The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies

Like many filmmakers, director Ray Dennis Steckler has some weird issues and again like many directors, he made a movie about them. Unlike said other directors, Steckler’s flick has become infamous and is regarded by many as the worst movie ever made. Given that this goes against many other god awful movies, that’s quite a feat. However, Steckler’s film is also a bizarre experience that incorporates dream-like imagery along with the everyday that future directors (such as David Lynch and Ken Russell) would later more fully develop. But there is that badge of ‘worst movie ever’ to consider before anyone can redeem this work’s reputation and declare it a misunderstood masterpiece.

Oh, and there is also the added problem of the title: The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (the first monster musical).

Following the adventures of two society drop outs (Jerry and Harold) who seem to have less interest in contributing to society than bettering their own hygiene, the plot is actually very simple. As a more modern film, the two central characters would seem positively sinister. They live in a scantily attired shack and seem to drift from scene to scene in a half-awake state with no real interest aside from the nearby carnival and its nudie girl show.

Maybe the whole ‘zombie’ idea is more of a statement on the aimless youth culture of the time? In one scene Jerry even explains that he has no interest in getting a job for fear that it will lead inevitably to depression. Could Steckler be trying to make some statement on the consumer/worker society that he found himself alienated by? He did, after all, direct and act the lead part in the movie.

There is also the depiction of women in the movie as strange almost supernatural creatures (and always sexually unobtainable beings often glimpsed from afar). You only have to look at one of the many musical numbers to see what I mean. Jerry’s killing seems almost entirely focused on destroying women, possibly as a kind of xenophobic attack on what he cannot understand. Is this also some kind of statement from Steckler?

Could this movie not be a horribly made monstrosity and actually a confused statement from a gifted director?

But I’m getting carried away.

Lucky pretty girl Angela is being courted by Jerry and seems to find his persona charming while her mother is more concerned. Nevertheless, a large portion of the film is taken up with the trio of youth cavorting at the carnival… until they encounter Carmelita and her troubled cabaret act.

A hopeless drunk, Carmelita is on the outs with her boss after nearly ruining what was already a suspect dance routine in a dingy nightclub. Bewitched by Carmelita’s beauty, Jerry is tricked into the lair of the evil fortune teller Estrella who (with the assistance of her deformed assistant Ortega), hypnotizes Jerry into becoming a kill-crazy zombie. Jerry embarks on a number of killings broken up by strange musical numbers that he has witnessed at the carnival. To be honest, the musical numbers are weird enough on their own without being turned into nightmarish visions complete with a face-painted Jerry as an acrobatic knife-wielding killer in a hoodie.

For whatever reason, Estrella has been keeping an army of zombies in a storage room (apparently dressed in pajamas) who eventually escape and break up an incredibly offensive musical jungle number before killing people who actually paid money to see that kind of thing. The entire affair ends badly with Jerry fleeing in despair to die on the beach as the waves crash over his corpse. It sounds more romantic that it actually is.

A totally insane experience with equal sparks of brilliance and stupidity, this is a movie that really has to be seen to be believed. I first learned of its existence many many moons ago in a compendium film that explored the B-Movie horror genre and had trouble believing that it was real then. Only later did I see someone actually pointing out that the movie shares visions with more celebrated absurd art flicks. Is it genuine? I’m really not prepared to say. Is The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (the first monster musical) making some bold statement about the modern world and its shambling gate toward oblivion as the true horror? Or is this just a cheap poorly made oddity from the 60’s?

All I can say in confidence is that it is a zombie musical… and somehow that’s enough.