Goof on the Loose: The Films of Ray Dennis Steckler - Part 1 - the 'Hollywood' Years

Ray Dennis Steckler in later years

It's the first time I've split a single post into two parts, but there's a lot of characters in this story and I want to do them justice.

A while back I wrote a piece on the movies of Arch Hall, father and son. Loosely intertwined in Hall Sr and Jr's cinematic story was another genuinely independent but arguably way more talented film making oddball: Ray Dennis Steckler.

Born in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1938, Steckler was raised by his movie loving grandma, who no doubt would have exposed him to The Bowery Boys, The Three Stooges, Monogram and Producers Releasing Corporation westerns and the spookshow movies of the 1940s, all of which would find themselves informing his work. And one of the things I love about Steckler is that he never forgot these influences, which, combined with a profound sense of family and home - his earlier films were all located in his LA neighbourhood and often featured friends and acquaintances - gives a real sense of someone in love with film for its own sake rather than for commercial reasons.

Following the inevitable production of 8mm films with his mates as kids, using a camera bought for him by his grandma, and with the taste for visual arts fuelled by the study of photography as a military cameraman between 1956 and 1959, after army service Steckler headed for Hollyweird USA. Cutting his teeth working behind the scenes on TV shows handling props (including a stint at Universal where, employed on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, he quit before being fired following a near miss with Hitch while pushing a wheeled A-Frame down a corridor way too fast) his first gig - as Raymond Steckler - was replacing fired cameraman Ron McManus on the eccentric Timothy Carey's 1962 little seen vehicle The World's Greatest Sinner (aka Frenzy) - according to Steckler, at one point Carey threw a boa constrictor at him. Here he worked alongside one Edgar G Ulmer and a twentysomething Frank Zappa on music duties, who went on to describe the movie as 'the world's worst film.' Now where have I heard that before?

The same year he also shot Secret File: Hollywood, his non union status ensuring that he remained uncredited on that movie - it was here that he met Arch Hall Sr for the first time. As well as working on commercials and TV series for Warner Brothers like 'Wide World of Sports' and 'The Professionals,' in 1962 Steckler lensed Rudolph Cusamano's slightly less obscure Wild Ones on Wheels aka Drivers in Hell, but this time he also appeared in front of the camera for the first time in the role of 'Preacher Man', a bespectacled hep cat character described by one critic as 'a beatnik petty criminal with a crazy patois and a sports car he calls "Baby".'

Wild Guitar - Steckler's first directing credit

Later in 1962 Steckler hooked up with Arch Hall Jr and his dad - the first of his two collaborations with the father and son film making duo for Hall Sr's company Fairway-International Pictures. Steckler took on (uncredited) camera duties, and also appeared briefly - as Mr Fishman - in the Hall Sr directed Eegah, unceremoniously dumped into a swimming pool by a resurrected caveman in the shape of seven foot plus Richard Kiel; his girlfriend - and future wife - in the scene was one Carolyn Brandt, destined to be a pivotal figure in Steckler's life. A story from the shoot recalls that the crew were filming, without permission, on land owned by one Harpo Marx. When Marx turned up to ask what the hell was going on, Steckler reportedly told him that they were shooting an educational film for UCLA, although it's unlikely that he was believed. Rather bruised by the experience of directing, Hall Sr took a back seat with the next vehicle for his son, giving rise to Ray's first directing credit - the movie was Wild Guitar. You can read more about both those films here. Steckler also had a small speaking part in this movie as a villain called 'Steak,' and it was the first time he used his alter ego name Cash Flagg, a pseudonym whose origin related to Steckler's legendary penchant for hard currency over cheques, which had a habit of bouncing in Tinsel Town.

Goof on The Loose (1964) Filmed in and around the Steckler family home and nearby Echo Park, Los Angeles and utlising friends and family (which he would continue to do in future films), this 8 minute silent independently made 'home' movie - "dedicated to the laugh makers of long ago" according to the intro card - was actually filmed in 1959, but released immediately prior to Incredibly Strange Creatures...). Its title possibly inspired by the 1953 Three Stooges short Goof on the Roof, the movie features Rick Dennis (who'd appeared in both Wild Guitar and Wild Ones on Wheels) as a drunk, and his goofy friend (Bert Leu Van) messing around in a series of visual gags and pratfalls. Carolyn Brandt turns up in beachwear as does Steckler in a cameo wearing a skirt!

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies !!? (1964) By 1963, Ray had become fed up with being on the payroll of other movies. As he said in an interview in 2000, "I really hated working for other people."

Back in Reading, Pennsylvania, a young Steckler would spend hours at the local funfair befriending the carnival workers, a group of people who he came to love but who also taught him the art of huckstering, a talent he deployed throughout his career. It also gave him the setting for his most well known feature film, in glorious Eastmancolor, called The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies !!? which he started filming in January 1963 (apparently it's important to get the punctuation right at the end, an issue that wouldn't have occurred if the team had continued to use the film's working title, Face of Evil). This is a movie that's probably more famous for its title - changed, according to a popularly recited story, at the request of Columbia Pictures who felt that the original - The Incredibly Strange Creatures, or Why I Stopped Living and Became a Mixed-up Zombie - was too close to Stanley Kubrick's then latest picture Dr Strangelove...or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. The idea of Kubrick's legal team suing Steckler for $3 million would be rather outrageous had the director not loved the story so much (Ray's movie cost $38,000 to make and, save for a donation of $300 would probably not have been completed, as it allowed Steckler to keep a roof over his head). For a long time Incredibly Strange... was rather caught up in the 'trash films you may not like' category. Well I love it. It's far better put together than its detractors would have you believe, part of the reason being that the camera team included fledgling cinematographers Lazlo (Easy Rider) Kovacs - who also did a behind the camera stint the previous year on the Arch Hall Jr 1963 vehicle The Sadist - and Vilmos (Close Encounters of the Third Kind) Zsigmond.

Some of the Incredibly Strange Creatures...

In Incredibly Strange Creatures... Steckler (again as Cash Flagg) plays slacker Jerry, who thinks that paid work is a downer and just wants to hook up with his girlfriend, fairly posh Angela, whose folks think Jerry is a bum. Elsewhere dipso dancer Marge Neillson (Brandt) is drinking - literally - at the last chance saloon as she's told to lay off the sauce and stop fluffing her routines. Seeking her fortune, she happens on Madame Estrella's tent and learns of her impending death (a ripe performance from Brett O'Hara as Estrella - previously Susan Hayward's stand in and who also appeared in Wild Ones on Wheels - her natural beauty disguised by a gypsy outfit and hairy stick on wart). Jerry and Angela, together with their friend Harry, also have their fortunes told. Jerry ends up being hypnotised by Estrella, who turns him into a zombie. Jerry is forced to carry out murderous acts (including killing Marge and attempting to murder Angela) - it turns out that Estrella has been converting a number of the men working at the carnival into murderous beasts - and Jerry is the latest. They're all ugly bugly because the fortune teller chucks acid into their faces to disfigure them. However the zombies have the last laugh, breaking free from their place of imprisonment and exacting their revenge on Estrella. Zombie Jerry, who's only a bit of a zombie, presumably because he's running the show or was better at dodging acid, is shot dead by the police while making a heartfelt speech to Angela.

What's not mentioned in this summary are the show tunes which pepper the movie, with titles like 'Choo choo, ch'boogie' and 'Shook Out of Shape,' and a number of dance routines featuring lines of girls who've been given seemingly little or no rehearsal time. Truly the first monster musical, this is a freewheeling movie with more than a hint of being made up on the spot - and that's not a criticism; Steckler was proud of this approach to filmmaking. The exteriors were filmed at the Pike amusement park in Long Beach, California, tapping in to Steckler's fairground past, whereas the interiors were shot on sets built in an abandoned Masonic temple in Glendale, California (used the same year to shoot Vic Savage's The Creeping Terror). Steckler apparently fended off union intervention by shooting on an upper floor of the building and putting up fake signs that the lifts were out of order - nifty!

The movie was released by Fairway-International Pictures, which gave Arch the ability to sneak the flick onto the lower half of a double bill, with one of his own films as the A picture (maybe The Nasty Rabbit?). Steckler subsequently bought back the distribution rights and cued the movie up with Coleman Francis's 1961 Tor Johnson vehicle The Beast of Yucca Flats (Francis would later turn up in some of Ray's features). He maximised the shelf life of Incredibly Strange Creatures... by re-titling the film several times for re-release, including Diabolical Dr Voodoo, The Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary, and The Incredibly Mixed-up Zombie. Steckler also advertised the movie in a number of different viewing formats, taking a leaf out of William Castle's huckster manual. According to Steckler, his film was shot in in “Bloody-Vision,” “Terrorama” and “Hallucinogenic Hypnovision,” the latter of which involved Steckler and his team running out into venues wearing monster masks. Whew!

The Thrill Killers (1964) "I just wanted to make another movie," said Steckler in an interview when asked retrospectively about his next film. Completed a year after filming Incredibly Strange Creatures...  and just after his stint as camera operator on Phillip Mark's nudie cutie Everybody Loves It (credited as Raymond Steckler) Steckler wrote, produced, and directed The Thrill Killers, apparently inspired by his exposure to Psycho with which he was so impressed that he saw it twice "to make sure it was a movie." But in its intensity and amoral lawlessness, not to mention the down at heel country locations, it more closely resembles Arch Hall's The Sadist (1963).

Steckler maintained that he wasn't initially to be cast in the movie, but inserted his character into it to lengthen the running time. The original story focused on the escape of three inmates from a secure facility. Having made their getaway, the prisoners, all insane, terrorise the local community. Meanwhile the brother of one them, also a crazed killer (Steckler), is called on to assist the fugitives, until the police intercept and take out the bad guys. This plot summary is purposely brief; there's a lot more to this movie than those few lines.

After a faux historic card announcing that the events in the film took place back in 1965, The Thrill Killers opens with what will become a Steckler standby - some fascinating shots of Hollywood Boulevard (which have become more so with the passing of time) including footage of Mann's Chinese Theatre, showing Mary Poppins, which had been released in August of 1964. The movie was shot in black and white by Joseph V. Mascelli (later author of industry bible 'The Five Cs of Cinematography') and an uncredited Lee Strosnider. We're introduced in voiceover - by Coleman Francis - to Joe Saxon (Joseph Bardo, onetime boyfriend of Mae West), an out of luck actor trying to get work. Back home his wife Liz bemoans his unrealistic expectations (neither are in the first flush of youth) and the lavish industry parties he throws, hoping for a casting break. Liz was played by Liz Renay, who had just got out of prison after spending 27 months incarcerated in Terminal Island, California, for perjury - laundering money for her boyfriend, the racketeer Mickey Cohen. Renay needed a job and Steckler was happy to offer her one (as subsequently did Arch Hall Sr). Her acting career never took off; she had a role in John Waters' 1977 movie Desperate Living and turned up in two of Ted V. Mikels' later works, but she successfully toured with her daughter in a joint strip act, and infamously did a streak along Hollywood Boulevard in 1974, the first grandmother to do so. Incidentally her 1992 published autobiography was entitled 'My First Two Thousand Men'; Renay's daughter Brenda, who shows up in a party scene later in the movie along with a rather tipsy looking Arch Hall Sr and The Thrill Killers' producer George J Morgan, took her own life at the age of 39 in 1982.

Ray Dennis Steckler and Liz Renay in The Thrill Killers

The trio of escaped prisoners, whose character first names are all the same as their real ones, were played by claustrophobic Gary Kent, axe wielding Keith O'Brien (sadly his only acting credit) and Elisha Cook Jr alike Herb Robins (as Flagg's brother). Robins had been very badly beaten up shortly before shooting was about to begin. Worried that Steckler wouldn't be able to put him in front of the camera because of the bruising and stitches to his face, the director went ahead and used him anyway. In close ups of his face on screen, he looks authentically messed up in a way that make up alone (on Steckler's budget anyway) just couldn't achieve.

The Thrill Killers also included Carolyn Brandt again as newly engaged Carol, young, in love but sadly despatched by one of the killers. The film also announced the arrival of Ron Haydock into Steckler's story; Haydock performed additional dialogue services on the movie and also played one of the cops at the film's climax. He was a fascinating figure in his own right (in 1977 Haydock tragically died in a highway accident after being hit by a truck at the age of 37, ironically walking home after an evening at Steckler's house - although Ray confessed in one interview that it may have been suicide). Atlas King also turns up, briefly, as a guy who is killed, and whose car is commandeered by Mort "Mad Dog" Click (played by Steckler in his Cash Flagg nom de cinema) early on in the movie - King was the donor of $300 to Steckler during the making of Incredibly Strange Creatures...which ensured that the movie got completed, and which gave King his first acting role.

Thematically The Thrill Killers is a world away from Incredibly Strange Creatures... As well as being more structured it is in places a very nasty film. Steckler's scenes, including menacing a prostitute in her room before killing her, still pack a punch today; and the arrival of the fugitives, particularly Keith, with his manic love for the axe, provides for some very disturbing moments. "Poor old Frank," muses Keith on examining the blade that's been used to behead him, "he had dandruff." (I can't help feeling that the trio might have been an inspiration for the escaped lunatics in Alan Birkinshaw's 1978 British movie Killer's Moon). The film's final reel chase, utilising the arid locations of California's Topanga Canyon - beloved of many makers of horror and sci fi films - builds a level of excitement that arguably makes this Steckler's most conventionally successful film.

The Thrill Killers was subsequently revived and shown around the country in the early 1970s at theatres and drive-ins, retitled The Maniacs Are Loose! Cashing in on the success of the 'live in the theatre' monsters stunt pulled when Incredibly Strange Creatures... toured the US (with Steckler himself as one of the 'zombies' let loose in the auditoria), it was decided to repeat the idea. A new prologue was added to the movie - in colour - with stage hypnotist Ormond Magill informing the audience that a whirling 'hypno disc' at points during the movie would prompt Cash Flagg-a-likes (recruited by theatre managers at each venue wearing masks designed by Don Post) to enter the audience wielding rubber axes.

Rat Pfink a Boo Boo (1965) After The Thrill Killers Steckler was asked to be camera operator on the soft core sex comedy Everybody Loves It (1964) and Director of Photography on an adults only movie called Scream of the Butterfly (1965) by Bill Turner and Alan Smith, who had been choreographers on Incredibly Strange Creatures... The director, Argentinian Eber Labato, had never made a film before, but was married to Nelida Labato who just happened to have a leading role in the flick. Interestingly it was the first time that Steckler had shot a film in Las Vegas. He was already growing tired of Los Angeles, and the city smog wasn't doing much for his allergies.

But his next project was the movie where Steckler famously got bored half way through making it, and decided to change tack story wise. Rat Pfink a Boo Boo starts off as a gritty stalker flick, with a gang of chain-wielding hoodlums mugging a streetwalker, then, needing more money, turn their attentions to one Cee Bee Beaumont (Carolyn Brandt, whom Steckler married during filming). They find her name rather randomly in the telephone directory, abduct her from her home and require a $50,000 reward from her boyfriend Lonnie Lord (Ron Haydock, credited in the movie as Vin Saxon, a name that Haydock would later use as the author of a number of rather extraordinary pulp books with titles like 'Ape Rape' and 'Caged Lust.'). Lord and friend, local gardener Titus (Titus Moede), seem powerless to find a way out, but once they disappear into a closet together they emerge to pretty much everyone's surprise as comical superheroes Rat Pfink (Haydock) and Boo Boo (Moede) and zoom off in their motorcycle/sidecar combination to beat up the hoodlums and free Miss Beaumont.

Apparently Steckler got the Rat Pfink and Boo Boo idea as a result of failing to secure the rights to the Batman and Robin characters, which he'd hoped to turn into a musical. Although that bid failed, he decided to use some superheroes anyhow - this was before the 1966 TV series about the Gotham City superheroes - Steckler's thoughts were harking back to the 1943 Columbia serial. His friend Haydock had written a song called 'Rat Pfink' (a popular slang name at the time for the putz in your life) and Steckler decided to use it, assembling a couple of decidedly dowdy costumes to complete the crime fighting duo's rather down at heel look. And Boo Boo was named after the colloquial name for a softball team in Reading, Pennsylvania - come on you Boo Boos!

Haydock's payment for this rather unglamorous role - he also co-wrote the, ahem, script and was Assistant Director - was to have some of his songs featured in the movie, namely 'You're Running Wild,' 'Rat Pfink' and 'Big Boss a Go Go Party'; footage of all three show Ms Brandt and others frantically frugging to the beat. Haydock also gets to sing a slower ballad 'I Stand Alone.' The rest of the movie's score is once again down to Henry Price, but there are a couple of spaced out surf numbers (including an opening theme over Thomas Scherman's brilliant titles) by Charles B Tranum, of which little is known apart from the fact that he may also have had a career as an ad man.

It's clear from the first half of the movie that Steckler was aiming for another The Thrill Killers - the photography is quite noirish and, if you ignore the Haydock musical interludes, the mood is rather grim. But perhaps in anticipation of his next movie, Steckler feels the need to lighten the tone, and the second half of the film is one long chase scene with pratfalls aplenty, some amusing lines (Rat Pfink warns Boo Boo that the only thing that can kill them is bullets) and Carolyn Brandt being a lost damsel in distress, at one point being abducted by Kogar the ape ("Put me down, you big ape!" cries Carolyn) played by prop collector and part time actor Bob Burns, who would play the role on no less than nine different occasions in his career - now that's typecasting!

One other crew member of mention is future multiple Oscar and Emmy nominee Keith A. Wester. This was only his second sound credit and because Steckler shot on a Bolex non sound 16mm camera, Wester was responsible for adding all the dialogue, score and sound effects post production. Well, as Steckler has commented while rather chuffed at the leg up he gave Wester, you got to start somewhere! Oh and the reason why this title is Rat Pfink a Boo Boo? Well the lettering guys loused up in the opening credits - it may have meant to have been an ampersand instead - and Steckler couldn't afford the extra bucks to fix it.

Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Monsters (1965-1969) Steckler's love of old Bowery Boys movies, and his emotional links with home, family and friends coalesce in this slight but fun slapstick film which includes just enough weirdness to remind you that Ray's still at the controls. Like The Thrill Killers and Incredibly Strange Creatures... before it, Lemon Grove Kids is a lovely time capsule of a past age; although the area near Hollywood where it was filmed hasn't changed that much, a quick Google maps trip shows that the neighbourhood still feels bright and airy, and full of possibilities for a young film maker.

Lemon Grove Kids was originally conceived as a feature but, with the usual limitations of money and film stock - but never enthusiasm - it became a series of three shorter films packaged together (a fourth was planned but never completed). Steckler had apparently tried to sell to TV but his production standards weren't high enough to sustain much interest. Ray pays tribute to Bowery Boy Huntz Hall in his role as 'Gopher' (as Cash Flagg, natch) - in fact it was so good that Hall's wife threatened to sue him - and the rest of his cast are made up of various friends and family plus regulars from his previous films, including Mike Cannon as 'Slug,' (who also does a fair takeoff of the Bowery Boys' character 'Slip' played by Leo Gorcey) and Keith A. Wester, playing Marvin Marvin.

The three shorts making up the movie are 'The Lemon Grove Kids,' 'The Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Green Grasshopper and the Vampire Lady from Outer Space' and 'The Lemon Grove Kids Go Hollywood!'

In the first, the Kids face off a rival gang, but are persuaded to settle their differences via a local cop (producer George J Morgan in dress up) and to compete in a cross country race, which the other gang fix by using a shady character called 'The Saboteur.' Steckler spiced up the proceedings by including a rather meta sequence towards the end, featuring Kogar the ape abducting Carolyn Brandt (as Cee Bee Beaumont, in the exact scene that was reproduced in Rat Pfink a Boo Boo) and a mummy (Bob Burns playing both creatures); the footage seems incongruous until the camera pulls back to show that the whole thing is a film set for a movie being made by a local amateur company, and onto which 'Gopher' has accidentally blundered. When screened at kids' shows, this part of the movie would be the cue for auditoria staff to invade the theatres dressed as mummies, a gimmick which apparently once again effectively gave paying audiences the wim wams.

In 'The Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Green Grasshopper and the Vampire Lady from Outer Space,' Steckler makes use of a prop flying saucer - which he'd just acquired - for a story involving the Kids running across a human grasshopper and Carolyn Brandt doing her best Vampira impersonation. The grasshopper (who has arrived in the flying saucer) and the vampire abduct little kids and adults while they're doing odd jobs for Mr Miller (Coleman Francis again). There are some witches too. None of it makes any sense, but it's bright, fun, and everyone seems to be having a good time.

In the last of the three films, 'The Lemon Grove Kids Go Hollywood!' (the only one of the three not to have theatrical distribution and actually completed in 1969), Steckler takes a sideswipe at the movie industry. The Kids arrive at the house of movie star Cee Bee Beaumont (Brandt) to do a little housework, while she rehearses for an audition. Some hoods kidnap the star for a ransom but her director doesn't think she's worth paying for. The kids eventually beat up the hoods and the director changes his mind about the star's value when he sees all the free publicity that Beaumont has generated, subsequently casting her in his next production, 'Cleopatra.'

Trade Bill for The Lemon Grove Kids Meet
the Monsters

Although Lemon Grove Kids was very much a Steckler production, Ray only directed the first segment, the rest being handled by Ted Roter (his only mainstream credit before a career in adult movies). While the film is a lot of goofy fun, like Rat Pfink a Boo Boo before it, it's mainly interesting for the shots of suburban Los Angeles in the 1960s. It also showcased Steckler's spirit of fun for the first and last time - so maybe he'd got it out of his system.

Following this Ray went on to film short promotional movies for many of the counter culture music stars of the 1960s. Details on exactly how many he made are scarce, but it is popularly believed that he directed Jefferson Airplane's 'White Rabbit' (1967) - which also featured Brandt as a dancer (Carolyn had previously danced in the 1965 movie It's a Bikini World, frugging to The Castaways playing 'Liar Liar') and The Nazz's 'Open My Eyes' (1968). More sketchy are the claims that he also made promo films for Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Todd Rundgren and The Lewis & Clarke Expedition. Ray also assisted (uncredited) in the camera work for colour sections of the otherwise black and white 1966 witchcraft movie Incubus, directed by The Outer Limits' Leslie Stevens, which has the dual distinctions of featuring William Shatner in one of his first screen roles, and of the script being written in Esperanto. Sadly only one copy of the film survives in an entirely black and white version, so we'll never know precisely what scenes Steckler shot or whether they even made it into the finished film!

The same year he was cinematographer on the rape/prostitution drama The Velvet Trap, also filmed on location in Las Vegas. For this movie Ray went by the pseudonym Sherwood Steckler, a habit he was to develop for many of his future films. Around the same time he was co-producer of Curt Siodmak's comedy Ski Fever, under the name Wolfgang Schmidt. Made in 1967 but only released in the US in March 1969, it starred Dean Martin's daughter Claudia, a rather chaste story of hi-jinks and shenanigans in a ski lodge which feels in its chunky knit cosiness like a shelved Frankie Avalon project.

Body Fever (1968) In terms of features, Ray pops up again in 1968, trying his hand at the deadbeat gumshoe genre quite a few years after such movies fell out of favour with Hollywood. This one also went under a number of different titles including Deadlocked, Super Cool and, impressively, The Last Original B Movie. Body Fever was possibly Ray's most coherent film to date, and even had a script. Well, sort of - Steckler admitted that most of it was made up as he went along.

Wearing the toupee bought for the actor who was due to play the lead, but was sacked after three days of shooting, Steckler plays Charles Smith, a down on his luck private dick literally living off the grid on a boat. He's employed by Harris Ferguson (Alan Smith, the same guy choreographed the dance sequences in Incredibly Strange Creatures...) to track down cat suited burglar Carrie Erskine (Brandt) who has made off with a bag of heroin; although unbeknownst to everyone else, she's had the stash stolen from her by drug pushing Frankie Roberts (Gary Kent from The Thrill Killers).

Body Fever also features appearances from several Steckler regulars, including Ron Haydock as a photographer, Herb Robins and Joseph Bardo - even Liz Renay turns up in a party sequence filmed, like much of the movie, in Steckler's basement. There's a couple of scenes, tacked on to the movie only so Steckler can give a little screen time to his old pal Coleman Francis, who reportedly was in a very bad way at the time of filming (he died, aged 53, just a few years later). Ray contributes the obligatory laconic voiceover, and also has romantic interludes with a couple of girls in the movie as well as Brandt. Clearly influenced by some of the French nouvelle vague directors - there's some handheld photography and a bit of Bogart adulation which emulates Godard's 1960 movie Breathless and Steckler clearly views Brandt as his Jean Seberg - Body Fever's watchability is considerably enhanced by some splendid cinematography by an uncredited Jack (Top Gun, The Hitcher) Cooperman. But it's overall a darker movie than his previous output, signposting the tone of future projects, and is also the first of Steckler's movies not to be produced by George J Morgan.

So that's the end of Part One of the Ray Dennis Steckler story - in Part 2 we'll see him move to Las Vegas and in a number of different directions.

Solis (UK 2018: Dir Carl Strathie)

Despite its Hollywood sheen and outer space setting, the sci-fi feature Solis was entirely filmed in a studio in Yorkshire, which is as much an advert for UK technology in movie production (Goldfinch Studios in Selby, if you're interested) as it is for Carl Strathie, who has achieved quite something for his first feature, in the 'quart out of a pint pot' low budget filmmaking stakes.

Taking its lead from the David Bowie song 'Space Oddity' by way of Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity, Solis stars lantern-jawed Steven Ogg as asteroid miner Troy Holloway, whose capsule gets caught up in an storm while on his way back from a job. Thrown off course and destined to collide with the sun, Holloway's only hope of survival is to effect repairs to his craft, receiving instructions from the disembodied voice of Commander Roberts (Alice Lowe), also trapped on board another ship, while his oxygen levels deplete at an alarming rate.

Beginning with a quote from a Longfellow poem "Look not mournfully into the past, it comes back not again..." Solis sets itself up as a pensive drama - themes of loss and remorse raise their heads from time to time - but for the most part this feels like a Boy's Own version of the Twelve Labours of Hercules (but on a spaceship), with Holloway facing a number of tests of endurance and tasks of increasing hardship.

David Stone Hamilton's rousing and heroic musical score does a very good job of convincing the audience they're seeing something more important than is actually taking place, but Solis is, when all's said and done, a single hander movie of one bloke in a lot of trouble and having to figure his way out of it, even if it's given the added frisson of having its ninety odd minutes portrayed in real time (Holloway's impending impact is calculated at roughly an hour and half after we first meet him, strapped in his capsule with a dead crew mate by his side).

Lowe, who was fantastic in both Sightseers and Prevenge, is sadly wasted as the voice of Commander Roberts; her rather flat Midlands accent isn't terribly dramatic, and although she's a great actress she's not really given a chance here. Steven Ogg, although no newcomer to the screen, plays lead for the first time and does well with what he has - was it me or was he channeling his inner George Clooney for this role? Sadly most of his acting is restricted to facial contortions and his obvious physicality, as evidenced via roles in TV's Westworld and The Walking Dead, isn't that much in evidence.

For a low budget film Solis looks great. The space capsule is pleasantly and authentically dowdy, and the shots of the silent out of control craft speeding through space to almost certain destruction are effectively rendered. But despite the high production values and the superb photography of Polish cinematographer Bart Sienkiewicz, Solis comes off as a slightly more upmarket version of the 2015 single astronaut in peril UK movie Capsule, which was similarly problematic in conveying drama and peril with such a limited setup.

Supermarket Sweep #3 - Reviews of The Sleeping Room (UK 2014), The Cured (Ireland 2017), There Are Monsters (Canada 2013), Angelica (USA 2015), The Heretics (Canada 2017) and The Night Eats the World (France 2018)

Here we go again, with another round up of cheap but hopefully not particularly cheerful DVDs culled (well purchased) from supermarkets across the length of the UK.

The Sleeping Room (UK 2014: Dir John Shackleton) This is Shackleton's only feature - he's a man more used to doing shorts and TV items. And there's something of both in this elegant but slightly overambitious supernatural drama that does quite a lot in its hour and a bit running time - arguably too much.

Blue (Leila Mimmack) a young prostitute from a broken home, living in Brighton, is sent to a new client, Bill, a young man from London in charge of doing up a rundown old house. Bill and Blue form an attachment, and between them uncover a secret room in the house, which was used back in the early days of cinema as a makeshift studio, in which an evil director, Fiskin, made snuff movies. But Fiskin's spirit is restless and he's looking to come back from the dead, with designs on Blue, who may have a stronger connection to him than she first thinks.

The Sleeping Room is big on atmosphere but low on budget and plot cohesion. Someone must have been doing their homework to know that Brighton was a kind of mini Hollywood in the early days of film and the sense of place is well established. But unfortunately it's all a bit silly and while the performances are earnest they're also rather dull. It's the kind of film that's almost embarrassed to have horror elements, so it ups the characterisation by way of apology. On the plus side it is very English in tone and Shackleton's heart is in the right place.

The Cured (Ireland 2017: Dir David Freyne) Also known - slightly obscurely - as The Third Wave (although the director made a short film called The First Wave back in 2014 on the same subject, which might explain it), this Irish made and funded film, shot on the mean streets of Dublin, is a rather occluded 'infected' movie, using an animal based epidemic as a backdrop for a serious drama about outsiders, acceptance, military control and public opinion.

The title refers to a cure that has been found for an infection which has been contained in the mainland but which decimated Ireland. Following the development of the antidote 75% of the infected have recovered after its administration, but 25% remain resistant and have been incarcerated. The 75% are rehabilitated back into society but not without the hatred and mistrust of the uninfected population, who cannot forgive them for the crimes they committed while in their infected state. The Cured follows the story of two men, Senan and Conor, as they attempt rehabilitation.

It's pretty obvious that the 'Maze' virus at the centre of this film (perhaps named after the Irish prison that housed paramilitary prisoners during The Troubles?) and the division between the formerly infected and the remainder of the country are metaphors for the Catholic/Protestant divide, although it could equally apply to the plight of immigrants anywhere. There's very little infected action until the last fifteen minutes or so, so don't come to this one with beer and popcorn in hand. But do stay if you want to see a well acted drama where a quiet civil war of sorts still rages on the streets, and a country struggles to come to terms with its past and navigate its future. An assured film without any easy answers, there is some fine acting on display from Sam Keeley (Senan), Tom Vaughan-Lawlor (Conor) and Ellen Page, playing Abbie, Senan's sister-in-law, a woman who houses him in defiance of her local community. Strong stuff but a very good film.

There Are Monsters (Canada 2013: Dir Jay Dahl) Back in 2008 director Dahl directed a short film, There Are Monsters, of which this is the full length version. But unlike many short films stretched to a feature (his first), it's all the better for it. In fact it's a great and rather overlooked film, made more effective for its slender budget and downplayed performances.

Drawing on elements of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Crazies, we follow a group of film students who travel across country to interview staff of a college. As they make their journey they discover an absence of people, and those who they do encounter seem a bit 'off,' keeping their backs turned to the group or offering crazy grins (as in a particularly weird encounter with a store worker).Various possible reasons are offered for this, including a hadron-collider experiment and/or the release of a gas which results in odd behaviour among the infected.

To be honest the reason is less important that the effects of what we see, and There Are Monsters sets up a very chilling mood, including one or two extremely startling scenes which I wasn't expecting, plus a very odd 'what's in the lunchbox? moment. The small town filmed-entirely-on-location feel of the movie adds to the menace, and the gradual awareness of some of the townsfolk that all is not well is surprisingly effective; "It's like he was a photocopy of what he was," says one character. The shaky first person camera isn't always welcome, and the movie seems to drift in and out of a found footage style. This is worth seeing though, which is a bit of a rarity for movies discovered on supermarket shelves, and I'll been keenly looking out for Dahl's latest, Halloween Party, currently in post-production.

Angelica (USA 2015: Dir Mitchell Lichtenstein) Here's a US movie - with interiors shot in New York and exteriors in London, and a largely UK cast - which plays like an old fashioned period British piece, the sort that Hammer studios used to do very well in the 1970s.

Constance (Jenna Malone) is a shop girl who catches the eye of scientist Dr Joseph Barton (Ed Stoppard); their subsequent marriage is a union of the sexes and classes. But their happy life together is thwarted after the birth of their first child, a daughter they name Angelica, whose arrival medically incapacitates Constance to such a degree that doctors warn the pair off any future children and indeed conjugal activity. Barton buries himself in work - which involves vivisection - and increased sexual frustration, whereas Constance externalises her own desires in the form of a ghostly male figure which she is convinced haunts the house. These thoughts are encouraged by her association with the medium Anne Montague (Janet McTeer), convincing Constance that the shadowy presence poses an increasing danger to both mother and daughter.

While Angelica's story exploits the 'hysterical woman' theme synonymous with the Victorians (are Constance's visions real or the product of post natal depression and denial of sex?), Mitchell Lichtenstein's belated return to the horror genre after his 2007 body horror movie Teeth - the film was actually made in 2014 but subsequently shelved - revisits his interest in stories of twisted feminism. There is an undercurrent of deranged eroticism throughout the movie which feels uniquely English - although the themes could equally find a home in a Henry James or Edith Wharton novel - and the visions of the 'phantom' are intriguingly rendered, comprising hundreds of the same viral creatures that the sick Constance has been shown under a microscope by her husband.

Many have criticised Angelica of being too slow and ponderous, but I liked it a lot for its attention to detail, credible acting, and rising dread.   

The Heretics (Canada 2017: Dir Chad Archibald) Gloria (Nina Kiri) and Joan (Jorja Cadence), who met at an abuse survivor support group, are lovers. Turns out that Gloria was the intended sacrificial offering by a group of cult members worshipping the demon Abaddon but who managed to escape their evil clutches.

After they part following a meeting, Gloria is abducted again by Thomas (Ry Barrett), a guy with scars on his face, which is strangely similar to some scarring on Joan's back. Gloria is chained up, and as the film progresses she undergoes a number of physical changes, including developing some welts on her shoulder blades. Could they be...wings?

Meanwhile Joan is understandably distraught at her gf's disappearance, but acts a little out of character when she guns down a local cop and Gloria's mother when they get in her way. Seems that Joan wants to get her hands on Gloria, but not for the reasons we may be thinking of.

The Heretics is one of those films where every ten minutes or so there's an obvious dream sequence which ends up with the central character waking up in bed with a gasp, requiring viewers to jump. Yes this happens a lot. It's a perfectly serviceable movie and Kiri as Gloria is game for a bit of gloop, but beyond the central three characters it's all a bit thin, if moodily photographed. A distinctly middle of the road horror film.

The Night Eats the World (France 2018: Dir Dominique Rocher) Poor Sam (Anders Danielsen Lie). He's gone to a party at his ex's flat to pick up the last of his things, when he falls asleep. Waking up he finds that the party guests - and most of Paris it seems - have been wiped out, and the only moving people on the streets are flesh hungry zombies keen to feast on whatever they can get.

Largely a prisoner within the apartment block he's been visiting, Sam carves out a new life that involves a lot of wandering around and some casual drumming, until Sarah (Golshifteh Farahani) turns up. Unfortunately Sam shoots her, thinking the girl is 'one of them,' but through some careful nursing he encourages her back to health to provide much needed companionship in his lonely life.

The Night Eats the World drags slower than the ruined leg of one of the city's broken zombies. For the most part this is a 'Robinson Crusoe' setup of one person eking out an existence, which of course brings to mind the source material, the 1954 novel 'I Am Legend' by Richard Matheson, and its many cinematic adaptations, of which Boris Sagal's 1971 movie The Omega Man is the most obvious comparator. Part of the problem here is that the zombie movie is so ubiquitous in modern culture, it's increasingly a massive leap of faith to believe that anyone in a 21st century movie could possibly not know about zombies, or, more importantly, how to kill them. Rocher's film effectively communicates the ennui of existence in a world where man is not alone but human communication is impossible - witness the ongoing 'gag' of a zombie, trapped in the apartment's lift system, who Sam periodically talks 'at' but not 'to'  - and the relief all round when Sarah turns up. I understand that the movie is a meditation on existence, I just don't need to watch it.

Both actors have done better than this material allows - in particular Farahani, who excelled in About Elly (2009) and Patterson (2016). This may have something to do with the fact that Rocher filmed in both French and English requiring the actors to speak in non native tongues (for the version I saw anyway). I'm afraid I just didn't buy this supposed new take on a familiar theme (well I did but you know what I mean) -  The Night Eats the World is for zombie completists only, although I am aware that it has its fans.

Shoplifters (Japan 2018: Dir Hirokazu Koreeda)

Hirokazu Koreeda's movies have come a long way from the relative innocence of his 2011 film I Wish, exploring progressively darker themes but without sacrificing the essential humanity present in all his works.

But on the surface his latest film appears to signify a return to those more innocent times; the poster for Shoplifters features the family from the film happily smiling at the camera. But this is deceptive; they're not a 'family' in the biological sense, and the only smiles they crack in the film are generally rueful ones. If Koreeda is indeed an Ozu for our times, with this movie it's an Ozu family refracted through a very 21st century sensibility.

We're introduced to Osamu Shibatu (Lily Franky) who as the film opens is encouraging his 'son' Shota (Jyo Kairi) to do a spot of shoplifting to provide for the family's grocery needs. Shota is, we learn, not his natural offspring but a boy that has been acquired by Osamu and his wife Nobuyo (Sakura Ando) and deployed for shoplifting rather than getting an education ("only kids who can't study at home go to school," he's told). Osamu and Nobuyo are living, in pretty overcrowded conditions, with their grandmother Hatsue (Kirin Kiki, excellent). Except she isn't really their grandmother either, although it doesn't stop them living off her pension even after her death. Add to this odd but phenomenally likeable bunch of waifs and strays sex worker Aki (Mayu Matsuoka) and the family is complete.

One of Shoplifters' themes, echoed by Osamu late in the film, is whether it is blood or love that holds a family together more effectively. The 'Shibatus,' as the family refer to themselves, live cheek by jowl, and refrain from judging each other's contribution to the rather dodgy way that they get by in life. Like a lot of petty criminals, they have developed their own moral code to justify their existence, particularly when Osamu loses his construction job following an accident at work and discovers that he's not entitled to compensation. But their conscience is pricked by seeing a young girl near their home, left outside, abandoned and hungry, while her parents bicker within. Witnessing this cruel treatment of a child, and perhaps with one eye on expanding their criminal-lite fraternity, they abduct her, installing the girl - Yuri - within their already extended household; the discovery of burn marks on the girl's body further justifies their actions. But the removal of Yuri causes a chain of events and eventually exposes the family, who by the very nature of their lives have lived under the radar, to scrutiny, both by the authorities and the audience. Motives are reappraised, and tragedy cannot be far off.

Like all of Koreeda's films, the pleasure and pain of Shoplifters is in the details. The Shibatus are a family that it's initially hard to like, but gradual acquaintance with their patterns of existence and conversation gives way to acceptance of their wayward lifestyle. The scenes of Osamu - who builds homes in which he could never afford to live - desperately wanting Shota to call him dad are both funny and painful. By the time the net closes in on the family, you realise just how much you've invested in the family's need to keep themselves together and look after each other, even if on their own terms. It's a sad, funny movie, beautifully delivered with some deft playing by a fine cast. But it's also the most tragic of Koreeda's movies, a film delivered with a lot of conviction and more than a whiff of anger at the social and economic conditions that can cause a family to live like this.

Mandy (USA 2018: Dir Panos Kosmatos)

Panos Kosmatos's belated follow up to 2010's  Beyond the Black Rainbow is a self consciously 'out there' film so in love with its own otherness it forgets to be interesting. Mandy wants to be immersive and shocking, but it's so lacking in wit and wisdom that it becomes one long (very long) slog to the finish line. Yeah, I didn't like it.

Nicolas Cage is Red Miller, a lumberjack with a dark past living in a possibly mythic location called The Shadow Mountains, who seems finally to have found happiness in artist Mandy (Andrea Riseborough). The scars on Mandy's face also suggest she has a story to tell.

The pair spend nights in bed talking about the planets and the cosmos, but their idyllic state is severely compromised when cult leader and ex-singer Jeremiah Sand - boss of a Manson-like group called Children of the New Dawn - takes a shine to Red's girlfriend. Sand orders Mandy's capture by a Cenobite-like biker gang called the Black Skulls, and after Sand fails to seduce her by playing some of his music and stripping naked in front of her (triggering much mirth from Ms Riseborough) she is murdered. Red, racked with an almost psychotic remorse, vows revenge on Mandy's killers leading to an LSD fueled gory fight to the death.

I should have found Mandy fun. I should have found it a romp. I didn't. It feels like a film that's just trying too hard to be esoteric, and while some scenes had a certain appeal - a chainsaw fight, the 'cheddar goblin' fake advert, the hallucinatory face swapping scene between Jeremiah and Mandy - for the most part it's just too overloaded to be enjoyable, even down to Jóhann Jóhannsson’s unsubtle score.

On the plus side, Kosmatos's overwrought dialogue, design and content is at least perfect for Cage's hyper-kinetic performance. It's the same shtick he's deployed in a dozen other movies, but in Mandy it's just one more over the top thing in a film whose business is excess. A sequence where Miller, grieving the loss of his girlfriend while intermittently swigging vodka, dousing his wounds and primally screaming on the toilet, would in most other movies be worthy of note. Here it's just another scene. Andrea Riseborough seems rather wasted in the role of Mandy, although several closeups of her face, her huge eyes staring impassively but rather creepily, make it obvious why she was cast (it's also good to see her in a role where she isn't heavily disguised).

Yes it looks good - well good's probably the wrong word - it looks hellish; and you'll enjoy the colour palette if you like the colour red, in what I'm guessing is a nod to Argento.

But really, so bloody what? Maybe I need to see this again (unlikely), but its charms were totally lost on me, and I left the cinema rather annoyed at the vacuity I had just witnessed.