Episode 812- The
Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became
Mixed-up Zombies
Movie
Summary: A drunken doughy
salesman (that is, a salesman - we're talking 1964 here)
turns down the apparently sexual advances of pizza-faced
Carmelita, a carnival fortune-teller who summons her even
more pizza-faced 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 former salesmen who are now
zombies. Had even one salesman consented to lay with
Carmelita perhaps we might have been spared this movie, but
on such chances doth history turn.
Then we meet a guy named Jerry (director Ray Dennis
Steckler, acting under the pseudonym Cash Flagg) who is
posited to be a rebel, albeit a whiny weenie sort of rebel.
He's got a friendly Czech roommate, which is fine, and a
girlfriend named Angie who in spite of her super-skinny mom
and super-fey brother Madison seems a pleasant sort. So
what's Jerry's problem? Why is he such a crab? Who
knows.
Anyway, soon enough Jerry, Angie, and roommate head to the
carnival and what with one thing and another Jerry is
ensnared by Carmelita and becomes a zombie. He kills a carny
or two and is shot by a cop on the beach.
Aside from all that, there are dozens of extravagantly
shoddy dance numbers, performed by women clad only in saggy
underpants.
What I've skipped could fill a paragraph.
Prologue: Crow and Servo raise funds in competing
walk-a-thons, for groups with real long acronyms. Servo's
very deserving non-profit is called "Helping Children
Through Research and Development," which stands for -- you
don't have time.
Segment One: Pearl is driving the annoying children from
last show home; she keeps them fed and happy with her
bountiful stock of bar snacks and non-alcoholic drink mixes.
From the planet, the squabbling Bobo and Observer speak to
the SOL only through audio and still shots. (Why?) Bobo
hurls something unspeakable at Observer. It's something
available only to him.
Segment Two: Crow and Servo, pretending to be a crack
fortune-telling team, take Mike for fifty cents. Mike is a
little disappointed.
Segment
Three: Inspired by the nice
foreign guy in the movie, Crow and Servo sport new
pompadours. They talk Mike into getting one two, and he
contacts Nanite Shelli. She gabs and talks and is just so
nice and gives Mike a real real tall pompadour, I mean real
tall.
Segment Four: Crow hires Ortega to cater the commercial
break. It's a great spread, especially the rellenos with
smoky gouda and fresh crab, and the blue corn baskets with
flaked trout in chipotle vinaigrette, although Mike simply
must object to Ortega's filth and saliva and what not.
Sadly, Ortega ashes in the quail eggs and his shame
overwhelms him.
Segment Five: Crow and Servo put Mike in box, call it a
roller coaster, serve him some hot coffee and push him off
the desk. Pearl drops off the kids at their parents'.
They're huge and omnipotent so she turns down their offer of
coffee and carrot cake.
Reflections:
In the vast history of MST
movies made by oily guys who elect to direct the camera
largely on themselves, this one stands out, although to be
fair Ray Dennis Steckler is really no oilier than a number
of sallow oleaginous fellows we could name. Actually, we
couldn't name them, but we could definitely think of them
and retch.
You know what, though? On the way on to work this morning I
perceived a vision of three crosses surrounding the sun. It
was a moment of blinding purity and a sign to change my
ways, I'm sure, so I'm going to take the high road and play
down the overt criticism. Except I do need to mention that
the Psychotronic Guide to Films describes this movie as
"unbelievably well photographed."
Hm.
The cinematographer was one Vilmos Zsigmond, see, and with a
name like that what else could he grow up to be, I ask you.
He's a famous fellow who went on to cinematographize many a
great film, as well as The
Ghost and the Darkness and
McCabe and Mrs.
Miller. -- Paul
Chaplin.
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