JANUA-RAY: ONE MORE TIME (2009) **

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!

JANUA-RAY: SUMMER FUN (1997) *

Summer Fun is Ray Dennis Steckler’s tribute to silent movies of yesteryear.  Nobody was making silent movies in the ‘90s.  Heck, even when Ray made his silent films in the ‘70s, it was out of necessity because he couldn’t afford sound.  Now, in 1997, he’s shooting on video and STILL chooses to make a silent movie.  I guess you have to give it to Ray for continuing to blaze his own distinct path.  

Not only is it a throwback to the silent movies of yore, but it’s a reminder of the films Steckler used to make early in his career.  The music and dance scenes look like they came out of Wild Guitar.  That doesn’t change the fact that this is one of his all-time worst.  

Dirty Barry is a sleazy Vegas real estate mogul who wants to buy Uncle Charlie’s camp.  When he refuses, Dirty Barry sends his goons out to kidnap his niece, Zoe (played by Ray’s daughter, Bailey Steckler).  Meanwhile, the camp’s annual Olympic games are taking place, which eats up most of the screen time.

Part of the fun of watching a silent movie comedy is the black and white photography and the sped-up antics of the stars.  Watching a silent movie shot in the ‘90s on a grainy camcorder is an odd experience to say the least.  It’s as if Steckler is replicating a silent movie without any of its charms.  For example, instead of traditional silent movie cards, Ray uses crappy computer-generated text that looks like it was made on a Tandy.  The music is often terrible and sounds like it was stolen from TV newscast.  

Steckler obviously shot this with friends and family and limited resources.  It must’ve been nice for him to get back to his Lemon Grove Kids-style roots.  That doesn’t mean it’s a rewarding viewing experience.  It’s almost like watching an hour-long campground commercial on public access television.  In short, Summer Fun is no fun at all.

This is the first time we’ve seen some of Steckler’s Shameless Self-Promotion in a while.  The “bad” Olympic team is named “The Strange Creatures” and they wear The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies T-shirts.  I kind of wish I had one of those.  As far as Steckler’s directorial signatures go, we have musical numbers, scenic shots of the Vegas Strip, long driving scenes, and a dash of Batman influence (the villain’s henchmen are referred to as “the undynamic duo”).  Steckler Stock Players are limited to Herb Robins (who hadn’t appeared in a Steckler film since Sinthia:  The Devil’s Doll) as Uncle Charlie and his daughter, Bailey, who later turned up in Steckler’s final film, One More Time.

AKA:  Summer of Fun.

JANUA-RAY: SLASHED… (2003) *

Slashed… is the second of Ray Dennis Steckler’s cut-and-paste mini-features (okay, shorts) that were self-distributed by Steckler as a “Lost Films Production” in 2003 (but shot much earlier).

As far as the “plot” goes?  It’s just a bunch of scenes from Red Heat shown in no particular order.  When that gets dull, Steckler tosses in scenes from Las Vegas Serial Killer in there to liven things up.  (At least he used that film’s best scene, the extended burlesque number.)  All this reminded me of those old Castle Films 8mm condensed versions of old horror movies you could order off the back of Famous Monsters.

Face of Evil was a cobbled together mess, but at least it had enough new footage to semi-warrant calling it a “new” movie.  As far as Slashed… goes, I think there may (MAY) have been about a minute of new footage of Lovie Goldmine (and that’s being generous).  I will say the music fits the action here a bit better than it did in Face of Evil.  

I guess if you don’t have eighty minutes to spend watching Red Heat, you could just watch this half-hour Reader’s Digest version (minus all the hardcore action).  I mean if you’re going to do that, you might as well watch Face of Evil.  It’s only a few minutes longer and it’s a lot more coherent.  

As far as Steckler’s signatures, it’s about the same as Red Heat and Face of Evil.  It was shot silently, there’s lots of footage of the Vegas Strip, and Steckler shamelessly reuses scenes from his older films.  Steckler Stock Players are basically the same actors who appeared in both Red Heat and Las Vegas Serial Killer; namely:  Pierre Agostino, Chuck Alford, and Lovie Goldmine.    

JANUA-RAY: FACE OF EVIL (2003) **

I didn’t realize that Severin’s Ray Dennis Steckler box set had two of his (never finished?) cobbled together short films, Face of Evil and Slashed… hiding in the Bonus Features section.  I wasn’t going to review them initially because they’re only a half-hour long, so they aren't really a feature-length movie.  I eventually changed my mind due to the fact that so many of his pornos were only in the forty-to-fifty-minute range and I counted them as “real” movies.  (Never mind that I just watched Scream of the Blind Dead, which was only thirty-nine minutes long.)  After all, the purpose of this month-long salute to Steckler was to be as much of a completist as I possibly could (which is why I subjected myself to both Blood Shack AND The Chooper).  So, why the Hell not?

A greasy guy (Will Long) drives around LA and watches Carolyn Brandt water her lawn.  Meanwhile, long scenes from Steckler’s Red Heat play out and the editing (unconvincingly) tries to make it look like Long is peeping in on the characters from the film.  He then goes off and strangles a few women until, in true Steckler fashion, his fate is sealed in the most inane way imaginable.

Face of Evil was presented under the “Lost Films Productions” banner, which I think means Steckler released a handful of copies of it on video.  The quality is like fourth generation video, which makes everything grungy, almost like a snuff movie, which is a positive.  It’s all shot silently, and the music, which sounds alternately like incidental music from a porno, a New Age meditation CD, and a sitcom, never once fits the action, which is amusing.  

Apparently, Steckler started filming scenes of Long for a movie, but when he unexpectedly died, Ray was stuck with about ten minutes of footage he had no real use for.  Ever the thriftster, he cobbled it together with some (non-porno) scenes from his XXX flicks Red Heat and Sex Rink.  If you’ve seen Red Heat (or Sex Rink, I suppose), there’s really no reason to watch this as much of the best footage comes from that flick.  However, if you’re a big Steckler nerd and you have a half-hour to kill, there are worse ways to spend your time.  

There are a few Steckler signatures to speak of.  It was shot silently, there’s plenty of scenes of Hollywood, the completely random ending, and of course, the strangling women motif.  Of Steckler’s Stock Players, we have Long from Nazi Brothel (among others), and of course, Carolyn Brandt.  Lovie Goldmine and numerous others who are visible in the footage from Red Heat and Sex Rink also appear.  

JANUA-RAY: RED HEAT (1976) **

Our “director” Cindy Lou Sutters (the voice of Carolyn Brandt) tells us all about her latest porn starlet discovery, Mary (Lovie Goldmine), whom she christens “Red Heat” on account of her fiery crimson locks.  When Mary finds out her boyfriend (Pierre Agostino) is cheating on her, she goes crazy and stabs him to death in the shower.  Mary then goes out and kills more people, effectively leaving her director in the lurch.  Desperate, Cindy must go and find other starlets in order to complete production.  Meanwhile, a mugger on a motorcycle goes around holding people up and stealing their wallets.  It’s only a matter of time before the two of them meet.

Red Heat almost feels like director Ray Dennis Steckler’s trial run for The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher as both films have divergent plot lines and lots of sex and stabbings.    (Although I guess it would be more accurate to say The Las Vegas Serial Killer because of the setting and the mugger character.)  Like many of his other pornos, it’s not very sexy (to be fair, it's far from his worst) and features a lot of blowjob scenes.  Some of the dubbed dialogue during the sex is good for a laugh (“That’s enough kissing!  Let’s see some tit!”), but the dubbed moaning and sucking sounds are wildly overdone.

There might’ve been enough material here to make a decent movie, but the fact is there’s just way too much padding gumming up the works.  The endless shots of people wandering around Las Vegas, random waterskiing scenes, and porn inserts that have nothing to do with the plot get to be a bit much after a while.  Steckler also manages to further stretch out the running time by filming the cum shots in slow motion, one of which is set to the familiar tune of “The Hell Raisers”, the theme song from Doris Wishman’s Another Day, Another Man.  (In fact, a lot of the movie resembles one of Wishman’s XXX films.)

Steckler’s directorial signatures are abundantly clear.  We get lots of footage of the Las Vegas Strip, constant narration due to the fact the film was shot silently, plenty of stabbing scenes, and a multitude of long blowjobs.  Of the usual company of Steckler Stock Players, there’s the usual cronies like Carolyn Brandt and Pierre Agostino.  Most everyone else in the cast (according to IMDb) were also in Steckler’s Perverted Passion.

AKA:  Nancy.

JANUA-RAY: THE SEXORCIST’S DEVIL (1974) ** ½

After watching so many cheap Ray Dennis Steckler porno flicks, the first thing you notice about this one is that it at least looks like a real movie.  The camerawork is much better and the acting (especially by Steckler’s wife, Carolyn Brandt) is certainly an upgrade from the likes of Count Al-Kum and Dr. Cock-Luv.  That doesn’t exactly make it “good”, but it is one of the best Steckler pornos that I have seen.  

Brandt plays a reporter named Janice who is doing a story on a professor of the occult (Kelly Guthrie).  When he reads a cursed parchment, it awakens a Satanist named Volta (Doug Darush, who kind of looks like Adam Driver).  He seduces Janice’s roommate, a hooker named Diane (Lilly Lamarr) and soon, he takes possession of her soul.  Volta then commands her to “bring more souls to Satan”, which is just a fancy way of saying, “Stab a bunch of people”.  Eventually, the professor (who has spent most of the movie sitting in his office staring at the wall and yelling, “EVIL!  EVIL!”) arrives on the scene to perform a sexorcism (driving away a spirit who has sexually possessed someone).  

Although most of the dialogue comes in the form of narration, what spoken dialogue we do get is pretty great.  Such lines as, “SEXORCISM?  What the fuck is that?” and “Bite it!  Chew it!  Suck it!  You can’t hurt me!” had me chuckling.  The sex scenes are slightly better than most of Steckler’s previous porn work, although there’s a heavy concentration on blow job scenes.  The lack of variety also doesn’t help as Lamarr is the lone female sex performer, but I must admit, the Satanist angle works better in a porno than say, vampires or Nazis.  That doesn’t hide the fact that none of this comes close to being titillating for a second.  

Steckler does a better job when it comes to the horror scenes.  The murder sequences are quite bloody, and he even delivers a not-bad homage to the shower scene in Psycho.  The exorcism… excuse me… SEXORCISM finale is also rather memorable.  

There aren’t many of Steckler’s director signatures this time around.  The constant narration calls to mind a lot of his later-era films such as The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher (I have to wonder if Steckler borrowed the idea from his pal Coleman Francis’ Beast of Yucca Flats) and the stabbing scenes are kind of similar to the ones found in The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies.  Steckler’s stock players are rather plentiful though, and include Brandt (of course), Guthrie (who later appeared in Steckler’s Sex Rink), and Darush (who previously had a role in Ray’s Devil’s Little Acre).    

AKA:  Undressed to Kill.  AKA:  Sexorcist Devil.  AKA:  The Sexorcist.

JANUA-RAY: DR. COCK-LUV (1973) * ½

Three American women are kidnapped by Germans and taken to a Nazi experiment camp ran by the crazy Dr. Cock-Luv (Jerry Delony).  He hooks up the first woman to a “vibration machine”, and when that fails, he orders an SS soldier to bang her.  The next woman is threatened with a cattle prod before another officer has his way with her.  The final captive is oiled up by Nazis with a Spanish Fly ointment before yet another solider plows her.  Eventually, the camp is liberated by American G.I.’s who only have one thing on their mind.

The alternate title for Ray Dennis Steckler’s Dr. Cock-Luv was Nazi Sex Experiments.  If that puts you off, you should know that the movie is neither graphic enough to live up to that title, nor does it have the humor of Steckler’s Nazi Brothel to compensate for its overall lack of titillation.  As it is, it’s just a dull, unpleasant slog.  Heck, it’s not even up to the low standards of Steckler’s The Strange Sex Life of Hitler’s Nazis.  

The sex scenes are short, repetitive, and not very sexy.  The constant German marching band music on the soundtrack doesn’t exactly help either.  The only scene that shows any sign of passion is the lesbian pairing where two of the American prisoners use a double-edged dildo on each other.  Too bad the rest of the movie was sorely lacking this kind of heat.  

Delony overacts to the hilt, but he isn’t given any funny lines or memorable shtick to deliver.  (He was probably ad-libbing the whole time anyway.)  Other actors flub their lines and look at the camera.  At least Steckler sprang for some sets this time.  (They’re cheap, but they’re a lot better than the ones found in his other Nazi pornos.)

As far as Steckler signatures go, this is yet another Nazi porno movie.  (I guess when you find your niche, you’ve got to really stick with it.)  It also features some kaleidoscope effects during the sex scenes, just like Count Al-Kum.  Delony is the only member of Steckler’s Stock Players, having previously co-starred in Count Al-Kum.  The absence of Carolyn Brandt’s Nazi Buster is definitely felt this time around.

AKA:  Nazi Sex Experiments.  AKA:  Sex Slaves of the SS.  AKA:  Slave Girls of the SS.  

JANUA-RAY: COUNT AL-KUM (1971) * ½

Count Dracula’s nephew, Count Al-Kum (Jerry Delony from Invitation to Ruin and Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks) is awakened from his coffin and interviewed.  He tells two offscreen reporters about his attempts (and failures) to pick up women.  They then give him a book called “1001 Ways to Seduce Women” and he goes out and looks for more babes.  Time and again, he fails miserably to woo the ladies and is forced to watch as his Uncle Dracula repeatedly cockblocks him with trollop after trollop.   

This is another one of Ray Dennis Steckler’s vampire pornos.  Even though it’s only forty-nine minutes long, it’s still something of a chore to watch.  That’s mostly because of Steckler’s slipshod handling of the sex scenes.  He basically sits the camera across the room from the action and only occasionally zooms in for a close-up.  The one time he does manage a decent close-up, the lighting is so poor that it’s hard to tell what’s going on.  He also overdoes it on the kaleidoscope effects, which do nothing to enhance the sex scenes.  At least Dracula doesn’t have a problem getting hard, which is more than I can say for most of the male leads in these Steckler pornos.

Delony is amusing as the titular vampire, but he isn’t exactly funny as the lines he’s been given wouldn’t cut it at an open mic amateur night.  The scenes of Al-Kum stalking potential victims (sometimes in broad daylight) play almost like a silent movie routine, although they fail to garner any laughs.  The only genuinely laugh-out-loud scene occurs when Dracula bangs a chick outdoors and puts his cape down on the ground, so they don’t get dirty when they screw.  

As far as Steckler’s signature touches, he does give us quite a few nice scenic shots of the Las Vegas Strip (where actors and unaware extras look directly at the camera).  Like The Mad Love Life of a Red Hot Vampire, this is another vampire themed XXX film from Steckler, although it can’t even clear the admittedly low bar that movie set.  And the only members of Steckler’s Stock Player Company this time around seems to be Delony, who later appeared in Steckler’s Dr. Cock Luv.  

AKA:  Count All-Cum.  AKA:  Count Alcom.  AKA:  Count Alkum.  AKA:  The Horny Vampire.  

JANUA-RAY: THE STRANGE SEX LIFE OF HITLER’S NAZIS (1971) * ½

The Strange Sex Life of Hitler’s Nazis is Ray Dennis Steckler’s limp sequel to his sporadically amusing Nazi Brothel.  It begins with a bunch of recycled footage from that film, then the “plot” begins.  Hitler shows up at the brothel demanding the capture of American secret agent, Jane Bond (Carolyn Brandt), who is now dubbed, “The Nazi Buster”.  Meanwhile, orgies and various sex acts occur at the brothel.  Eventually, Jane’s sidekick is captured, and she has to bust some Nazis to save her trusted compatriot. 

The streak of sly, sardonic, subversive humor that was so prevalent in Nazi Brothel is sorely missing this time out.  There’s less of a “sticking it to the Nazis” vibe here (although Hitler is portrayed as a whiny nincompoop) as it’s more of a straight-up skin flick.  The problem with that is, yet again, the sex scenes aren’t sexy in the least.  

The orgy scenes are the biggest problem.  Steckler seems to just let the camera hang back while all the action goes on.  Because of that, it’s hard to tell who’s doing what to whom, especially since all the participants have the same sallow skin tone.  The sex scenes featuring three or four partners are only slightly better, but they’re nothing close to approximating “erotic”.  There are one or two odd moments (like a hooker powdering a Nazi’s butt), although not enough to make it as much fun as the first one. 

While the film is kind of a letdown next to Nazi Brothel, there are plenty of Ray Dennis Steckler’s signatures to be seen.  As with that flick, the title sequence is written on a chalkboard, and the actors have trouble maintaining their erections.  The Batman influence is once again present as this time Jane Bond has a younger crimefighting sidekick a la Rat Pfink a Boo Boo.  The movie also ends with a woman with bad teeth biting a guy’s dick, which makes it similar to The Mad Love Life of a Hot Vampire.  And as with many of Steckler’s productions, it climaxes with an elongated chase scene.  As far as Steckler’s Stock Players go, this has virtually the same cast from Nazi Brothel, most notably Carolyn Brandt (who sadly, doesn’t show up until the last four minutes).  

AKA:  Love Life of Hitler’s Nazis. 

JANUA-RAY: NAZI BROTHEL (1970) ** ½

Nazi Brothel was part of the first wave of Nazi-themed adult films.  It’s much cheaper and grungy than something like the softcore roughie, Love Camp 7.  While a no-budget Nazi hardcore porno might not be up your alley, the fact that it was directed by Ray Dennis Steckler means it makes for a memorable experience.  

It starts off with still photos of Hitler, Nazis marching, and concentration camps, while audio of a teacher addressing her class about Nazis is heard.  Then, the opening credits (and by “opening credits”, I mean, “Ray Dennis Steckler wrote a bunch of words on a chalkboard”) begin.  If you thought this was going to fetishize Nazis (as some of these Naziploitation flicks tend to do), the opening titles let you know otherwise as there are messages like “Fuck Nazis in the Mouth” and “The Nazis Suck” featured prominently during the credits sequence.  

As the title implies, the film takes place at brothel that caters to Nazi officers.  Carolyn Brandt is Jane Bond, Agent 0088 who infiltrates the house of ill repute to get info on the Nazis.  When she is captured, she dons her skintight outfit and mask and kicks some Nazi ass.

Nazi Brothel is more Hogan’s Heroes than Ilsa.  The officers are portrayed as buffoons and/or pain freaks and have trouble getting hard.  The fast motion Benny Hill-style bedroom antics aren’t very funny (or sexy) either.  

I think all of this might’ve been intentional.  I have a feeling Steckler might not have wanted to make a Nazi porno and turned it into some weird subversive art piece.  The Nazis are all incompetent, impotent idiots and the women (save for Brandt) are not sexy.  That, along with the anti-Nazi scrawling in the opening credits, makes me believe Steckler made this as a big FU to people who would distribute and/or watch a Nazi porno, or at least to anyone who would take it seriously.

Brandt is by far the best actress in this.  As with The Mad Love Life of a Hot Vampire, she doesn’t get involved in the sexual shenanigans.  This time at least she’s in the same room looking on for a short period while a half-assed orgy is taking place.  

I’ve seen some unsexy pornos in my time.  While this one is no Bat Pussy (and honestly, what could be?), it does have an odd aura about it that makes it sorta entertaining.  It’s only fifty-four minutes long, but unfortunately, Ray reuses a LOT of footage in the third act to pad out the running time (and it’s not always the best footage).  Without all the excess padding, this might’ve skated by with *** just on the WTF factor alone.

Before we wrap up the review, let’s take a look at some of Steckler’s signature touches that he brought to the film:  Like The Mad Love Life of a Hot Vampire, the opening titles are done on a chalkboard.  Another similarity to that movie:  The male actors have trouble maintaining their erections.  The Batman influence is felt too as some of the music sounds like a riff on the TV theme and Brandt’s catsuit is similar (or the same one, not sure) to the one she wore in Body Fever.  If that wasn’t enough, during the fight scene there are Batman-style balloon bubbles (OK, scribbling on a chalkboard), but instead of words like, “Pow!” and “Bam!” they say, “Piss!” and “Jizz!”  Brandt, who is the most prolific member of Steckler’s Stock Players, appears yet again, and Hot Vampire’s Will Long also appears as one of the dim-witted Nazi officers.  Also, like many Steckler’s flicks, there’s a long chase scene as well.

Steckler followed this up the next year with another Nazi themed porno, Love Life of Hitler’s Nazis.  

JANUA-RAY: THE MAD LOVE LIFE OF A HOT VAMPIRE (1971) **

Once again, we see Ray Dennis Steckler has a knack for coming up with memorable titles, even when he’s working in the adult film world.  Steckler’s wife, Carolyn Brandt stars as Dracula’s wife, who acts as our narrator.  Dracula (Jim Parker) is awakened by his hunchbacked servant (Jason Wayne) so he can watch him get it on with three of Dracula’s love slaves.  Drac then sends his babes out to search for blood.  And by “search for blood” I mean, “have sex with a bunch of dudes and suck their blood out of their dick”.  Eventually, it’s up to Van Helsing (Will Long) to stop Dracula’s reign of terror.  

Parker, who kind of resembles John Astin, really hams it up as Dracula, and it often looks like the other actors are about a second away from cracking up at his antics.    Wayne barely showed a sign of a pulse in Blood Shack, but he gamely chews the scenery this time out as the hysterical hunchback.  It's Brandt who is the most memorable though.  She looks sexy as the vampire bride, staring directly into the camera and saying shit like, “Dracula is groovy!”  Too bad we only get to see her from the neck up. 

Steckler’s handling of the sex scenes is clumsy at best.  None of them are particularly hot, but that’s part of the charm.  Even though the actors have trouble staying hard, the actresses seem to really be into their roles.  Unfortunately, the sex scenes go on forever and quickly wear out their welcome.  Even at fifty minutes, it feels way too long.  At least the scenes where the vampire brides bite their lovers’ peckers with dime store vampire fangs are good for a laugh. 

As far as Steckler’s Stock Player Round-Up goes, Brandt, of course was in a ton of his films.  Wayne was also in Blood Shack, Parker went on to have a small role in The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher, and Long appeared in a few of his X-rated flicks.  There isn’t any of the director’s shameless self-promotion here (which makes sense since he was using his Sven Christian alias) nor are there any of his signatures on display, unless you count the use of psychedelic light, which is kind of like Sinthia:  The Devil’s Doll.  

AKA:  Hot Vampire.  AKA:  Love Life of a Red Hot Vampire. 

JANUA-RAY: THE LAS VEGAS SERIAL KILLER (1986) * ½

Seven years after making The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher, Ray Dennis Steckler returned with this straight to video sequel.  Pierre Agostino once again plays the Strangler, who has now relocated to Las Vegas to prey upon more helpless women.  Unfortunately, the film is sorely missing the presence of Carolyn Brandt as the Skid Row Slasher.  She’s nowhere to be found this time around, so instead, we get two chuckleheads who stumble around Vegas and ogle women walking by, which is a pretty crummy trade-off if you ask me.  Occasionally, to break up the monotony, they’ll mug a woman.  Although they have just as much screen time as Agostino, these guys don’t make much of an impression.  There’s a reason why the movie isn’t called The Las Vegas Serial Killer Meets the Two Dudes That Stand Around Making Lewd Comments to Passersby.

The good news:  Agostino strangles lots of women.  The most memorable one occurs at a pool party at the home of “Las Vegas movie star, Cash Flagg”!  There’s also a nude burlesque number shown in its entirety.  Steckler also gives us a WTF close-up of a Papa Smurf doll during one murder sequence that’s good for a laugh.  That’s about it as far as the “good news” goes.

The bad news:  There is a shit-ton of padding here.  There is a bunch of travelogue footage of Las Vegas, along with repurposed scenes from the original film.  Remember the scenes of the random rodeo in Blood Shack?  Well, I hope you liked it, because there’s even more pointless rodeo footage in this one.  There’s also an equally perplexing sequence at an air show that is likewise only there to beef up the running time.  

Like the first movie, Steckler shot The Las Vegas Serial Killer silent.  Once again, there’s more narration/thoughts of the characters than actual dialogue.  The big difference this time out is that a radio announcer gets the bulk of the dialogue (much of which is repeated) to keep the audience up to date on the Strangler’s crimes.  The weird thing is it doesn’t sound like a human being, but rather a talk-to-type computer voice. 

Oh, and the ending sucks.  

As far as director signatures go, there’s a couple things of note.  Since Ray had moved his base of operations to Vegas by this point in his career, we get scenic shots of the Vegas Strip instead of Hollywood Boulevard.  He also manages to toss in some completely random parade footage, which makes it kindred spirits with Rat Pfink a Boo Boo, as well as the aforementioned rodeo bullshit.  Other than Agostino, there aren’t any actors who worked with him previously, although Ron Jason would go on to star in more Steckler productions down the road.  Steckler does, however, find some time to put in a little shameless self-promotion as a poster for The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies is seen hanging in a pizza parlor.  A character even exclaims, “Cash Flagg!  All right!”

JANUA-RAY: THE HOLLYWOOD STRANGLER MEETS THE SKID ROW SLASHER (1979) ***

You’ve got to give it to Ray Dennis Steckler’s The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher:  It has a great title.  It’s second only to Steckler’s The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies.  While it’s not quite up to the zany levels of that classic, it is one of Ray’s better films.  

Johnathan (Pierre Agostino) is a serial killer who hires models to pose nude for him before he strangles them to death.  Meanwhile, a lonely woman who owns a bookstore (Carolyn Brandt) goes around slicing and dicing the bums that hang around Skid Row.  And… They meet.  That’s the plot!  I mean, what more do you need to know about a movie called The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher? 

Steckler gives you exactly what you would want/expect from a movie with that title.  No more.  No less.  If you were hoping for more, sorry you’re out of luck.  

Steckler does a pretty good job, all things considered.  There’s enough strangling and slashing to keep the plot moving forward (my favorite scene was when the Strangler killed a girl who was wearing nothing but a KISS beach towel and then Steckler gives us a close-up to the band's Destroyer album), and the Taxi Driver-esque scenes of Agostino stomping around Hollywood Boulevard are rather moody 

This almost feels like Steckler’s version of a Doris Wishman movie.  He shot it silently and most of the dialogue occurs in narration as characters’ thoughts.  The fact that sex and violence are often combined is very much like one of Wishman’s roughies from the ‘60s.  The use of the term “photographer’s models” instead of “hookers” was also pretty dated by the time the film came out, further making it feel like a lost relic from the ‘60s that happened to be released in the late ‘70s.  That’s not a criticism, just an observation.  

This might be Steckler’s purest movie.  There’s no fat on it, except for the scenes of Agostino in his coop petting his pet pigeons.  Or the random sex club roller disco scene at Plato’s Retreat West.  (Steckler would later make a porno of that title using the same location a few years later.)  

Steckler also wrote some great lines like, “I was right.  She IS just like all the others.  Worse maybe”, “You want a shot of my buttocks?  Doo-Doo-Doo!”, and “Die, garbage!”  

The last name of Pierre Agostino’s character is “Click”, which makes this sort of a loose sequel to Steckler’s The Thrill Killers.  Also, the title, The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher calls to mind the alternate title of The Incredibly Strange Creatures, Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary.  Other Steckler signatures include:  A Yellow-on-Black opening title sequence (like Blood Shack), scenic travelogue shots of the sex theaters and porno shops of Hollywood Boulevard (which make this a nice time capsule of the era), scenes that take place on the beach, and weird narration.  We also get a little bit of Steckler’s trademark self-promotion as posters for his adult films, Teenage Massage Parlor and Teenage Hustler can be glimpsed in the background in one scene.  However, this time around Brandt and Agostino are really the only members of Steckler’s Stock Players to put in appearances. 

When I first saw this on video back in the ‘90s, I thought it was okay.  Probably a ** ½ flick.  Now, seeing it in the proper context of Steckler’s work, I have a better appreciation for it.  I’d say it’s a *** movie now.  Heck, it looks like a goddamned masterpiece next to Sinthia:  The Devil’s Doll and Blood Shack. 

Steckler followed this up seven years later with a sequel, Las Vegas Serial Killer. 

AKA:  The Hollywood Strangler.  AKA:  The Model Killer.

JANUA-RAY: BLOOD SHACK (1971) *

“The Chooper” is a vengeful Native American spirit that haunts a dilapidated old shack in the middle of nowhere.  He’s so famous that people come from miles around to spend the night in the shack just so they can get offed by the killer “ghost”.  The caretaker, Daniel (Jason Wayne) keeps warning people to stay away, and when they wind up dead, he dutifully buries the bodies.  Eventually, Carol (Carolyn Brandt) inherits the shack and right away, a local fat cat (Ron Haydock) wants to buy the place from her.  She refuses, and he gets increasingly violent every time she shoots him down.  Hmmm… Could HE be The Chooper?  

If you ever saw an episode of Scooby-Doo, you probably already know the answer.

Like many of Ray Dennis Steckler’s previous films, his family members have big parts.  This time out, his wife and daughters (who play the only game of Musical Chairs in cinematic history that only has one chair) comprise half the cast.  The other Steckler mainstay, Rat Pfink himself, Haydock also co-wrote the script.  Blood Shack is also similar to Steckler’s other works as an ominous dude with a red face appears to terrorize people, and the killer wears a black hoodie just like Cash Flagg did in The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies.  

It's only fifty-five minutes long, but it feels like an eternity.  If you thought Sinthia:  The Devil’s Doll was dull, you haven’t seen anything yet.  The long, drawn-out, pointless dialogue scenes go on forever.  Combine that with Brandt’s weird, echo-y voiceovers, and some extremely gratuitous rodeo footage, and the results resemble a snuff movie version of an ASMR video.  

Wayne’s final moments are good for an unintentional laugh, but that isn’t worth sitting through fifty-four minutes of insomnia-curing cinema just to see it.

Even with the short running time, this version is Steckler’s preferred cut.  However, he struggled to find distribution with a movie that was so short, so he added fifteen more minutes to the movie to get it up to feature length.  That version is called The Chooper, and it is also included on the Blu-ray.  The funny thing is, even though Ray liked his original version better, The Chooper cut FEELS more like a Steckler movie because it has at least two of his trademarks that aren’t found in the Blood Shack version.  First, is a great colorful title sequence done in the same art style as The Incredibly Strange Creatures (complete with close-ups of a bulging eyeball).  There’s also a scene of Shameless Self-Promotion where Wayne shows off posters of The Thrill Killers and The Incredibly Strange Creatures to “Carol”, who we learn “starred” in those movies, which means she’s playing a thinly veiled version of herself.  These additions don’t necessarily make The Chooper cut “better”, but they do make it feel more Steckler-y.

AKA:  The Chooper.  AKA:  Curse of the Evil Spirit.

JANUA-RAY: SINTHIA: THE DEVIL’S DOLL (1970) *

(Originally reviewed September 1st, 2021)

When Sinthia (Shula Roan) was just twelve years old, she caught her parents making love.  Since she had an unnatural sexual attraction to her father, she stabbed both of them to death and burned the house down.  Years later, a psychiatrist tries to help her before she gets married and potentially snaps again.  

 

Sinthia:  The Devil’s Doll was co-written and directed by one of my favorite cult directors, Ray Dennis Steckler.  After his career in campy B movies like The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies dried up, he was forced to make nudies like this.  At least his backyard bargain basement productions like Rat Pfink a Boo Boo had a certain charm about them.  This one is just torturous.  It’s not even fun in a cheesy way.  The repetitive scenes of Sinthia hysterically yelling, “Daddy.... Daddy… Daddy!” over and over again will be an endurance test for even the most jaded exploitation fan.

 

The poorly framed sex scenes make it hard to tell who’s doing what to whom.  Steckler also overdoes it on the psychedelic imagery, with all the blue, orange, and red lights only adding to the visual chaos on screen.  The long dream sequences get on your nerves too.  In most movies, they are usually there to help us understand the character’s psychosis, but here, it just feels like a cheap and easy way for Steckler (who was using his “Sven Christian” pseudonym, the tip-off that he was trying to pass this off as an “arty” Swedish movie) to pad out the running time.  (The repeated sequences are another tell-tale sign Steckler’s trying to milk the running time for all its worth.)  What’s worse, the constant roller rink music is enough to drive you certifiably insane.  There are also beach scenes that look like leftover footage from Incredibly Strange Creatures.  

 

We do get one good sequence where Sinthia goes to Hell and is forced to “love herself” and masturbates until she brings herself to a chest-heaving climax.  This scene is solid, but it’s way too brief, lasting only about a minute.  The other seventy-six minutes are often hellish.

 

AKA:  Where the Devil Tolls.  AKA:  Teenage She Devil.

JANUA-RAY NOTES:  

1) With Sinthia:  The Devil’s Doll, we have Ray Dennis Steckler’s first foray into the world of adult moviemaking.  He’s made just about every other kind of movie, so why not give skin flicks a try?  After this film, he would spend the next decade or so toiling away in the adult cinema scene.

2) I think some of the music in the opening scene was later used in Doris Wishman’s Love Toy.

3) Director’s Signatures:  A freak-out scene featuring people in red face paint (also a factor in The Incredibly Strange Creatures That Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies), dance numbers, beach scenes (Wild Guitar, Incredibly Strange Creatures), long chase scenes, long chase scenes on a beach, and like Rat Pfink a Boo Boo, there are scenes that are tinted different colors.

4) Steckler’s Stock Player Round-Up:  Gary Kent, Herb Robins (who also co-wrote the script), and E.M. Kevke (who played the Grasshopper in The Lemon Grove Kids).

5) At one point, a character says, “Oh, come on!  Let’s get this show on the road!”  I couldn’t agree more.  This is one slow, sluggish, and boring movie.  

6) Co-star Maria Lease went on to direct the XXX classics Expensive Tastes and Little Girls Blue.  

7) Seriously, how can you make a skin flick about incest and devil worshipping this damned dull?

8) This is the only dirty movie of Steckler’s I’ve seen so far.  They all can’t be this bad… Can they?

JANUA-RAY: BODY FEVER (1969) **

(Originally reviewed October 10th, 2021)

Ray Dennis Steckler stars as a down on his luck private eye who’s hiding out from finance companies coming to collect on his many debts.  He gets a job from some shady customers to find a cat burglar (Steckler’s real-life wife and frequent leading lady, Carolyn Brandt) who ripped off a sweaty underworld boss (Bernard Fein).  Once Steckler finally tracks her down, she offers to cut him in for half of the stolen loot.  

Body Fever resembles a “real” movie, which is more than I can say for many other Steckler joints.  However, that ramshackle homemade quality is usually the most endearing aspect of his films.  As it is, it’s a relatively straightforward, albeit completely forgettable throwback to the detective genre of the ‘40s and ‘50s.

Steckler must’ve thought his performance was noteworthy because he is billed under his real name and not his usual “Cash Flagg” pseudonym.  He is sorely miscast as a hardboiled private detective, but his goofy aloofness at the very least makes the cliched detective sequences watchable.  Al Adamson regular Gary Kent also appears as a tough guy, as does Coleman Francis, who has a bit part.  (Legend has it, he was added to the cast after production wrapped when Steckler found Francis lying drunk and broke in the gutter.)  

If anything, Body Fever is proof that Steckler could produce a competently put-together movie.  It’s just that without a Z grade premise or title (as was the case with The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies), it’s all rather forgettable.  The occasional glimpse of nudity portends Steckler’s eventual career turn into porn.  It definitely needed more than a few quick snippets of skin to elevate it into something recommended, but as far as Steckler’s films go, you can do a whole lot worse.

AKA:  Super Cool.  AKA:  Deadlocked.  AKA:  The Last Original B Movie.

JANUA-RAY NOTES:  

1) Body Fever is an atypical Ray Dennis Steckler movie, which, of course, makes it a typical Ray Dennis Steckler movie.  I appreciate the fact that Steckler dabbles in different genres from picture to picture (this time out, it’s an old timey detective story), but that doesn’t necessarily make it good.

2) Director Signatures:  Because this is a largely different Steckler film, his signatures aren't that overt, but we still see traces of an influence from TV’s Batman (Brandt’s cat burglar get-up is obviously inspired by Catwoman, just as Rat Pfink a Boo Boo were inspired by Batman and Robin), long chase scenes, and one character remarks Steckler looks like “the dummy from The Bowery Boys”, a nod to his role in The Lemon Grove Kids.  

3) Steckler’s Stock Player Round-Up:  Ray Dennis Steckler, Carolyn Brandt, Gary Kent, Coleman Francis, Herb Robins, Ron Haydock, Liz Renay, Brick Bardo, and Steckler’s daughters, Laura and Linda.

4) Shameless Self-Promotion:  A poster for Wild Guitar is seen hanging in Steckler’s office.

5) While Body Fever isn’t one of Steckler’s best, it is competently put together and holds your attention, even if it is missing the fun and camp of his earlier efforts. 

JANUA-RAY: THE LEMON GROVE KIDS (1968) **

Most directors start small and then work their way up.  Not Ray Dennis Steckler.  His first three movies, while still pretty cheap, had ambition, stars (well, Arch Hall, Jr. and Liz Renay, but still), and looked much bigger than their budget would imply.  By the time he made Rat Pfink a Boo Boo and The Lemon Grove Kids, he was making movies in his backyard for peanuts, using friends and family behind and in front of the camera.  That kind of handmade look is endearing.  

However, While Rat Pfink a Boo Boo is charming, inventive and fun, this is kind of a chore to sit through.  I think the whole premise of the movie started by someone stating that Steckler bore a passing resemblance to Huntz Hall from The Bowery Boys.  That must’ve sparked Ray to make his own Bowery Boys rip-off.  He also used the same basic structure of a Three Stooges short as the film is comprised of three short subjects starring “The Lemon Grove Kids”.  

“The Lemon Grove Kids”(* ½) has the Lemon Grove Kids getting into a tussle with their rival gang.  It’s decided that they should hold a race to settle their differences once and for all.  Naturally, the other gang try to sabotage the race.

From the perplexing silent movie title cards to the overdone sound effects to the painfully unfunny slapstick, The Lemon Grove Kids is pretty crummy in just about every way.  Comedies (especially cheap-o ones like this) that aren’t funny are often the hardest kinds of movies to stomach.  At least things end on a high note during the fun scene where Steckler winds up interrupting the filming of Rat Pfink a Boo Boo.  How meta!  The final bit where he is inexplicably pursued by a mummy goes on a bit too long though.

The second short is “The Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Green Grasshopper and the Vampire Lady from Outer Space” (**).  In this one, the Kids get hired to clean up the brush in Coleman Francis’ backyard.  Aliens led by a vampire woman (Carolyn Brandt) abduct some of the kids.  It’s then up Slug (Mike Kannon) and Gofer (Steckler) to save them.  

The Bowery Boys met monsters and ghosts, but they never got to tangle with aliens.  I guess having The Lemon Grove Kids go toe to toe with UFOs wasn’t the worst idea in the world.  After a longwinded set-up, the finale is pretty good… well, up until everything descends into chaos.  Once again, there are no real laughs to be had, but Brandt looks sexy in her Vampira-inspired get-up.  She’s easily the most memorable part of this segment.  Steckler’s daughter, Laura, who plays the youngest member of the “Kids”, Tickles, steals scenes by just being cute as a button.  

“The Lemon Grove Kids Go Hollywood!” (**) is the final segment.  This time out, the Kids get work doing odd jobs for movie star Cee Bee Beaumont (Brandt, playing the same character she did in Rat Pfink a Boo Boo, making this a shared cinematic universe long before Marvel made it trendy).  Two bumbling criminals try to kidnap her, and the usual hijinks ensue.

This one is just sort of ho-hum.  It’s not as painfully unfunny as the first sequence, but it lacks the charm of the second one.  Once again, Tickles is the best part.  She definitely deserved her own spin-off.

Director’s Signatures:  A long chase scene, musical numbers, a bizarre mash-up of genres, and at some screenings, people dressed like monsters ran out into the audience.  

Steckler’s Stock Player Round-Up:  Mike (The Thrill Killers) Kannon, Coleman Francis, Herb Robins, producer George Morgan, Ron Haydock, Carolyn Brandt, and Kogar the Gorilla.

Co-director Ted Roter, like Steckler, later wound up working in the porn industry, and his last XXX film was the first porno I ever saw, Scandalous Simone.

AKA:  The Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Monsters.

JANUA-RAY: RAT PFINK A BOO BOO (1966) ****

(Originally reviewed March 17, 2020)

Wikipedia defines an auteur as “an artist, usually a film director, who applies a highly centralized and subjective control to many aspects of a collaborative creative work; in other words, a person equivalent to an author of a novel or a play.  The term commonly refers to filmmakers or directors with a recognizable style or thematic preoccupation.”  If that doesn’t describe Ray Dennis Steckler, I don’t know what does.  He’s probably best known (and rightly so) for The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies.  This, however, just might be his magnum opus.  

Rat Pfink a Boo Boo is what you get when you take a hard-hitting crime melodrama, a rock n’ roll musical, a dime-store superhero movie, and a killer ape flick, toss them in a blender, and put the setting on WTF.  Apparently, Steckler started out making the crime picture and became dissatisfied with the results.  To amuse himself (or more likely to cash in on the popularity of Batman and Robin) he had his main characters become half-assed superheroes mid-film.  He also padded out the rest of the running time with musical numbers and an attack by a guy in a (rather impressive) ape costume.  The results are Z movie heaven.

What’s interesting is that the early scenes are quite intense, given the budget and the fact that it was shot silently with the sound added in post-production.  Steckler manages to wring genuine suspense from the scenes of the trio of hoodlums mugging a woman in an alley, as well as the scenes where they verbally harass Carolyn Brandt (Steckler’s leading lady on screen and off) over the telephone.  He does a fine job on the musical sequences too (this is the guy who made Wild Guitar after all).  The editing of the performances is remarkably competent and would look right at home on MTV if it had existed in 1966.  

It’s when heartthrob singer Lonnie Lord (Ron Haydock, who also wrote the screenplay) and dim-witted gardener Titus Twimbly (Titus Moede) become their crimefighting alter egos Rat Pfink and Boo Boo does the movie really take off.  The costumes look like they came out of a dime store, but that’s kind of what makes them awesome.  The fight scenes have a filmed-in-someone’s-backyard quality to them.  What’s astonishing is that they are staged and edited with a surprising amount of panache.  You also have to give Steckler credit for staging long motorcycle chases and parade scenes with no budget and zero permits.  It’s guerilla filmmaking at its finest.  (Speaking of gorilla, the ape suit is excellent and probably ate up whatever budget Steckler was working with.)

What’s more is that the film is only 66 minutes, and it moves like greased lightning.  There’s no fat on it whatsoever.  Sure, Incredibly Strange Creatures is great and all, but it bogs down like a son-of-a-bitch in the second half.  This one is over before you know it and leaves you wanting more.  

Oh, and how about that title?  You might think it’s a weird play on “a Go-Go”, but it’s not.  The onscreen title was supposed to read “Rat Pfink AND Boo Boo”, and the person who designed the titles just forgot to add the “N” and “D”.  I wish there was a better explanation for it.  Then again, the oddball title just makes the movie that much more memorable.

Today’s bloated big-budget superhero movies could take a page from Ray Dennis Steckler’s playbook.  There’s more ingenuity on display here than in a dozen MCU films.  Do you think the Russo Brothers could make something this good if they had a Ray Dennis Steckler budget?  Who knows?  I’d rather imagine what Ray could’ve done had he been given just a tenth of a budget as those guys had when they did Avengers:  Endgame.

AKA:  The Adventures of Rat Pfink and Boo Boo.

JANUA-RAY NOTES:  

1) The opening in which a trio of hoodlums attack a woman in an alley has a very Thrill Killers vibe to it, as do the scenes where they terrorize Carolyn Brandt.  

2) Director Signatures:  The opening title sequence uses the same font and grainy art style of The Incredibly Strange Creatures, there’s some odd narration in the beginning (“This is Lonnie Lord… his fans are legion!”), scenic shots of Hollywood Boulevard, lots of musical numbers, and a LONG chase scene in the third act. 

3) Steckler’s Stock Player Round-Up:  Carolyn Brandt, Ron Haydock, Titus Moede, and James (the nightclub comedian from Incredibly Strange Creatures) Bowie. 

4) Shameless Self-Promotion:  During the “Rat Pfink” musical number, one of the dancers wears one of the zombie masks from Incredibly Strange Creatures.

5) Like Incredibly Strange Creatures, this is an odd mash-up of genres (in this case, crime thriller, musical, and superhero movie) that should NOT work, but it’s so damned charming that you (or at least I) just have to love it.  

6) I like that Rat Pfink and Boo Boo’s alter egos have alliterative names, just like all the best superheroes.  

7) The scene where Haydock and Moede emerge from the closet in their Rat Pfink and Boo Boo garb is one of my favorite scenes in cinema history.  Very few movies turn on a dime so sharply midway through and manage to make it work.  Rat Pfink a Boo Boo is one of those movies.  Only a guy like Steckler could pull off something like that.

8) The Severin Blu-Ray only contains the black and white version, so I guess that means I won’t be parting with my Media Blasters DVD of the tinted version any time soon.  It’s still a fun movie either way, but I personally prefer the cheesy color sequences from the DVD.

JANUA-RAY: THE THRILL KILLERS (1964) **

(Originally posted July 17th, 2007)

Ray Dennis (The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies) Steckler directs and stars (under his usual pseudonym “Cash Flagg”) as Mort “Mad Dog” Click, a vicious killer.  A prostitute calls him a “weirdo” and he replies, “You don’t say!” and kills her.  Meanwhile a trio of madmen escapes from the nuthouse and terrorize a couple.  One guy uses an axe to decapitate people.  In the film’s best scene, he picks the dandruff off his axe after he uses it to cut a guy’s head off.  They then terrorize a movie star and his wife in a diner.  When the couple fights off the psychos, Click then shows up and stalks them.  Click kills a bunch of cops and escapes on horseback but is gunned down.  The black and white photography is great, but the movie’s not in the same league as Steckler’s other classics like Incredibly Strange Creatures…, Rat Pfink a Boo-Boo, and The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher.  With Liz (Desperate Living) Renay and the usual Steckler stock players Carolyn Brandt, Titus Moede, and Atlas King.  I think the narrator was Coleman (Beast of Yucca Flats) Francis.

AKA:  The Maniacs are Loose!  AKA:  Mad Dog Click.  AKA:  The Monsters are Loose.

JANUA-RAY NOTES:

1) My assumption in my original review was correct, that is Coleman Francis as the narrator.  You have to wonder if he wrote his own narration as lines like, “Joe is caught in a world of ‘non-reality’” sounds like something right out of The Beast of Yucca Flats.

2) As with the other films in the box set I’ve seen so far, the print looks excellent.  

3) Director Signatures:  Like Wild Guitar, this starts out with some great footage of Hollywood Boulevard at the time.  The opening credits sequence uses the same typeface as The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? and similarly ends with a zoom-in on Cash Flagg’s eye.  As in The Incredibly Strange Creatures, it also has a long, drawn-out chase scene in the third act.

4) Steckler’s Stock Player Round-Up:  Atlas (The Incredibly Stranges Creatures) King, Arch Hall, Sr. (playing himself!), Titus Moede, Carolyn Brandt, producer George Morgan, and of course, the ever-present Cash Flagg.  

5) Shameless Self-Promotion:  A poster for The Incredibly Strange Creatures can be seen hanging in the diner.

6) Gangster moll-turned-B-Movie actress Liz Renay went on to work with Steckler’s Wild Guitar co-star Arch Hall, Jr. in The Nasty Rabbit and Deadwood ’76.

7) The main problem with The Thrill Killers is that it feels like parts of two movies Frankensteined together to make an uneven whole.  It wouldn’t be a big issue had the two sections been equally entertaining.  As it is, the scenes of Steckler stalking his victims are a lot more entertaining than the ho-hum stuff with the trio of escaped axe murderers.  (That, and the final chase scene goes on FOREVER.)  Steckler did a much better job bridging two separate stories and styles later on with the immortal Rat Pfink a Boo-Boo.

8) Don’t get me wrong.  There is some good stuff here.  The sequence where Flagg smacks the prostitute around in time to the flashing lights outside his hotel room is well done.  It’s a shame that kind of snappy editing is largely absent elsewhere in the film.  

9) The Blu-Ray contains an alternate cut called “The Maniacs are Loose”.  It’s basically the same movie, but with a “maniacs are in the theater” gimmick similar to Incredibly Strange Creatures where people in masks would run into the audience at certain times.  This version has a color opening sequence starring “The Amazing Ormond” (from Ron Ormond’s Please Don’t Touch Me) who uses a Hypno-Wheel (again, similar to Incredibly Strange Creatures) to hypnotize the audience into thinking they will see maniacs among them in the theater.  Then, at certain times of the movie, the Hypno-Wheel will flash on screen, signaling when the maniacs will terrorize the audience.  Ultimately, The Thrill Killers isn’t much with or without the gimmick.

JANUA-RAY: THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES!!? (1964) ***

(Originally posted July 17th, 2007)

This is undeniably Ray Dennis Steckler’s masterpiece.  It’s a nutty horror musical that deserves its cult following.  The plot has Jerry (Steckler using his usual pseudonym Cash Flagg) taking his best girl and foreign friend to a carnival where he falls for one of the strippers.  She lures him into the booth where her sister, the fortune teller hypnotizes Jerry, splashes acid in his face and turns him into a murderous zombie.  In the end, her pit full of zombies escapes and cause carnage at the carnival.  

This is all well and good but to pad the running time, Steckler haphazardly tosses in some awful musical and dancing numbers (one including a tribal dance) that have nothing to do with anything.  The best scenes are the ones in which Steckler (who kinda resembles Nicolas Cage) gets hypnotized with a trippy spinning wheel and goofy sound effects.  The protracted chase on the beach finale doesn’t do it any favors either, but there is enough general goofiness to keep you entertained.  Besides with a title like that what’s not to like?  

Steckler’s usual cohorts Carolyn Brandt and Titus Moody also have small roles.  Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond were the cinematographers.  Steckler did The Thrill Killers next.  

AKA:  Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary.  AKA:  Diabolical Dr. Voodoo.  AKA:  AKA:  The Incredibly Mixed Up Zombie.

JANUA-RAY NOTES:  

1) Most prints of The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? I have seen (particularly the one shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000) were often muddy and murky, which made the film look like a cross between the Zapruder film and someone’s last known photograph.  Severin’s restoration looks like a million bucks.  

2) The opening title sequence, in which Cash Flagg’s face slowly morphs into an ugly zombie is an all-timer. 

3) I see that Steckler took a page out of Arch Hall, Sr.’s playbook by having posters of his previous films lurking around in the background.  There’s nothing like shameless self-promotion.

4) In my archive review, I refer to the musical and dance numbers as “awful”.  I am happy to say they have grown on me over time.  I still don’t think they are necessarily “good”, but they certainly add to the overall oddball vibe that makes the movie such a unique experience.  

5) Another thing that has grown on me about the movie:  Atlas King’s performance.  I used to think his thick accent and unintelligible ramblings were annoying, but like the various dance numbers, it’s just another bizarre component that makes TISCWSLABMUZ!!? A work of deranged genius.  

6) The hypnotism scenes are genuinely great, and the close-ups of Flagg’s bulging eyeballs are effective.

7) The extended nightmare/freak-out sequence, while primarily only there to pad out the running time, is also really well done.

8) Was Cash Flagg the first person to rock the hoodie look?

9) Not all the musical numbers are bad.  Far and away the best song is “Shook Out of Shape”, which is, as the kids say nowadays, a “banger”.