Season 9: Episode 75: That Ray Dennis Steckler Retrospective Part 1!

That Horror Show Podcast!

Recorded on Saturday January 14th, Sunday January 15th and Sunday February 5th, 2023.

Welcome to 2023, fans! That Horror SHow Podcast begins this brand new year with yet another retrospective, this time on a particular filmmaker who dabbled with the horror genre in his own unique ways: Ray Dennis Steckler! Regulated to near obscurity due to being a filmmaker that hinged outside of the "mainstream", Steckler's work is still ripe for rediscovery and re-evaluation, so your lovely hosts Timothy Kazda and Chris Koenig have decided to take the plunge into his works. First up is the film that most cult movie fans know of just by its title alone: "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies !!?" (1963), a movie that has gone down in history thanks to (or no thanks to) the Golden Turkey Awards as 'The Worst Film Ever Made', a claim that the hosts are willing to challenge. Second up is what some Steckler fans consider his minimalist masterpiece "The Thrill Killers" (1965), a weird combo of trapped-in-Hollywood-rat-race film noir meets psychopathic murderers on a bloody rampage in the tradition of "Psycho"! And third is not a horror movie but the jewel-in-the-crown of Steckler's form of improvised cinema "Rat Pfink a Boo Boo" (1966), which begins as a movie featuring three thugs involved in a kidnapping and ends as a...oh, comon', you just gotta listen to find out!!! Also on hand is Nate's 'Kids Corner' and gives his take on none other than the Season 4 finale of 'Stranger Things'!