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...Not exactly a masterpiece of film-making though. "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?" - Which fan of cult cinema and amusing camp stuff could possibly resist a title like this? No one, of course, especially since Ray Dennis Steckler's 1964 film has the reputation of being one of the most outrageously awful things ever brought to screen. A reputation which is not completely justified, in my opinion, as while "The Incredibly Strange Creatures..." is doubtlessly a 'bad classic', it is in no way as awful as some other contemporary bombs, such as "Eegah" (1962) or the incredibly tedious "Beast of Yucca Flats" (1961), which also appear on the bottom 100 list of the all-time worst on this site. "The Incredibly Strange Creatures..." is stupid, ridiculous and miserably acted beyond belief, no doubt, but, hey - at least it is entertaining (which really cannot be said about "Eegah" or "The Beastof Yucca Flats"). As a matter of fact, this film is incredibly entertaining for its unintentional fun-factor, even though it sometimes gets very tedious in-between. It doesn't compare to the crème de la crème of bad movies, such as Ed Wood's wonderful "Plan 9 From Outer Space", but at least the film manages to be far more entertaining than some other films which share its bad reputation.

The most mixed-up thing about the film are actually not any Zombies (?), but the incredibly confused plot itself. Most of the film is set on a carnival, where a gypsy fortune teller is vengeful for whatever reason. Then there's a young couple who get mixed up by her desire for vengeance. And there's the couple's rock'n'roller friend with greasy hair. And there's an exotic dancer who likes to drink... or something. The plot really doesn't make a lot of sense, and one can be prepared to have forgotten half of it an hour after watching the film, but, as said above, at least it entertains. Overall this is recommendable to fans of bad cinema and cult stuff as well as people who simply like a good laugh. People who only like the "Citizen Kane" type of cinema should avoid this like the plague. There's no doubt that "The Incredibly Strange Creatures..." is incredibly awful, but neither is there a doubt that it's amusing.

I saw this movie after it featured on MST3K, and the "Mystery Science Theater 3000: 10 Worst Movies They Riffed" made it sound every bit as bad as it was made out to be on the show(the episode was entertaining of course but not one of their best for me). Actually, I have seen far worse movies than The Incredibly Strange Creatures..., it is a bad movie but one of the worst ever made? Not for me. I actually thought the photography and editing were quite good and the make-up likewise. The Incredibly Strange Creatures...is also unique for the longest movie title ever(though also giving an indication of what you're in for), that I know of anyhow, and I loved Angela's hair. There is not much else though that is good though. I found very little to remember about the music itself, other than that it sounded like bad scratchy saxophone playing. The choreography is clumsy and it looks awkward too, and the musical numbers go on for too long and with no momentum. The script has a very ramshackle structure, with confused and crass at best dialogue. The story, one that is so paper-thin you can do it in 20 minutes easily, is just weird(the weirdest movie I've seen possibly, though I knew even from the title it was going to be), goes along at a snail's pace and doesn't make any sense, concluding with an ending that is rather pointless and will make you go "what?" The last act is the most eventful it gets, but in a way that doesn't gel with the rest of the movie and it has no kind of tension and such whatsoever. The zombies don't even appear until only the last act, they're alright-looking enough but don't do anything of note and their screen-time is short-lived. The acting is enough to make anybody cringe, Brett O'Hara in particular chews the scenery to pieces in the worst of ways. The actresses for Carmelita and Madison suffer from the fact that their characters don't seem to have any point in the story. To conclude, bad and brings the word weird to a whole new level, but I've seen worse. 3/10 Bethany Cox

This is a fascinating artifact from another era of pop culture; From the convoluted title (complete with "!!?" at the end) to the open mike "Amateur Night" numbers to the horribly muddled sound recording to the goofy throwaway dialog to the discombobulated ending to the paper-thin plot, this one has to be seen to be believed.

You know the old saw about a movie being 'like a train wreck - you can't look away'?? Well, imagine if a school bus ran into the train wreck and a 727 crashed on top of it and then a herd of lemmings swarmed over the smoking remains on their way to go over a cliff. And then the Jolly Green Giant picked up everything and threw it over the mountain range and into the next state.

The movie piles one jarring, disorienting choice after another in rapid succession. First 'Jerry' rubs boogers out of his eyes on camera, then 'Harold' is jamming our ears with his Lithuanian/Chicano accent, and then 'Angela' throws off the composition of an entire scene with her Mile High Beehive of Hair, following which a bunch of 'dancers' perform bad choreography with all the precision of a dance recital for kindergarten girls, and then some dick-weed who can't carry a tune in a bucket sings the most insipid love song in the history of music while strumming a guitar that sounds like a ukulele. Then Elizabeth Taylor spins a pinwheel to make Jerry commit badly staged murder to cover up the fact that she threw acid in the face of a lumpy alcoholic, following which Jerry dreams that he got his face painted at a Renaissance festival and leaps about like a Thompson's Gazelle while a montage of women point and laugh at him. Then a mechanical wind-up monkey shrieks that we should "GET YOUR TICKETS HERE!! GET YOUR TICKETS HERE!!!" and a bunch of people who previously got acid thrown in their face and were drawn by the Rat Fink Hod Rod guy and have apparently been living on Angel Dust and Pop Tarts break loose and rampage through an Inuit/Swedish/African dance revue until the police come and shoot everyone, including Jerry who also had acid thrown in his face just before the titular 'zombies' got loose. Oh, and there's no moral, THE END.

I'm making the movie sound more coherent than it really is.

And yet, the whole mess is somehow entertaining and amusing, and I ended up being glad I saw it. If I were to meet Steckler (unlikely), I'd shake his hand and comment on how weird the movie was and ask him "WHAT THE HELL WAS HE THINKING?" when he made it.

MST's riffs on the movie are inspired and their version is worth getting hold of. But the movie stand on its own as a lunatic pinball of weirdness, careening randomly off the walls of our expectations of pop culture.

See it if you have a fondness for silly stuff. Otherwise, stay far, far away.

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.

Incredibly Strange, yes..... but is it alive? No, it's got some good points ("hallucinogenic hypnovision", which is detailed in a preface not seen in most U.S. video prints, turns out to involve ushers in monster masks, hardly the doctor's prescription for a happy trip) but overall dull and slack and looking exactly like five dollars. Still, it's a movie that shows Steckler's love for film, even if this somhow doesn't make up for LENGTHY semi-burlesque dance sequences and the absence of any real "zombies."

B-movie fans in the bay area have been treated over the last few years to Steckler's appearances at Will Viharo's "Thrillville Revue", and I'm happy to say that Steckler is a director who can sit in a theater and laugh at his movie with an audience (you just have to take my word for it that there are A LOT of directors who make bad films and take them VERY seriously... just listen to the director's commentary on the film "the Bone Yard" for an example). This is not his best effort (see "The Thrill Killers" for that), but it's pretty fun if you see it with popcorn and a bunch of drunk people. And heck, that's what movies are all about, isn't it?

If you were born during the spring of 1965, you may have been conceived while this was playing at the drive-in. I watched this on TCM, which didn't have closed captioning as an option, so I don't know if a DVD offers captioning, but it would help. Part of the movie takes place at a carnival midway, which is cool, the rides, the burlesque show, fortune teller, etc. - this almost could pass for a Scooby-Doo episode, and without the song and dance numbers, probably would last as long as one.

Yes, songs and dance numbers in a horror (probably not the right genre) movie. It's low budget, it's cheesy, and gosh darn it, they made an effort to create this, uh, movie.

I took it due to its title and cover. I would like to add that it includes some strange moments and odd filming, even raccord mistakes, but I recognize that it is not so bad as people say. The psychedelic stuff, the low-fi filming and the exotic dances and music are among the best elements of the film. Sometimes images are too dark, but add a creeper atmosphere to the final result. Some sequences appear to be cut and it can be easily appreciated. The sound has very poor quality on VHS. I have not been able to check the DVD version. Check Psycho-Beach party for a better similar movie. I also really enjoyed watching Barbarella.

I admit I first saw this on MST3K, and in that venue it was almost brilliant - no skit on the original Saturday Nite Live ever topped it. The awful make-up, the comically inept sidekick (wild & crazy guys come to life!), the riotous night club dancers, the super-cheesy zombies...It's hard to believe this movie was so deliberately inept without having some other (admittedly pretty subtle) agenda of humor. And, as someone has pointed out, the cinematography is pretty damn good. Well, however it came about, it's still a very watchable movie. Hey, have you sat through Con Air or The Rock (both with a lead who looks a lot like Cash Flagg to me).

I gave it a 4.

5 notable things:

1. I loved Angela's Helmet Hair. Gorgeous Big Hair. I could watch that early scene of her talking with mom (before Jerry arrives) over and over. OK--I've revealed my big hair fetish.

2. Cash Flagg/Steckler as Jerry reminds me of Nick Cage.

3. Cash Flagg is Cornhoolio! When killing people he pulls up his hood. Now I'm 48 and I watched some Beavis & Butthead in my day so when I saw the scenes with his hood up all I could think of was "Beavis/Flagg is Cornhoolio!" (Remember when Beavis was Cornhoolio in the B&B movie?)

4. The Cops shoot first. These guys weren't from Adam-12!

5. Overall the film looked pretty good.

The only thing this low-budget piece of garbage has going for it is capturing the true white trash feel of the legendary Nu-Pike amusement zone in Long Beach, California during its decline. There are spectacular shots of the late, lamented Cyclone Racer roller coaster (built in 1930...razed in 1968) that are just too good to pass-up. The opening sequences in the park are worth it...a time machine back into the pre-lawsuit days of the unsanitized thrill-ride experience. During these scenes, the shoddiness of the movie's production values ring true bringing a welcome realism to the film that, alas, dissipates once the "real" action begins. At this point, the movie makes no sense whatsoever. See it for the Cyclone Racer...the only real "star" in the picture (even though it's just a cameo role).

Legendary exploitationer in view of its lengthy and catchpenny moniker; amusingly, it was originally called THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURE OR: HOW I STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME A MIXED-UP ZOMBIE, causing Columbia to threaten suing over its similarity to Stanley Kubrick's DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1963) – with the films' respective directors even getting personally on the phone and Kubrick reportedly dropping the matter when Steckler himself suggested to modify his title in the way it now stands!

Even so, the film is really weird, not just for its macabre elements but for its being dubbed "The First Horror Musical"!; in fact, the narrative takes place around a sea-side luna park (this milieu seemed to be a favorite with indie horror fare around this time, being also at the center of both NIGHT TIDE {1961} and CARNIVAL OF SOULS {1962} – which, likewise, have become cult items albeit on their own artistic qualities rather than mere wacky eeriness!) and includes about a half-dozen musical numbers, none of them having anything remotely to do with the plot and a couple of them being cringe-inducingly bad into the bargain! Another notable aspect is the amateurish nature of the film, augmented by the soft Eastmancolor (the film was shot by the man behind the influential magazine "American Cinematographer", Joseph V. Mascelli, along with then-rookies Vilmos Zsigmond and an uncreditd Laszlo Kovacs!) and, frankly, the ragged state of the print from which the copy I watched was culled. The film is said to be made in a similar vein to the even more reprehensible works of Herschel Gordon Lewis but, though I did recently manage to acquire a few choice titles of his, somewhat ashamedly I admit that I have yet to check out any of them!

By the way, director Steckler himself also essays the leading role here under the ludicrous pseudonym of Cash Flagg – while one of the several women involved i.e. Carolyn Brandt was, for a time, Mrs. Steckler herself! He plays a balding rebellious type (whereas his pal, the no-less oddly-named Atlas King and who apparently furnished the dough when the production ran out of funds{!}, has a prominent rock'n'roll hairstyle) and she a good-looking dancer whose weakness for booze causes her to be embarrassed in front of a packed house! For the record, the horror traits come in instantly, as a villainous fortune-teller (with a conspicuous wart on her face!) is seen taking revenge on the man she is with, after foolishly admitting that he actually prefers her curvy stripper sister, by having her grubby and chain-smoking hunchbacked assistant (called Ortega) hold him upside down while she spills acid on his face (albeit from a bottle labelled "Poison")! Apparently, she keeps a room-ful of such disfigured punters in her tent (the "incredibly strange creatures" referenced by the title, though they are not technically "zombies", "mixed-up" or otherwise!) – no reason is given as to why or how come nobody ever hears or comes looking for them!

Anyway, when Brandt is threatened by her boss with the termination of her contract over the afore-mentioned inebriated conduct, she goes to the fortune-teller to learn what lies in store for her and predictably picks out the death card; panicking, she runs into the ghouls but manages to escape. Next up are the hero, his girl and the inseparable pal and, after she has her hand read, the protagonist is compulsively drawn to watching the stripper's act (which, of course, does not sit well with his sweetheart who storms off, accompanied by the dutiful friend). During the show, the hunchback turns up with a card from the dancer asking him to meet her backstage but, when he does, he comes face to face with her wicked sister who promptly hypnotizes him! We now revert to Brandt's resumed performance (emceed by a stand-up comic!), which is however cut short by the sudden appearance of a hooded and wild-eyed Steckler wielding a knife (a spellbound assassin was liable to be dubbed a 'zombie' before the term was inextricably linked with the flesh-eating living dead) and brutally attacking both the girl and her fair-haired partner (who actually looks a bit like Klaus Kinski)!

Of course, the next morning he does not remember anything but, when presenting himself to his sweetheart with the requisite apologies for his irrational behavior of the night before, he almost does an encore of his unwitting crime when the sun-bathing girl starts twirling an umbrella (thus evoking the whirling shapes that initially triggered him off) and he attempts to strangle her! At this, he runs off back to the carnival to try and make sense of the way his life is going but he only incurs the wrath of the fortune-teller who promptly fetches the acid bottle and disfigures him too! In the ensuing fracas, however, the other freaks are let out and they run amok in the luna park, causing no end of panic and mayhem (though the Police turn up almost immediately and start shooting them down no questions asked – still, with the fortune-teller, her sister and Ortega dead, they could never have gotten the story of what they were doing there anyway!). Steckler himself is chased all the way to the beach, with his girl and best friend also in pursuit – and, after a protracted sequence in which he staggers perilously between the force of the incoming waves and the slippery, jagged rocks, the protagonist too is killed by a cop's bullet.

Mind you, the film is not too bad and certainly undeserving of its ranking among IMDb's "Bottom 100"; however, I do feel that, had the musical numbers been dropped and more attention paid to plot, logic and characterization, it would have greatly benefited the end result: whether it would then enjoy the reputation it has in its present form is another thing entirely and, frankly, debatable...!

What can I say about the Incredibly Strange Creatures...I love this movie. I caught this movie on MST3K and was intrigued enough to find a copy of the movie to watch it without the call backs.

It's the story of lovable loser Jerry (played by director Ray Dennis Steckler, under the name Cash Flagg) who runs afoul of side show fortune teller Madame Estrella and her hirsute henchman Ortega, murder and mayhem ensue. During the course of this gripping "monster musical", you'll meet Jerry's unintelligible roommate Harold(who may be foreign or something), Jerry's helmet haired girlfriend, Angela, and ungainly dancer Marge (played by Steckler's one-time leading lady Carolyn Brandt, talentless stripper Carmelita, and other sketchy characters. The action is periodically interrupted by bizarre and vaguely unsettling musical numbers that add to this movie's nightmarish and surreal ambiance. If you enjoy Strange Creatures check out some of Steckler's other work, particularly The Thrill Killers and Rat Pfink a Boo Boo.

Favorite line:

Angela's mother: (Concerned over her daughter's relationship with Jerry.)

"He doesn't even come to the door for you." Angela: (In all seriousness) "He wouldn't be Jerry if he did."

If there were only words in the English language to describe how luridly horrid this film really is.It features some of worst acting EVER,has reams of brain-numbing dialogue,and dance numbers so badly done they must have been choreographed by Satan himself.I would attempt to give you a plot outline,but I never could find anything that even RESEMBLED a plot line.If there was one,it was some sort of post psychotic,Tarintino/Hitchcock nightmare,but only in a horrible mind-devouring way.As if Kafka had written it after a four week acid trip/rotgut moonshine drunk.If that were it's only problem it would have been bad enough.But,the wost part is the absoluetly pathetic special effects/set design/costuming.All were absolutely lame to the max.

If you love terribly disgustingly awful films, then this is one you have to see.Otherwise,avoid this film like a dose of the clap.This movie will make you wish YOU COULD stop living,and become blind,deaf,or anything that will allow you to never see anything resembling this film.Ydnar

With probably the weirdest title of a film I've ever seen, "The Incredibly Strange creatures who stopped living and became mixed-up zombies" also ranks among one of the worst.

The film is average at best, and awful at worst. The acting was bad, sequences are incredibly overdrawn, there are several clear mistakes, characters are shallow, theres no where near enough plot to fill out its short 80 minute runtime, and the special effects are terrible. I'll at least give it credit for its sets, which were better than anything else, but really weren't anything special.

Now, there are some movies, like the infamous "Plan 9 from Outer Space" or the lesser known "The Horror of Party Beach" that reach the level of so bad they're great, but this film doesn't even reach to that point. Even so, I could totally understand why people would like it, and this is just my opinion.

Overall, it is, in my opinion, just a very bad movie. 2/10.

There are so many terrible things about this movie that I might not get to them all but I will try.First of all, the title doesn't make any sense.They were normal humans who never stopped living, they just had acid thrown in their faces.But I've come to expect these old movies to lie in the title so I shouldn't be surprised.So it's about some "teens" and some dancers.Of course the teens are all well over forty.The main teen even sports a comb over that would embarrass a seventy year old.Even though he looks elderly, they try hard to make us believe he's a bad boy.He refuses to work or go to school but has no problem having a house and car.His best friend, and several others, have weird eastern European accents even though the movie clearly takes place in southern California.So old man teen becomes one of these zombies and stabs a bunch of dancers in the face while they were performing on stage.Then he just goes home and goes to bed and the cops have no leads.Weak.The worst part is that more than half of the movie is footage of empty carnival rides and people singing and dancing.They literally perform a dozen full songs that have absolutely nothing to do with the story.Did I mention they have some fool introducing all the acts and even when he holds his microphone at waist height, his voice is always the same volume?This could have been an OK thirty minute short but instead it's a terrible reminder of why people shouldn't try to make movies when they have no clue.Never see this.

Incredibly strange describes this one to a tee. You'll find more ham here than in a dozen hog farms.

There's two of the worst attempts at stereotypical accents, Harold sounds like Latka's neighbor, ("Waat d'yu tink weer heer for, tweet?") and the fortune teller is so over the top with her "jeep-see" dialect I'm surprised she doesn't have a nosebleed.

Also there's Ortega, wearing a rubber mask and an obvious pillow under his coat. He doesn't speak much, our Ortega, he just grunts and puffs away on his Camels.

Ray Dennis Steckler, the director, also stars as a early sixties slacker with a rodent's face. No, not makeup or a mask, that's his real face. He drifts through life until the fortune teller gives him a new career opportunity, mass murderer!

Bizarre music, drug-like dream sequences, pitifully ugly dancer/strippers and singers, interminably long footage of carnivals, and very poor sound round out this one as another MST3K special. I gave it a 2, because I reserve my 1's for painfully bad cinema. This one doesn't maim, it just might cause contusions

This film is very bad and I cannot lie. You other guys can't deny... Okay it is so awful that it is short of brilliant. But the brilliance frightens you into thinking it's bad. On the other hand this intrigues you into believing that you are enjoying yourself when you are really having a stroke. But then when you recover and get out of the hospital you decide to rent it because you can't remember it. It slowly bores you to sleep so when you wake up you realize that you've slept for a week. Okay... Maybe that was the drugs but by this time you have to return the movie. You rent it again and think that this time will be different and you will drink lots of coffee to keep you awake. When the movie is finally over you wonder what the hell you were thinking and proceed in destroying your VCR. This movie is in the end bad..... Oh and my favorite part is when the zombies randomly come in at the end.

The more attentive (not to say anal retentive) out there will notice that I've reviewed this movie before. But in the five years or so since I last reviewed this, I've had the chance to see this movie again several times (but not in its non-MST3K format; I can't seem to find that anywhere).

I don't really think any more highly of this movie now than I did then. But there are aspects of it that fascinate me almost beyond my power to describe it. First, having been born in 1964, I'm generally fascinated by movies from that era just because they depict, in whatever small way, the world into which I was being born. Whether that movie is "Fail-Safe" or "Eegah!" doesn't seem to matter; I am gripped by the thought of it.

Another thing about this movie that grabs my attention is the hair. Bouffants galore! The period of about 1962-1965 seems to have been the Golden Age of the Marge Simpson 'Do. Some of these hairstyles actually seem to defy the laws of physics. And not just the women's hairstyles, either - the sky-high pompadour of the indescribable and incomparable Atlas King (who played Harold, the indeterminately foreign sidekick)has to be seen to be believed, just as his accent has to be heard to be believed, if not understood.

Then there's the music. There's certainly a lot of bad music out there, but most of it is insipid and unoriginal. The music in this movie is terrible, but it's terrible in a way that is unlike anything else I've ever heard; particularly inimitable is the somnambulistic cowboy folk song gurgling along in the background as our hero broods his way along a funicula (that's one of those elevated trains that carries people from the foot of a cliff to the top of the cliff, as in Quebec City). Most amazing about that song is the fact that it seems to be everywhere, as if a powerful PA system is playing it about half a mile away, but it turns out to be playing on a tinny-looking AM radio (must have been a prototype Bose stereo).

There's so much more - the really awful choreography, the oily faces shown an very, very tight close up, the fact that the movie is rather well photographed, but the sound is about as awful as any I've ever heard in a movie (maybe it was all recorded playing out of a tinny AM radio).

In short, this is a really, really terrible movie, but I love it anyway. All it needs is some real strippers for its girlie show....

Young man falls victim to a carnival gypsy who has been turning the people who offend her into disfigured zombies.

Ledgendary alone for its insane title, this camp classic from B movie director Ray Dennis Steckler is just as bad as everyone says, but it's amusing enough drive-in fodder. This cheese opera has everything one would expect from a dirt-poor B horror film - lousy acting, cheap effects, saturated color, and less-than-impressive dialog. Not to mention the fact that nearly half of the film is made up of lame side-show musical numbers! In this case, that's just what makes it semi-entertaining. Yet director Steckler (who also stars in the film) does build a true atmosphere of weirdness. There's lots of shadowy imagery, one creepy montage for the opening credits, and a royally bizarre music score.

The cast isn't very impressive, with the exception of Brett O'Hara who comes off menacing enough as the villainous gypsy.

A flawed, yet truly strange cult film that only a B movie lover could enjoy! A real late-night classic.

** 1/2 out of ****