Welcome to the world of beehive hairdo’s and duck-butts – when cars had fins, roller-coaster rides cost 25-cents and you were “square” if you were a teenager with a job. Out of what seems to be today a bizarre world came an even more bizarre film with the weirdest -- and maybe longest -- title ever: THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES!!?
Despite some of the corniest dialogue ever sound-striped and a musical score that rivals fingernails being dragged across a blackboard, CREATURES remains – despite, or rather in spite of its absurdities, an entirely whacked-out, but nevertheless somehow an entertaining film.
Guys, if you dig chicks from the Shindig era, then the ample hams ‘n gams displayed frequently on screen by ooh-la-la babes Marge (Carolyn Brandt) and Carmelita (Erina Enyo) oughta get you jazzed, daddy-o! Gals, you’re a little less fortunate in the eye candy department. You’ll have to settle on swooning over Hap’s (Atlas King) cleft chin and impossibly unmovable jellyroll. And how Jerry (director Ray Dennis Steckler credited as Cash Flagg) can even land a fox like Angie (Sharon Walsh) for a girlfriend is a question that will never be satisfactorily answered (well, he was a crazy kind of thrill seeker – ain’t that exiting, girls?). And, for fans of psychedelic movie scenes, there’s even a hypno-hallucination sequence that’ll even make the most stoic horror film enthusiasts chuckle.
If there was one, the continuity checker must have been asleep during this one, as inconsistencies abound: Jerry wakes up in the morning and drives to Angie’s house where he walks into the backyard to see her brother barbecuing hamburgers! A few moments later with Jerry under the spell of the evil Madame Estrella (Bree O’Hara), he tries to strangle Angie but her brother breaks it up. When Jerry runs back out to the front yard past the barbecue, the hamburgers have mysteriously disappeared! Maybe it was just another psychedelic hallucination?
Billed as “The First Monster Musical”, CREATURES combines a potent potpourri of suspense, intrigue, murder, mayhem, musical numbers, dancing girls and monsters, with a chase scene at the end that will leave you screaming . . . for the film to end!
Released in February, 1964, the script was written by Gene Pollock, Robert Silliphant and E.M. Kevke. Among Pollock’s other writing credits are for THE WORLD’S GREATEST SINNER (1962) and THE THRILL KILLERS (1964). Kevke wrote the screenplay and played in THE LEMON GROVE KIDS MEET THE MONSTERS (1968) and was an actor in 1970’s SINTHIA: THE DEVIL’S DOLL (which also featured an appearance by cover girl and nudist, Diane Webber). As for Robert Silliphant, he would go on to script THE CREEPING TERROR (1964) and THE BEACH GIRLS AND THE MONSTER (1965). He was the brother of Stirling Silliphant, who you read about in an earlier post on the worst horror film of all time, MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE. The task of constructing the incredibly strange makeups and masks was accomplished by a one-name artist by the name of "Lily" (a family member of the crew?) and Tom Scherman, who later worked on the special effects for the sci-fi sex parody, FLESH GORDON (1974). Interiors were filmed inside an empty masonic temple in Glendale, CA that was owned by Rock Hudson.
Also making appearances were Pat Kirkwood who would go on to be a gaffer on INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE, Carol Kaye, who began her career as a guitarist and was a sought-after bassist in the 1960’s (including playing on the PLANET OF THE APES soundtrack) with the famed studio session group The Wrecking Crew, Don Russell (billed as Jack Brady) as the menacing Ortega with the hideously mashed up face, and cult actor and producer, Titus Moede (Moody). I’m hearing Cream’s “Strange Brew” playing in my head . . .