The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? (1964)

Jerry falls in love with a stripper he meets at a carnival. Little does he know that she is the sister of a gypsy fortune teller whose predictions he had scoffed at earlier. The gypsy turns him into a zombie and he goes on a killing spree.

Director:

Ray Dennis Steckler

Writers:

Gene Pollock (screenplay), Robert Silliphant (screenplay),

Stars:

Ray Dennis Steckler, Carolyn Brandt, Brett O'Hara

Bottom 100 #36 | See the Bottom 100 movies as voted by our users.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Ray Dennis Steckler	...	Jerry (as Cash Flagg)
Carolyn Brandt	...	Marge Neilson
Brett O'Hara	...	Madame Estrella
Atlas King	...	Harold
Sharon Walsh	...	Angela
Pat Kirkwood	...	Madison (as Madison Clarke)
Erina Enyo	...	Carmelita
Don Russell	...	Ortega (as Jack Brady)
Toni Camel	...	Stella
Joan Howard	...	Angela's Mother
Neil Stillman	...	Barker
William Turner	...	Himself (as Bill Ward)
Gene Pollock	...	Night Club Manager
James Bowie	...	Night Club Comedian / Creature
Son Hooker	...	1st Policeman

Storyline

Beatnick Jerry takes his girl, Angie to the carnival. Angie wants to go see the gypsy fortune teller, Jerry does not but relents. After visiting the fortune teller and hearing bad news, Jerry goes alone to see Carmelita, the dancer (the fortune teller's sister). He is invited backstage and is mesmerized into becoming a psychotic killer. Angie, and Jerry's best friend Harold realize something is amiss when Jerry tries to kill Angie.

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Plot Keywords:

fortune teller | gypsy | carnival | zombie | dancer | 

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Taglines:

At last a new kind of monster movie!

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Genres:

Horror | Music | Musical | Mystery | Thriller

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

March 1964 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Incredibly Strange Creature: Or Why I Stopped Living and Became a Mixed-up Zombie

Filming Locations:

California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$38,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Morgan-Steckler Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

82 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

When this movie was released, employees of the theaters would dress as monsters and run through the theaters.

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Goofs

The climax begins at night, then immediately switches to broad daylight.

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Quotes

Madame Estrella: You wish your fortunes told?
Harold: What do you think we came here for, to eat?

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Connections

Referenced in The Thrill Killers (1964)

User Reviews

Proof again that the only bad film is a boring one!

I recommend this film for those of you who, like me, work out of the home and enjoy having warm, harmless, unimposing movies playing quietly in the background during the workday. Many critics have commented negatively about this movie's novel title, confusing plot (or lack thereof), queerly dated characters, unintelligible dialogue, garish color, inferior sound, etc. But in this connection, I can think of no other film that keeps on simultaneously garnering so much praise, while incurring an exactly proportionate censure, over precisely the same agreed "shortcomings." For example, some viewers balk that the film's dance numbers are both irrelevant and amateurish, therefore doubly unendurable. Others, like myself, find them so deliciously preposterous and unaccountably charming in their dated foolishness as to be worthy of repeated viewings. And this dualism just may be "Incredibly Weird. . ."s real strong suit. There's so much I could say in defense of this poorly-made film from a nicer, nostalgic time, when even Hollywood's low-rent district seemed sunny and safe- but much of it has already been said in these reviews, and very well at that. Let me confine my recommendation to this: if you're shopping to buy or rent a notoriously "bad" film, don't choose a jaded, overblown, written-by-committee, painfully self-conscious finger-wagger made c.1994 at a cost of over 50 million, and which was panned as a 1/2-star flop by every critic and moviegoer, yet managed to not only recoup its investment but launched three big-name careers in the process. No, friend, go with a stinker such as this fetid little endeavor, made on a shoestring, enlisting the dubious cooperation of an uninspired carnival sideshow troupe, and which best of all bears the boisterous but distinctive thumb-print of an overly-ambitious director/lead actor/ out-of-his-depth galoot like Ray Dennis Steckler. I couldn't explain it properly here in the space allowed, but "Incredibly Weird" seems to unintentionally exude a charmingly flatulent air biscuit of Americana; and if a film must have warts, this one has the ones that are best had. "Incredibly Weird . . ." - a pleasingly inept offering from the days when a film could be bizarre without giving in completely to the perverse, and could gain an audience with no visible means of sustaining one but its overwrought title and its hopelessly inept charm.