812 - THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES

Genre:  Ultra-low budget Horror (1964, Color, surprisingly enough)

Synopsis:  Another infamous “Bad Movie” makes its way to MST, although a more accurate run-on title for this feature would be The Incredibly Strange Director Who Stars in His Own Very Bad, Mixed-Up Movie.  In this flick, a scary looking gypsy fortune-teller (who has more than a passing resemblance to Liz Taylor) and her weird-looking sidekick Ortega (who would win first prize in a Torgo look-alike contest) are up to no good, as we see them in the opening scene of the movie pour poison or acid (or, at least some liquid from a bottle with a skull on it) on a man’s face and throw him in a cell with what presumably are zombies.  Then the movie switches gears as we seen either a transvestite or mannish-looking woman as she performs a bizarre dance routine with a man at some club (I think it’s amateur night).  S/he has a drinking problem (probably from being unhappy that s/he can’t afford a sex change operation) and is warned by his/her boss to quit drinking (but, if s/he sobers up, then s/he’ll have to see what s/he really looks like in the mirror!).  The movie shifts gears again as it moves on to a Nicholas Cage-looking guy (who is actually the director of this film), his big-haired girlfriend, and his roommate who has a huge mound of hair and doesn’t speak any English (although that doesn’t stop him from trying).  They all go to the carnival and a dancer mesmerizes the two guys, so they ditch the Nick Cage guy’s girlfriend and buy tickets to the dance show.  It apparently is amateur night here too, as we are subjected first to an utterly inept showgirl routine and then to some unrelated song performances.  The Nick Cage guy is invited back to the dancer’s dressing room, but there the scary-looking gypsy woman hypnotizes him (another hypnosis movie!) and send him out to kill.  The Nick Cage guy kills the mannish-looking (wo)man and his/her male partner onstage and he then gets away. Later, the Nick Cage guy is back to normal and doesn’t remember the killings but he begins having bizarre nightmares and then almost kills his own girlfriend (of course, you really can’t blame him when she was twirling her umbrella in such an annoying way).  The Nick Cage guy goes back to the gypsy and she hypnotizes him again and so he kills again.  Finally, the gypsy says he has outlived his usefulness, so she pours the poison/acid or whatever it is on the Nick Cage guy’s face and opens the zombie cell to put him in.  But the zombies attack and kill the fortune-teller and the weirdo Ortega.  The zombies then attack the dancers on the dance stage and eventually the police show up and shoot down all of the zombies. Back in the gypsy woman’s room, the Nick Cage guy, who’s only partially a zombie (I guess the poison/acid stuff works on a time-release basis) jumps out of the window and runs away, with the police and his friends in hot pursuit.  They catch up to him on the beach and one of the cops shoots him.  He falls into the ocean but soon washes up on the beach and dies.

Don’s Review:  This movie is infamous for all the right reasons:  it really is pretty bad and definitely falls under the “so bad it’s good” category.  So much of this movie is funny on its own, such as the roommate who speaks with such a heavy accent, that it’s nearly impossible to comprehend anything he says (and he has a LOT of lines!);  the utterly inept choreography in the many dance numbers;  awfully cheesy makeup on Ortega and the mixed-up zombies;  dizzy camerawork to probably obscure how cheap this movie is;  and a soundtrack that is so muffled that it sounds like they recorded the whole thing long distance over a telephone line.  The riffing on this was great and it truly enhanced the humor of this already funny movie.  While the host segments were only so-so (with the exception of a funny bit featuring the Ortega character from the movie), this is still a great episode.

Don’s Rating: 

Forrest’s Review:  Yes...the incomprehensible, the hideous, the absurd The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies. You know, when you name your movie with a title that is 12 words long, it’s not going to be good.  This movie was the most absolute perfect movie for the show.  It’s bad.  It’s cheesy.  It’s unintentionally funny.  It has stupid characters.  It has bad dance numbers.  Muffled Dialogue.  A protagonist that you don’t care about.  Goofy monsters.  And the Torgo of the Sci-Fi shows: Ortega.  Everything one could want in an MST3K’d movie is here.  If you want an excellent episode of MST3K, look no further.  The riffing by Mike and the bots is freaking hilarious, and the movie itself is already funny on its own, and really needs no riffing, but the riffing adds tremendously to the movie’s goofiness.  I especially like it when the weird gypsy woman looks into the crystal ball, and Tom Servo says: "You got mail."  I laughed my ass off, even Mike laughed, with the knowledge it was coming. Mike and the bots are in tip-top form throughout (especially Crow and Tom Servo), and the thousands of laughs from this episode are enough to give this episode 5-CROWS from me, no problem. The host segments aren’t bad at all. They’re pretty good, and the segment with Ortega is quite humorous. I re-watched this episode, because the first time I saw it was only a portion of it on the Sci-Fi channel, and I had always been eager to re-watch it sometime, so I got it at the great CastleForrester on DVD, and I laughed and laughed, I truly enjoyed this episode. If there is one problem, it was during the dance scenes. Mike and the bots didn’t have too much to say, but the inept quality of the movie came out, and it was funny anyway. Other great riffs are some funny Planet of the Apes references towards the end of the film, and the weird monkey that says in a very odd and haunting voice: "Buy your tickets here! Buy your tickets here!"...Crow: "Did you guys just see that?!" This is truly one of the funniest episodes on the show.  HIGHLY Recommended!

Forrest’s Rating: