INCREDIBLY STRANGE FILMS Redux

The following collects my notes on the other major features gathered together in Severin Films' impressive and absorbing box set, THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE FEATURES OF RAY DENNIS STECKLER. I've already covered the earlier WILD GUITAR and THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES (the latter in five-part detail); the others in the set are THE LAS VEGAS SERIAL KILLER (1986); the X-rated hardcore titles THE MAD LOVE LIFE OF A HOT VAMPIRE (1970), NAZI BROTHEL (1970), LOVE LIFE OF HITLER'S NAZIS (1971), COUNT AL-KUM (1971), DR. COCK LUV (1970), THE SEXORCIST'S DEVIL (1974), RED HEAT (1981); and three latter-day shot-on-videotape projects, SUMMER FUN (1997), the 257m homeward documentary READING, PA (2006), and ONE MORE TIME (2008), the last being a supposed sequel to THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES... I've tried to tackle the last disc of films but I just couldn't stick with them at this time. Likewise, I'm not feeling drawn to the hour-long-or-less adult titles (which, incidentally, were made by a guy who allegedly turned down Bernard Fein's invitation to work on HOGAN'S HEROES because he felt it wrong to depict Nazis humorously) but may check them out at some future date.    

 

THE THRILL KILLERS (1965, 69:57, 1.85:1): In the wake of THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES…, Ray Dennis Steckler stepped away from the juvenilia of carnival, monsters and rock ‘n’ roll with this startling shift into brutal criminality and violence—perhaps prompted by his erstwhile partner Arch Hall Jr.’s surprise drive-in hit THE SADIST. The story, which opens à la WILD GUITAR with starstruck visits to Hollywood landmarks, is fairly simplistic: an ambitious, out-of-work Hollywood actor (Joe Bardo) and his sexy wife (Liz Renay) are having marital problems when they run afoul of a surplus of deranged killers who have escaped jail (Gary Kent, Herb Robins, axe-wielding Keith O’Brien and “Cash Flagg” as Mort “Mad Dog” Click) and dispatch other characters early on. Carolyn Brandt, playing yet another long-legged damsel in distress, brings a striking sense of dance choreography to her action scenes, and—past a certain point—the action scenes are virtually non-stop, interrupted only by appropriate preludes of suspense. Filmed in 35mm by the ISC team, in mildly stylized black-and-white, this is undoubtedly Steckler’s best-looking film, graced with impactful cutting and an impressively consistent forward drive. The climax includes a remarkably effective dummy death and an audacious, improvised stunt sequence wherein “Mad Dog” Click takes to horseback like a natural to flee a pursuant motorcycle cop, despite Steckler’s avowal that he’d never been astride a horse in his life. Also making a potent impression is Laura Benedict (Gary Kent’s girlfriend at the time) in her only screen role as the manager/cashier at a lone truck stop restaurant with the usual Stecklerian décor; she never made another picture though she leaps off the screen like a west coast Juliette Gréco. There are self-referential moments peppered here and there, with brazen (and not particularly flattering) cameos by the film's producer George Morgan and erstwhile producer Arch Hall, Sr., and a wham-bam swan song appearance by the unforgettable Atlas King. 

RAT PFINK A BOO BOO (1966, 67:05, 1.85:1): The first 40 minutes or so of this celebrated silliness is dead serious, depicting a woman being bullied after dark by another trio of psychotic toughs - very much a continuation of what Steckler was doing with THE THRILL KILLERS, but then pulls what must be the screen's most abrupt whiplash switcheroo. When rock ‘n’ roll star Lonnie Lord (Ron Haydock, introduced signing autographs for three female fans with his right hand outside the Capitol Records building, while holding his guitar in the other) learns that his girlfriend CeeBee Beaumont (Carolyn Brandt) has been abducted by these unhinged lunatics, he sits down with gardener Titus Twimbley (Titus Moede), plays a mopey song on his guitar (the lyrics confusingly frame the abduction as the girlfriend’s rejection of him), and then the two men go behind a locked door to emerge as the pervious-to-bullets superheroes Rat Pfink and Boo Boo. This film actually predated the ABC-TV hit series of January 1966 and was likely inspired by the 1965 “An Evening with Batman and Robin” reissue of the original BATMAN Republic serial, yet it’s very much attuned to what the TV show became. Carolyn Brandt, when showcased in joyous mode in romp sequences with Haydock, set to Haydock's own Gene Vincent-influenced music, is a revelation here; it wouldn't be out-of-line to liken her pop appeal and spontaneity to Anna Karina. The attraction of fun—which THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES… seemed to warn against—gets the better of Steckler here, but that’s not to say it isn’t just as infectious to the viewer. If you've not seen this film, be advised it's more layered than you may be expecting and hard not to embrace. The wonderful Bob Burns guest stars as his gorilla alter ego, Kogar. 

THE LEMON GROVE KIDS! (1968, 78:15, 1.33:1): Also known as THE LEMON GROVE KIDS MEET THE MONSTERS. Steckler’s love letter to the Bowery Boys and his San Diego neighborhood was produced as three two-reelers (“The Lemon Grove Kids,” “The Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Green Grasshopper and the Vampire Lady from Outer Space” and “The Lemon Grove Kids Go Hollywood!”), then collected and released theatrically as a feature-length film. This is wholesome, wacky, fun-loving entertainment best suited to children, particularly the children of an earlier, simpler time—not unlike, say, Barry Mahon's kiddie matinee fodder if notably smarter. Made when Steckler’s own kids were young (and already acting onscreen), I suspect he made these shorts mostly for their pleasure, as something to perhaps infect them with the movie bug as he had been, and also to preserve the magic of that time of young parenting for Carolyn and himself. This is probably his most personal work yet, of all the material in this set (despite the return of Rat Pfink and Kogar in COLOR), I relate to it least though it does reveal another, warmer side of the artist: his deep love of people, neighborhoods, community - and of course, filmmaking. In his commentary, Steckler relates a heartbreaking story about his admiration for East Side Kids/Bowery Boys actor Huntz Hall, whom he briefly befriended, invited into his life, and wanted very much to feature in one of his movies. The cast includes Carolyn Brandt (as the Vampire Lady, and reprising her RAT PFINK role of CeeBee Beaumont), Ron Haydock, Bob Burns, Titus Moede, and the final credited appearance of Cash Flagg. Steckler’s direction credit is shared with Peter Balakoff and Ed McWatters.

BODY FEVER (1969, 77:45, 1.85:1): Ever since Arthur Conan Doyle admitted to Sherlock Holmes’ predilection for a seven-percent cocaine solution, the private eyes of detective fiction have been designed according to their personal eccentricities. John D. Macdonald’s Travis McGee, for example, headquarters on a houseboat and, one year before he first came to the screen in the person of Rod Taylor in Robert Clouse’s DARKER THAN AMBER (1970), Steckler made this film, starring (under his own name, this time) as downtrodden LA gumshoe Charlie Smith, who worships Bogart and wiles away his down time aboard a sailboat called the Rogue. Though this film, like his others, was made on a negligible budget and without a finished script, it has a pretty strong backbone thanks to the improvisational grit of experienced actors like Bernard Fein, Coleman Francis and Herb Robins. No one would ever mistake this as anything other than an American film yet it draws visual inspiration from Franju’s JUDEX (the ever-lithe Carolyn Brandt cat-burgles in a snakeskin leotard and mask), Lelouch’s A MAN AND A WOMAN (in its warm yet non-explicit sex scenes), and scenes of joyous, exuberant running whose roots may extend to Richard Lester’s Beatles films or perhaps Louis Malle’s ZAZIE. Shot in Los Angeles and Utah, most of the interiors were shot in Steckler’s and Brandt’s own home and the strangely measured naivete, humor and grit of the piece (about Smith’s risky attempt to recover and neutralize a large bag of stolen heroin) gives this one a somewhat Frenchified, Cassavetes-like feel and pegs this one as the KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE of his filmography. 

SINTHIA THE DEVIL’S DOLL (1970, 77:04, 1.85:1): Scripted by actor Herb Robins, Steckler photographed and directed this highly experimental skin flick as “Sven Christian,” an alias that hints at the Bermanesque elements in the storyline. In psychoanalysis, Cynthia Kyle (Shula Roan aka moonlighting schoolteacher Bunny Allister) struggles to come to terms with an emotionally confused past in which she, sexually jealous of her mother, killed both her parents en flagrante by setting their bed afire. Instead of telling the story in a straightforward way, Steckler (and Robins) opt to delve inside Cynthia’s psychosis, opening up in a feverishly, color-saturated mindscape recalling earlier works by Bergman (THE MAGICIAN, THE HOUR OF THE WOLF), Roger Corman (THE TRIP), Curtis Harrington (NIGHT TIDE), numerous Jess Franco titles yet to come (EUGENIE DE SADE, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR, etc), and particularly the shorts of Kenneth Anger. The supporting cast features Gary Kent and Maria Lease (familiar from her appearances in Joe Sarno and Al Adamson films). Dumped as it was onto the sexploitation circuit, this daring and surprisingly accomplished psychodrama went unrecognized as anything exceptional but this is one of the outstanding examples of the kind of art film that could and should have been sanctioned more often by the then-new X rating. 

BLOOD SHACK / THE CHOOPER (1971, 55:10 / 70:10, 1.33:1): With its direction credited to “Wolfgang Schmidt” (because Steckler had determined that he could no longer even “give away” any film he’d properly signed), this picture was reportedly filmed produced for “about $500” in Death Valley, California. Carolyn Brandt plays herself, albeit as a down-on-her-luck horror movie star who, after two unhappy marriages and a stalled career, inherits some sparse desert ranch property from the beloved “Uncle Jim” who produced her past matinee hits. (The dead uncle’s office is this film’s shrine to past Stecklermania, and by the time we reach this feature in Severin’s box set we realize that these pressbooks and photos taped to the walls in all Steckler features were his way of anticipating this digital compendium.) A stone’s throw from her inheritance is the shell of a dumpy, supposedly 150-year old house with nothing more than a hideously soiled mattress inside; the barren, birch-veined property is said to be the host of a terrible Indian curse. Whenever someone enters the place, a murderous shadow figure known as “The Chooper” is manifest to claim their lives with (I guess the first weapon that came to hand) an Excalibur-like sword. 

    Co-written with Ron Haydock (who essentially authored Brandt’s voiceover narration and also stars in the one-note role of Tim Foster, a neighboring landowner who wants to buy her allegedly water-rich property), the lack of a real script is more noticeable here than in other Steckler pictures yet his camera eye finds intermittent beauty and wonder in the scenic desolation; he somehow succeeds in creating Hellmanesque western cinema from its confluence of random visual action (including documentation of at least one local rodeo) and improvisational business between the actors, including his two young daughters Linda and Laura. Even without a script, Steckler manages to allude to rising tensions between corporate and native America as it approached its "Bicentennial" year, juxtaposing the ancient curse with images of a rodeo flag “that never looked more American” and the star-striped, red-white-and-blue slacks that Brandt sports in the last act.

    BLOOD SHACK is the tighter, more polished presentation with a more traditional orchestral score, but THE CHOOPER is more fascinating, being ultimately more personal, more meta, in its candid references to the filmmaker’s earlier work. At 12:15, this film actually made me jump when the actress engulfed in black shadows (Laurel Spring) brings her own hand suddenly into the light. 

    Aaron AuBouchon’s commentary is a well-argued defense of THE CHOOPER. Steckler’s own commentary is unexpectedly lazy and mechanical and also disingenuous when he boasts of subconsciously borrowing from THE MISFITS while elsewhere denying that he took anything from PSYCHO, when the otherwise unnecessary character of property caretaker Daniel (Jason Wayne) is presented as a likely schizophrenic who invites the Chooper to keep on choppin’ ‘em down and he’ll keep buryin’ ‘em. In the end, he’s nothing more than a red herring, while the real Scooby Doo villain behind the Chooper turns out to be the most obvious suspect. If only Steckler had embraced his tendency to self-myth-making and revealed himself (or Uncle Jim) to be the Chooper, pretending to kill people to have something to make a film about! Also, try to count how many times the male characters lose their hats on the windy locations. It’s virtually a subplot. Worth noting is Steckler’s comment about seeing this film ideally on a big screen “in widescreen,” as it’s correctly represented here in 1.33:1 and would have been miserably cropped in even the most lenient widescreen ratio.

THE HOLLYWOOD STRANGLER MEETS THE SKID ROW SLASHER (1979, 70:52, 1.33:1): Also from “Wolfgang Schmidt,” this badly-titled, no-budget, essentially silent picture actually serves up an interesting idea: in Los Angeles, a middle-aged man (Pierre Agostino) mourning the loss of a loved one, poses as a photographer to gain intimate access to a series of models and hookers, whom he sees as the artifacts of a world in moral decline; he is surprised to find himself attracted to a severe-looking woman (Carolyn Brandt, divorced from Steckler by this time) who manages a miserly used book shop next door to the Flick Theater (showing DEEP THROAT and THE DEVIL IN MISS JONES)—when not moonlighting as the city’s other serial killer, who goes around knifing drunks and vagrants for much the same angry, disillusioned reason. Again, Steckler’s refusal to properly script the film (binding everything together with elliptic narration) prevents this idea from achieving its full potential, but as seen in the context of this retrospective box set, the film conveys a powerful illustration of Hollywood’s 15-year decline from the days of his earliest pictures, with their awestruck depictions of the Capitol Records building and the handprints outside Grauman’s Chinese Theater now replaced by porn theaters, liquor stores and escort services. By extension, the film holds up a judgmental mirror to the plummeting standards of American exploitation cinema and mourns Steckler’s earlier sense of artistic vitality and creative hope with a souring, if still diligent, sense of craftsmanship. Agostino also stars in the subsequent THE LAS VEGAS SERIAL KILLER (1986, 76:11, 1.33:1), which plays like a half-hearted postscript to this film, recycling a couple of scenes from the earlier picture (as well as rodeo footage from THE CHOOPER) while vainly pursuing the former glitz of Hollywood to Las Vegas. By this time, Carolyn Brandt had moved on and Steckler had lost the glue that held his cinematic universe together. 

The INCREDIBLY STRANGE FEATURES box set contains a veritable banquet of extras on each of its 10 discs; for a complete breakdown of the contents, and for the best available price on the set, I recommend you go directly to Severin Film's official store here. I will mention, however, that all of the films listed above (with the exception of SINTHIA, unfortunately) are accompanied by Steckler's own (previously released) personal commentaries, which are relaxed, playful and consistently informative. Also provided are feature introductions and commentaries by Joe Bob Briggs, which are highly listenable and well-organized but generally poke fun and repeat Steckler's anecdotes. THE THRILL KILLERS features a commentary by Christopher Wayne Curry, author of THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE FEATURES OF RAY DENNIS STECKLER (a book heretofore unknown to me), while BODY FEVER offers a track by DEAD EYES OF LONDON blogger David Dent. These both feature a lot of spirited play-by-play and are addressed to fans in search of entertainment and background trivia rather than critical insight. My own tastes favor the commentary tracks for RAT PFINK A BOO BOO and THE CHOOPER, which are the work of Aaron AuBuchon, a professor of film studies at Webster University in St. Louis. Of all the set's commentators, he has the most catholic grounding in myriad cinematic reference points; he doesn't anchor Steckler to genre, or make fun of him, even when calling into question some of his creative quirks and decisions. He finds it all very stimulating and his stimulation is infectious. My only regret is that he wasn't tapped to talk over every movie in the set. I hope he's working on a book. 

 

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