The strange and wild world of Mr. Ray Dennis Steckler is an uneven one. Most of his films have become legendary, like the one I'm going to discuss now (and who's title I will not be repeating) and the reason his oeuvre has become so noted is due to its low-budget, b-movie shoddiness. But there is also a magic to his films, that doesn't exist in the horrible work of silly hacks like Al Adamson. There is something special in Steckler's films that make them fun to watch and maybe even worth studying. That stuff, however, does not apply to this movie, his third film and his worst by a long (LONG!!!) mile.

At the beginning of the film we are introduced to a gypsy fortune teller, Madame Estrella, who keeps a basement full of hideously deformed men. With the help of her Torgo-like assistant Ortega (MST3K fans will understand the Torgo reference, the rest of you must study harder), who possibly has the world's stupidest face, she secretly controls the carnival that she works at. We then meet the cute and puffy haired Marge, who's mother disapproves of her dating the local no-good Jerry (played terribly by Ray Dennis himself, but calling himself Cash Flagg...go figure). Jerry swings by her house and picks her up so they can check out the carnival. He's brought along his dumb-as-rocks roommate Harold, who's accent is the second most terrible thing in the film. They wander around the carnival and the film is padded out as they ride stuff and wander around some more then skip around on the beach and wander around again. Eventually they wander over to Madame Estrella's kiosk/apartment and curiosity gets the better of them. Marge gets her fortune read by the pissy gypsy, but Jerry ain't buying what she's selling, so he drags them out of there. Marge wants to explore the rest of the carnival, but Jerry's eye is caught by the seductive stripper show about to begin. Marge storms off in a huff, and Harold drives her home (let's hope he can read our street signs), while Jerry checks out the show.

The show is about as unsexy and lame as you could imagine. A bunch of girls dance around and then Madame Estrella's sister shows up and strips to her undies so that nearly ten minutes of my life is wasted in the process. Remember how Harold's accent was the second worst thing about the movie? Well, the dancing and the atrocious, unnecessary singing interludes are number one. This movie was advertised as the world's first horror musical, but it is not really a musical in the strict definition of the word, because our leads never break out into song, it's always some random lounge act wasting our time. Our old friend Ortega shows up and hands Jerry a note from Carmelita, the sister, asking him to join her backstage. He arrives and is instantly put into a hypnotic trance by Estrella, who was hiding. For some unknown reason, she has chosen Jerry as her next boy-toy and she will hypnotize him into being her weapon of mass destruction. Jerry slips the hood of his sweater over his head, grabs a butcher's knife and stabs Estrella's enemies like a bloodthirsty robot.

Later that night, Jerry has a long (LONG!!!) Coffin Joe-style nightmare and wakes up without any memory of what happened. Marge and Harold start to suspect something is wrong and head to the carnival to investigate. Jerry is called into active duty again by Estrella and after he kills who he has to kill, she throws acid in his face for fun and tosses him into the cellar with the rest of her mutant psychos. But wouldn't you know it, the mutants (or the Incredibly Strange Mixed-up Zombies) escape and kill Ortega and Estrella. They run amok in the carnival, but are killed off rather easily, and way too quickly, by a couple of rent-a-cops. Jerry escapes then as his friends arrive to help him and a long (LONG!!!) foot chase along the beach takes place. Where is Jerry running to? We never find out because he catches a bullet and falls off a cliff.

I don't know why older b-movies almost always had dance numbers in them. They aren't entertaining and whenever possible, people just fast-forward through them. Was that something people liked seeing back then? Was a bunch of girls performing a lackluster dance entertaining to anyone? Whatever it may be, the truth is that it hurts this movie by providing too many dull, wake-me-when-its-over moments. The whole film is unfortunately lacking any kind of energy, making it torturous to watch overall, which is why it was a great choice for an MST3K episode. Full of bizarre shots, inappropriate music cues, and appearing as cheap and low-rent as can be, this movie has to be famous in name only because the product is unbelievably terrible, so don't judge the book by its cover. This was a god-awful movie, but it didn't make me mad, so that saved it from the Red Death Coffin, but I tell you it was soooo close.

- Jose Prendes