Ray Dennis Steckler has died.
To bad film aficionados, Steckler was director/producer of some of the most beloved film names in history, most notably The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? and the incomprehensible Rat Phink a Boo Boo. He often acted in his own films under the name “Cash Flagg” (or others, like the bad film classic Eegah).
Oy.
Oy.
I love those old bad films. Unfortunately, I was never able to see The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies; but that was the title that caused me to buy Re/Search #10: Incredibly Strange Films. I also missed Arch Hall Jr.'s Eegah.
Quick! Let’s bring bad exploitation films back! I have the camera and lights! Doper Productions, anyone?
I dunno. I don’t know if it’s possible to make original contributions in a genre whose time has passed. I’m afraid the result could never be more than a pastiche like Grindhouse.
Yeah, Steckler didn’t set out to make legendarily bad movies. He just had big plans and non-existent budgets, which got lower as he filmed. A lot of times he would revise on the fly to accommodate, which is why his starts and finishes sometimes seem like different movies. You can’t set out to imitate that.
Both Incredibly Strange and Rat Phink were shown on TCM, so you might catch them there again someday. Maybe some day soon since TCM likes to honor the dead.
Here’s what gets me- THE MAN DIRECTED 26-to-27 FILMS! Granted- much of it was Porn, but still!
Dude. Check out some of the Scifi Originals and the ground-out, z-grade horror that disappointed young actors use to flesh out their resumes. The genre is alive and flourishing.
Uh… I wasn’t serious about that!
They’re both MSt3K movies, and available on DVD. Some MST3K dvds have the option to watch the films without the commentary, too (though why anybody would want to is beyond me).
Creatures is available on Amazon (in case you missed the Easter Egg in my previous post) in a non-MST3K version with commentaries by Steckler and Joe Bob Briggs.
Oh, bad films have always been made and always will be. But your classic MST3K-fodder drive-in exploitation badfilm is a thing of the fading past.
By ‘those old bad films’ I mean like 2000 Maniacs and other Hershcell Gordon Lewis and Russ Meyer-type films; not TISCWSLABMUZ specifically.
The part I was questioning was where you said you were never able to see it, when it is available on DVD and VHS through Amazon (also, the MST3K DVD is available through Netflix while the Blockbuster has the standard version).
Back in the day, when you had to see films in revival houses or rent them on VHS tapes, I never saw the film available. I haven’t thought about it in a while, so I never did see it.
Ah, I’ve heard tales of such a time, but I’ve never believed them.
His obit got linked on Livejournal’s MST3K community, wherein I called him ‘The Incredibly Strange Director Who Stopped Living and Became a Fairly Straightforward Corpse.’