like he did all those years ago, playing Jerry once again. As a fan of The Incredibly Strange Creatures, it was a treat to see that some of the locations from the original are still standing (like the rollercoaster). However, most of the new footage amounts to Steckler wandering around and/or setting up scenes from the first movie. If you hang in there, you’ll be treated to a fun meta ending (it was probably the only way for it all to make sense anyway). I won’t spoil the twist, but I think it ends Steckler’s filmography on an appropriate note. The final results may be a tad underwhelming, but I’m glad he was able to dip his toe into the world of The Incredibly Strange Creatures one last time before his death.
In keeping with the meta spirit of the film, there are a lot of instances of Steckler’s shameless self-promotion. Steckler wears a Reading, Pennsylvania hat (as well as a Steckler Films hat), Johnny Legend sings the theme song from Rat Pfink a Boo Boo (and “The South’s Gonna Rise Again” from Two Thousand Maniacs), a cover of “The World’s Greatest Sinner” (in which Steckler served as a cinematographer) is heard, people are seen wearing Incredibly Strange Creatures T-shirts, and the film ends in Steckler’s video store, Mascot Video. There are also plenty of Steckler signatures on hand, including, lots of narration, recycled footage (in addition to The Incredibly Strange Creatures, scenes from The Las Vegas Serial Killer are used), scenic shots of Las Vegas, and the pizza motif from The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher crops up again.
Well, now that I have finished all the Steckler films on the box set (except for Reading, PA), here is my official Ray Dennis Steckler ranking:
1) Rat Pfink a Boo Boo
2) The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies
3) The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher
4) Nazi Brothel
5) The Sexorcist’s Devil
6) Wild Guitar
7) Body Fever
8) The Thrill Killers
9) The Mad Love Life of a Hot Vampire
10) The Lemon Grove Kids
11) Red Heat
12) One More Time
13) Face of Evil
14) The Las Vegas Serial Killer
15) Count Al-Kum
16) The Strange Sex Life of Hitler’s Nazis
17) Dr. Cock-Luv
18) Sinthia: The Devil’s Doll
19) Summer Fun
20) Slashed…
21) Blood Shack (The Chooper cut)
22) Blood Shack (Director’s cut)
Join me next month when we will take a month-long dive into the wild, weird world of Jess Franco for a column called Franco February! See you then!
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