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

[Jerry Saravia]

INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP
ZOMBIES!!? (1964)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
RATING: Two stars and a half

So we have a carnival where the palm reader throws acid in your face,
especially at pizza owners! The palm reader is Estrella (Brett O'Hara)
and her assistant smokes cigars and looks uglier than Rondo Hatton! We
have some older teenagers, possibly leftover extras from "Rebel
Without a Cause" and one of whom is a foreigner, who enjoy going to
this carnival quite possibly because there are showgirls on the order
of Bettie Page who sing and striptease!

What we have here is a mess called "The Incredibly Strange Creatures
Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies," which is the most
surreal, wacky and nonsensical movie I've seen in some time (complete
with the wackiest title of all time). The lead role belongs to the
director himself, Ray Dennis Steckler (also using the alias Cash
Flagg), who plays Jerry, a teen troublemaker who like to frequent the
carnival (who wouldn't with all those peep shows and bad comics?) It
turns out that Estrella, the palm reader, has thrown acid on one
customer after another and has kept them in some sort of underground
dungeon. They aren't exactly zombies, just some angry customers I
would imagine with largely disfigured heads. Jerry is hypnotized into
killing people at Estrella's command - he goes around wearing a blue
hooded sweatshirt and brandishing a knife. He bears an uncanny
resemblance to Charles Whitman, the infamous rifleman who stood on top
of the University of Texas and shot several students.

The reason this movie has achieved cult status is because it makes no
sense and contains more musical numbers than suspense. The benefits
are that it is technically proficient and astoundingly photographed,
considering one of the cinematographers is Laszlo Kovacs (although a
lot of scenes are badly staged).

Other than that, it is quite a strange experience that can't be put in
any real category. Not quite horror, not quite a suspense film, and
not much of anything else other than a colorful blend of gaudy music
numbers and some loose serial-killer subplot. There is an erratic
energy to it that keeps you glued to the screen - it is a freak of
nature. Describing what it is all about is another story.

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