Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

*cue catchy jingle*

Five more days to Halloween, Halloween, Halloween.
Five more days to Halloween - Silver Shamrocks!

Welcome Boys and Ghouls to Month of the Living Dead, my thirteen day (and then some) tribute to that most wonderful of holidays ever - Halloween! Join me, wont you, as I watch the sinister and the silly, the morbid and the macabre, the violent and gruesome in a two week bloodletting that comes to a boil on the eve of all saints.

*cue thunder and lightning effect*

So sit back, turn the lights down low and get ready for today's presentation of. . . .

THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED UP ZOMBIES! Bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah!

*cue commercial break*

I figured that I had it too easy. Up until now I'd been enjoying reasonably good horror films. The worst of the bunch is The Omega Man, and even as bad as that was, it still had some 70's blackploitation charm about it. No, I decided to really stretch myself and slit my wrists (in a metaphorical bad movie way, I mean) and really open up the vein. No - today I bring you a review of 1963's The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?.

The plot of The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? - at least as near as I can tell - is thusly: at the local traveling carnival, there is a gypsy woman named Estrella, who runs the fortune-telling booth. A drunken salesman turns down her sexual advances, who then summons her assistant Ortega to help her pour acid on the guy's face and usher him into the back room, where he joins her growing army of incredibly strange former salesmen who stopped living and who are now Mixed Up Zombies.

Later that night, teen Rebel Without A Clue troublemaker Jerry decides to take in a sideshow or two with his best girl Angie and his totally square roommate Harold. Inside the den of sin, Jerry is instantly love-struck by Carmelita, a strip show dancer (and I use that term very loosely). However, things turn sinister when it turns out that Carmelita is Estrella's sister. Estrella lures Jerry into her clutches and hypnotizes him, turning him into a FLESH EATING GHOUL! Actually, no - we should be so lucky. This however is the early sixties, so instead our would-be juvenile delinquent merely becomes a butcher knife wielding serial killer with minimal violence.

Meanwhile, we are treated (and again I use the term loosely) to no less than NINE assorted floor shows of dubious quality, where vaguely choreographed showgirls clad only in saggy underpants stumble through a sickening set of routines that make Left Foot Joe look like Esther Williams and Gene Freakin' Kelly.

Of course, things come to a boil when our little meat cleaver wielding puppet stops wanting to make out with Angie and is more interested in murdering her. Harold saves the day, Jerry is doused with Estrella's secret potion that begins melting his face, and then she unleashes her horde of FLESH EATING - um fat salesmen. Jerry then runs away, kills a sideshow barker or two and is shot by the cops on the beach. The end.

AAARRRGGGGHHH!!! Make the hurting stop!

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? (here forth known as TISCWSLaBM-UZ!!? ) is perhaps one of the most notorious bad movies ever made, up there with Plan 9 From Outer Space or Robot Monster. In fact TISCWSLaBM-UZ!!? (naw, screw that - even TISCWSLaBM-UZ!!? is too hard to type out. We'll just call it Zombies from now on) boasts a slightly more infamous title than Breakin' II: Electric Boogaloo. At least Electric Boogaloo rolls off the tongue better than The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Wam Bam Shamalama Ding Dong.

Ray Dennis Steckler, the director responsible for bringing the world cinematic train wrecks like Rat Pfink a Boo Boo, The Thrill Killers, and The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher sinks to new depths as he commits celluloid manslaughter on a script that would be called incoherent under the best of circumstances.

The soundstage recreation of the burlesque peep show reminds me of a high school stage play, but not nearly as well done. The acting - Steckler, who also serves double duty as Jerry under the pseudonym "Cash Flagg", is a painful experience. The motivations - Estrella is creating zombies to get back at her sister because of her good looks - are nonsensical. And the - oh forget it. I cant bring myself to go on about this movie anymore. I can only allow it to wash over me, in a sea of stench direct from the bowels of hell.

Even Ed Wood had better films than this. Yes he was inept, but at least his were enjoyably so, with dialogue goofy enough to be entertaining and a sense of earnest enthusiasm. Zombies, on the other hand is just a waste of time, not even in the "so bad it's good" category. Even the MST3K crew (of which, I must admit, I watched for this viewing) struggle to deliver the funny throughout this film, as if even they were unable to make light of this cinematic turd. Honestly, if it wasn't for the "wacky" title, I'm certain that this film would have sunk beneath the waves of the B-Movie oceans long ago.

If that what doesn't kill me makes me stronger, a couple more viewings of Zombies and I should be freakin' Superman.

Sigh - and not a zombie to be found anywhere in the whole movie.

TOTAL BODY COUNT: 1
MOST MEMORABLE KILL: Um, when whats his face gets killed at the end. I guess.
GALLONS OF BLOOD USED: 0
SPRING LOADED CATS: 0
THE MORON OF THE MOVIE AWARD GOES TO: Every cast member gets an honorary Moron Award.
BREASTS ON DISPLAY: 0
BEST LINE: "We've got twenty beautiful girls and only ten beautiful costumes!"

THE DVD -
The DVD, included in the Mystery Science Theater box set number nine looks pretty good, all things considered. The print used looks nice and sharp. The Host Segments look better than the movie itself, but that's only to be expected. The film print, on the other hand, shows editing defects and film splices aplenty.

THE EXTRAS -
There are two extras with the set, attached to Women of the Prehistoric Planet and The Sinister Urge respectively - short introductions by members of their respective casts. Conrad Brooks and Irene Tsu take a moment to reminisce on their works. Nice, but not too heavy.

The other movies in the set, by the way, are: Women of the Prehistoric Planet, Wild Rebels, and The Sinister Urge. Someday, I might even get around to reviewing those movies too.

THE BOTTOM LINE -
Oh, I knew I was in for some pain, but still - aye caramba! Even the MST3K sugar coating doesn't do anything to help this bitter pill covered in razor blades and arsenic washed down with a broken glass smoothie go down any better. Even worse news - according to Ray Steckler's web page (who currently owns a video store in Las Vegas), he considering a sequel to Zombies, some 45 years after the fact. The mind boggles!

Join me next time for another journey into the macabre. Until then. . . pleasant SCREAMS! Bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah!

*cue thunder and lightning effect*

My Month of the Living Dead reviews:
* THE EVIL DEAD
* NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
* PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE
* THE FOG
* REVELATION OF THE DALEKS
* DAWN OF THE DEAD
* THE LAST MAN ON EARTH/HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL
* DAY OF THE DEAD
* RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD
* THE OMEGA MAN
* NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 3D
* THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED UP ZOMBIES
* LAND OF THE DEAD
* MASTERS OF HORROR - HOMECOMING
* 28 DAYS LATER
* WHITE ZOMBIE
* HALLOWEEN



Recommended: No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up to Age 4