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The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies
The Incredibly Mixed-Up Zombie / Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary / Diabolical Dr.Voodoo
USA 1964
produced by Ray Dennis Steckler, George J.Morgan (executive) for Morgan-Steckler Productions
directed by Ray Dennis Steckler
starring Cash Flagg (= Ray Dennis Steeckler), Carolyn Neilson, Brett O'Hara, Atlas King, Sharon Walsh, Pat Kirkwood (as Madison Clarke), Erina Enyo, Don Russell (as Jack Brady), Toni Camel, Joan Howard, Neil Stillman, Bill Ward, Gene Pollock, James Bowie, Whitey Robinson, Son Hooker, Steve Clark, Jill Carson, Titus Moede, Don Snyder, Carol Kay, Teri Randal, Patrice Michaels, Pat Lynn, Betty Downing, Denise Lynn, Cindy Shea, Patti Crandall, Robert Silliphant
screenplay by Gene Pollock, Robert Silliphant, based on a story by E.M.Kevke, music by André Brummer (as Henri Price), Libby Quinn, special makeup by Tom Scherman, director of photography: Joseph V.Mascelli, camera operator: Vilmos Zsigmond, assistant camera: László Kovács, musical numbers staged by Alan Smith, Bill Turner
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
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Jerry (Cash Flagg alias Ray Dennis Steckler) takes his girl Angela
(Sharon Walsh) to a fun fair, where she has her palm read by fortune
teller Estrella (Brett O'Hara), an evil woman to be sure, but she's nice
to Angela. For Jerry however, she has different plans, so she has him
charmed by her sister, the stripper Carmelita (Erina Enyo) - upon which
Jerry promptly dumps his girlfriend and heads for a date with Carmelita.
But instead of a romantic something, Estrella hypnotizes Jerry so he kills
Marge (Carolyn Brandt), an alcoholic dancer, right on stage - mainly
because Marge has found out Estrella's secret. The next day, Jerry has
no idea anymore what was wrong with him the other night, and he pays a
visit to Angela to apologize and make up - but when she twirls her little
umbrella just like Madame Estrella's hypnotizing spiral, he immediately
falls under Estrella's spell and tries to kill his own girlfriend. Whe he
realizes what he's doing, he can't but make a hasty escape. A dancing
girl has found out that Madame Estrella has something to do with Marge's
death, so Estrella sends Jerry after her to kill her as well, before she
decides to make Jerry one of her zombies she keeps in her backroom (her
little secret), but when her assistant (Don Russell) opens the zombies'
cage, all the creatures escape and create havoc, killing first Estrella,
her assistant and Carmelita before invading the next-door dance
performance before the police arrives to shoot the cretures down. Only
Jerry, now one of the creatures as well, can escape to some cliffs by the
sea, with the police and his friends led by Angela - who knows he's kind
at heart despite of him attacking her - in hot pursuit. Angela pleas to
his sanity but eventually, he is shot down the cliffs to his death by the
police. Now this is one weird movie: Basically it's a typical
revue movie, even if done on the cheap, but the musical numbers are linked
not by your typical love story but by a zombie/serial killer plot not at
all unlike the shockers Monogram
produced some 20 years earlier. To no one's real surprise, the whole thing
makes little sense, and might even alienate viewers upon first viewing -
but believe me, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and
Became Mixed-Up Zombies gets better with each viewing, as if it
revealed more and more of its secret ... and all this while the film was
extremely cheaply made at the same time, and several of its effects are
very goofy - there's just something irresistible about the whole thing
nevertheless.
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