Author: DC (Page 338 of 1086)

 

‘The films of low budget director Ray Dennis Steckler present a unique balancing act between familiar B-movie tropes and the unexpected. With Wild Guitar (1962), The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies!!? (1964), The Thrill Killers (1964), and Rat Pfink A Boo Boo (1966), Steckler, a self-acknowledged Hollywood outsider, crafted a series of idiosyncratic low budget features in the heart of Tinseltown before eventually decamping to Las Vegas in 1970 for a career in porn and to teach film classes at the University of Nevada. In these energetic early films, his characters—drifters, rock ‘n’ rollers, killers, dropouts, superheroes, and struggling actors—seem to be plucked from Hollywood Boulevard and set down in a pulp comic come to life. The Hollywood strip appears again and again in the director’s films as a symbol of intoxicating fantasy and disillusionment. Indeed, Steckler’s work embodies, at first glance, a simple teenage dream of celebrity, violence, and goofy humor, but what lurks just below its campy, threadbare veneer is an underworld of cynicism, reflexivity, and rupture.

‘In perhaps the definitive interview with the director (in the invaluable Incredibly Strange Films), Steckler told writer Boyd Rice, “I’m not saying I’m a great filmmaker or anything; I try to just be different, not to be like everybody else. That’s all it is.”

‘Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, Steckler began making films as a boy using an 8 mm camera purchased by his father to create an amateur pirate movie with his friends. After leaving the Army, where he had been a photographer, Steckler came to Hollywood and found a job as an assistant cameraman on Timothy Carey’s cult masterpiece, The World’s Greatest Sinner (1962), eventually becoming the film’s cinematographer after the initial director of photography was fired.

‘After working as a cinematographer and occasional actor at Arch Hall Sr.’s Fairway Pictures (including a brief but memorable role as a frightened partygoer in the gloriously dumb caveman movie Eegah), Steckler directed his first feature film, Wild Guitar, for the company when he was only 23 years old. Like many of the other films produced by Fairway Pictures, Wild Guitar was a vehicle for Hall’s son, Arch Hall Jr., who he hoped to make a star.

‘In the film, which plays suspiciously close to a teenbeat version of The World’s Greatest Sinner, Arch Hall Jr. plays a would-be rockstar who comes to Hollywood from nowhere with an old guitar and a letter of introduction to no one in particular. The naive ingenue is quickly taken in by a crooked record company owner, Mike McCauley (Arch Hall Sr.), and his gang of buffoonish hoods, including Steckler (using the screen name Cash Flagg) as McCauley’s enforcer, Steak. Formally, Wild Guitar might be Steckler’s most ostensibly “normal” film but the vision it conjures of exploitation in the entertainment industry, and the vapid, mesmeric power of pop, is vicious.
“I believe: get an idea, go make it. Just do it,” Steckler told Rice, and in Wild Guitar, Steckler’s openness to unexpected resources and improvisation pays off. While filming, the director learned that actor Nancy Czar was a world-class skater, and took the shoot to an ice skating rink (years before Rocky) to create one of the film’s most memorable scenes. The sense that Steckler is making his film his way is palpable, and although Arch Hall Jr.’s subpar songs are shoehorned throughout, the director is doing what he would ultimately learn to do best: working with what he had.

‘Steckler’s next film represents a giant leap forward into the “psychotronic” realm. In The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?—shot in just 11 days—Steckler plays Jerry, a hoodie-wearing misfit who would rather bum around the boardwalk looking for fun than get a job. After visiting a sideshow fortune teller who turns anyone who crosses her into a monstrous, half dead creature, Jerry is placed in a hypnotic state that causes him to kill. Hallucinatory mayhem ensues.

‘Beyond this minimal plot, The Incredibly Strange Creatures (his largest budget film at a meager $38,000) is filled with elaborate dance numbers (including a dream ballet), wildly unhinged camerawork (courtesy of a young Vilmos Zsigmond), grotesque makeup, and home movie-like sequences of carnival rides. In this film, perhaps Steckler’s best known work, he pushes beyond normative formal constraints as his camera careens between stylized precision to raw expressiveness like a tilt-a-whirl, creating a trash pastiche of bad vibes, psychosexual tension, and wonderfully cheap spectacle.

‘The film’s dark, nightmarish interiors and gleeful disregard for camera etiquette combine to make it unsettling and immediate in a way few films are. Its script (although there are claims Steckler often worked without one) echoes the camera’s nonconformist streak. The most memorable and profound bit of dialogue from any Steckler film comes in The Incredibly Strange Creatures as Jerry encounters an uptight young man, Madison, outside his girlfriend’s house. He flippantly asks the young man, “How’s college?” Madison responds, unamused, “It’s fine. You should try it some time.” Jerry, tickled by this, grins and volleys back, “No thanks. The world’s my college.” With this dismissive barb, both Jerry and Steckler might be speaking—Jerry about his approach to life, and the director about his exuberant, freeform approach to DIY moviemaking.

‘Co-produced by Steckler and his partner, George Morgan, the film’s financier, The Incredibly Strange Creatures was initially distributed as part of a double bill by Fairway Pictures. Eventually, Steckler took the film out on the road himself and showed it under a number of different titles (Diabolical Dr. Voodoo and Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary) to relative success—relative to the film’s small budget, that is.

‘Steckler’s next film, The Thrill Killers, was a gritty crime story featuring a wide-eyed Steckler as escaped mental patient Mort “Mad Dog” Click. After a bravura stylized murder sequence where “Mad Dog” proclaims, “I hate people. They’re no good,” as light pulses through a dingy flophouse window, the film’s action culminates with his fellow escapees taking a group of diner patrons hostage. One of the hostages, Joe Saxon (Joseph Bardo), is a struggling film actor, which leads to the film’s most darkly reflexive moment, as the escaped patients “direct” their hostages.

‘The Thrill Killers, with its stark black-and-white, pseudo-documentary photography, and pervasive threat of violence, is Steckler’s most economical and potent slice of pulp dread. In a similar fashion to Steckler’s travels with the The Incredibly Strange Creatures, The Thrill Killers included a personal touch. Also called The Maniacs Are Loose, Steckler advertised that the film was in “Hypno Vision,” meaning, at key points during the screening ushers, and often Steckler himself, would race through the aisles eliciting screams from the audience. The Thrill Killer’s double life as both a grim work of cinematic art and schlocky spookshow encapsulates Steckler’s knack for slyly slipping his unconventional films into commercial spaces.

‘Steckler would follow The Thrill Killers with his most radically playful film: Rat Pfink A Boo Boo. Beginning with the same “just for kicks” criminality and violence as TheThrill Killers, Steckler’s followup makes a radical departure halfway through its running time. After a young woman, Cee Bee Beaumont (Steckler’s wife, Carolyn Brandt), is kidnapped, her rockstar boyfriend, Lonnie Lord (Ron Haydock), enters a closet with a dimwitted gardener, and the pair emerge as superheroes. The film’s second half becomes a goofy riff on Batman and Robin, as the duo pursue the kidnappers in slapstick fashion.

‘Steckler considered The Thrill Killers, with its true crime feel and depiction of violent, abnormal psychology, his answer to Psycho. It’s in Rat Pfink A Boo Boo, though, where he enacts Hitchcock’s narrative rupture. By using many of the same motifs and actors in between The Thrill Killers and Rat Pfink A Boo Boo, Steckler creates a weirdly solipsistic cinematic continuum.

‘After Rat Pfink A Boo Boo (in slipshod, Steckler fashion, a mistake with the titles turned “And”into “A”), the director would work on promos for rock groups like Jefferson Airplane and continue to make a few more kooky curiosities including the Long Goodbye-like lazy detective film, Body Fever (1969). Nothing, however, would ever reach the heights of conceptual and poetic brilliance of Rat Pfink A Boo Boo, which stands as the director’s last uncompromising masterpiece.

‘Ray Dennis Steckler’s true art was his attitude toward filmmaking, believing, “If you can’t have any fun don’t make a movie.” Echoes of this inspired approach can be seen in the films of John Waters, David Lynch, Damon Packard, and Nicolas Winding Refn (an avid fan who helped restore Wild Guitar). Although Steckler’s films were initially set adrift in the sea of B-movies and drive-in second features that filled American theaters during the 60s and 70s, people eventually began to take notice. The Incredibly Strange Creatures was cited by critic Lester Bangs as a masterpiece of bad taste and as his New York Times obituary states, “Mr. Steckler’s name began to be mentioned with those of genre masters like Russ Meyer and Ed Wood.”

‘Steckler uniquely faced the reality of making movies on the fringe with the barest of resources and negotiated an uneasy but fruitful treaty between the actual and the possible, all while having a good time. What resulted from his giddy desire to make movies is something incredibly strange and remarkably special.’ — Chris Shields

 

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Stills

 

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Further

Do It Yourself Madness: The World of Ray Dennis Steckler
“I Hope it’s Originality”: The Parallel Universe of Ray Dennis Steckler
Book: ‘The Incredibly Strange Features of Ray Dennis Steckler’
A Fan’s Tribute to The Incredibly Strange and Wonderful Ray Dennis Steckler
Podcast: THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE RAY DENNIS STECKLER
RDS @ Letterboxd
Ray Dennis Steckler Has Passed
The Ray Dennis Steckler Interview by ED Tucker
IT’S A SHAME ABOUT RAY: RAY DENNIS STECKLER (1938 – 2009)
Will the Thrill Interviews Incredibly Strange Filmmaker Ray Dennis Steckler
The Incredible Two-Headed Movie-Making Thing That Ate Las Vegas
Goof on the Loose: The Films of Ray Dennis Steckler

 

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Extras

RAY DENNIS STECKLER’S day has come… but are we ready for it?

The Incredibly Strange Film Show – Ray Dennis Steckler

Ray Dennis Steckler Interview

Valentine’s Day with Ray Dennis Steckler, Parkway Theater, February 14, 2002

Ray Dennis Steckler’s “MASCOT VIDEO” Store TOUR!

 

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Interview

 

Ed Tucker: Ray, I think by now most people are familiar with your more famous pictures like “The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies” and “The Thrill Killers”. I would like to talk about some of your lesser known productions including some of the more recent ones. The first film you ever made was the short “Goof on the Loose” in 1959, correct?

Ray Steckler: Yes, “Goof on the Loose” was the first film I ever did entirely by myself. I had always been a big fan of the silent comedians like Buster Keaton. He was tremendously physical comedian. He made some incredible films like “The General”, but towards the end of his career he had to make some terrible films just to stay alive.

ET: He was in a number of films for AIP including some of the Beach Party movies. It always amazed me because he was old and not a real match for these kinds of films. They would give him bad parts and only have him on screen for about ten minutes and he would still steal the show.

RS: He never made any money because he didn’t own the rights to his films like Charlie Chaplin did. He was at the mercy of the studios and just trying to stay alive and that was what they did to him. Towards the end he worked for MGM and they paired him with Jimmy Durantee. Buster Keaton was a very physical and mobile comedian, where Durantee was dependant on dialog. I guess they were pushing Durantee because he had had some recent success on Broadway but they were just mismatched.

ET: Keaton was still trying to make silent films, even then.

RS: Good for him. He was the last. Nobody has the guts to do that any more. Nobody except me. No one else would have tried to do what I just did with “Summer Fun”.

ET: In your acting career, did you limit yourself to just working in your own pictures? I know you had a brief cameo in the film “Eegah!” for Arch Hall but did you do anything besides that for anyone else?

RS: I did a few other parts. I was in “Las Vegas Weekend” and a few other pictures but they were for friends. It’s not like I went out and worked for anybody. I never solicited a movie role in my life. I was asked to do “The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant” but I saw the makeup and I told them you’d have to be a fool to do this, it will haunt you the rest of your life. Bruce Dern was in it.

ET: Bruce Dern, Pat Priest from the Munsters, and Casey Kasem.

RS: I don’t know if that was a mistake or not. I don’t think so. The film was directed by Anthony Lanza, who was my editor on “Wild Guitar”. He was a very interesting and talented guy. He edited some of “Strange Creatures” for me too. He did the scene at the end of the chase down the beach, which was really well edited with the rocks and the water and the splashing. When I took a look at it it was just edited terribly. I asked him what happened and he said there was nothing there. I went through all the trims and I re-edited the whole scene that day and I’m glad I did because I love that chase scene at the end. I didn’t have any faith in Anthony Lanza after that as an editor but I think he would make a competent director in the conventional sense. I never saw “The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant”. I don’t know what happened to him after that but I felt he had the ability to go a long way.

ET: I saw that film originally at a drive-in in Jacksonville, Florida on a double feature with “Frankenstein Conquers the World”. I even have the poster for it but I never realized Anthony Lanza directed it.

RS: This is what I am getting at. People remember that film but no one remembers who directed it. People see my films and they remember my name. I am not being immodest about this, but they remember my name and more. I even get accused of doing films I never made. “The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant” wasn’t Anthony Lanza’s film. He directed it, but he was doing it for someone else. The type of person who is going to pick up a camera and make his own film from start to finish is the type of person who will get destroyed in Hollywood.

ET: Hollywood rewards the person who is just doing a job?

RS: You have to understand something about Hollywood through the years. I have read a lot about it and let’s just say I am well versed in it. What is Hollywood? Is it a town? Is it a group of people? Is it a figment of your imagination? What is Hollywood really? Hollywood is a place where when they don’t need you any more, that’s it. They have the motion picture home now, thank God, to save some of these people. In Hollywood you work for five or ten years and then what? Do you go out and pump gas? Actors can be on a hit television series for three or five years and then it’s over. During that time maybe they made some enemies or said the wrong thing and suddenly no one wants them. I worked with a number of the major studios. I even had an office for a while at MGM. I worked with a number of key players including Harold Robbins. They all wanted to meet me but no one ever wanted to do anything with me. I was typed as a cameraman. I started off as a cameraman and I worked as a cameraman. I did the “Wide World of Sports”, I did a series called “The Professionals”, I filmed over one hundred commercials. I did all these things as a cameraman but it never lead to another job as a director. I had to go home and put money in a sock until I had enough saved up to start another picture.

ET: So you gave up on Hollywood?

RS: By the time I did “Body Fever”, I had found myself at a point in my life where I just decided to have some fun. I didn’t really care any more; the damage from Hollywood had been done. As I am sure you know, I didn’t start out acting in that picture but I ended up acting in it. I didn’t have enough money to do that picture correctly but I finished it. The very first day on the set in San Pedro, the assistant cameraman had $25,000 worth of lenses and he took his eye off them and someone walked away with the case. We had one lens left to shoot that day and it was a bad lens!

ET: You finished the final segment of “The Lemon Grove Kids” in 1969. How long after this was the film released to the theaters?

RS: I have to tell you, it was not very long at all. A fellow named Joe Karston had been doing road shows of my pictures since 1966 or 1967. He did “The Incredibly Strange Creatures” first (retitled “The Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary”) and then “The Thrill Killers” (retitled “The Maniacs are Loose”). He came to me after that and said what have you got? I showed him “The Lemon Grove Kids” and he said that would be good for matinee shows. A lot of theaters back then enjoyed booking a matinee show just for Saturdays.

ET: How many years did that play as a matinee?

RS: That played for about five or six years. I think it all washed out about 1975 or 1976.

ET: That played for longer than I realized. You had a theater employee dressed as a mummy run through audience when this film played. What did you have for the others?

RS: When they did “The Thrill Killers” they dressed like the Cash Flagg character. When they did “Strange Creatures” they had people dressed like the zombies except for the first six months when I went on tour with the film. Then for “The Lemon Grove Kids” they did the mummy.

ET: Did you have to go back and film inserts for the mummy section?

RS: Yes. There was originally a mummy in “The Great Race” played by Bob Burns who also played Kogar the gorilla for me in Rat Pfink. Bob came back and did the mummy for me again in the insert footage. There was a girl in that scene with the mummy who had played a dancer in “The Incredibly Strange Creatures”. Her name was Cindy Shea and she was best friends with Carolyn Brandt from the time we moved to Hollywood. She was in the hospital with cancer and did not have long to live. She knew we were shooting that day and she actually left the hospital, she walked out. Somehow she got there and she walked up that big hill. I can still remember seeing her and I don’t know how she did it. She just said I want to be part of your movie please, just do something. I don’t know if I would have shot that scene the same way if she hadn’t shown up when she did. She was just wonderful. Less than a week later she was gone and I never really got over that. Someone wanted to be in one of my pictures that much.

ET: Didn’t Ron Haydock play Rat Pfink again in that same segment?

RS: Yes and he was also the guitar player in “The Great Race”

ET: I picked up a really cool CD called “99 Chicks” by Ron Haydock & the Boppers that has the “Rat Pfink” tracks on it. Are you familiar with that?

RS: That’s the one on Norton Records.

ET: Right, there are some great photos in the CD booklet too.

RS: Those came from me. They contacted me and I sent them some items on Ron for the booklet.

ET: There is one I have never seen before of him on the hood of a car holding two masks. What are they from?

RS: One is the head from “Thrill Killers” that rolls down the stairs. I’m not sure about the other.

ET: How about the shot of Ron performing on stage dressed as Rat Pfink?

RS: That is from the tour we did to promote the film. We went around to supermarkets with Ron dressed as Rat Pfink and another guy doing Boo Boo because Titus Mode was not available. It was also me, Carolyn Brandt who was my wife at the time, and my 81-year-old grandfather. We went all over the place trying to drum up interest in the film. We shot some color film of those appearances that I put on the end of the “Rat Pfink” video.

ET: There is also a picture in the booklet of a pulp novel called “Caged Lust”. It looks like Bill Ward style artwork on the cover and it is credited to Vin Saxon. Is that for real?

RS: Oh yeah. Vin Saxon was, of course, Ron Haydock. He must have written fifty of those things. One was called “Ape Rape”. They were very strange.

ET: Well with a title like “Ape Rape” I’m not surprised.

RS: You have to understand, that was how Ron made a living towards the end of his life. They would pay him $500 to write one of these things. The books are very rare now because they only printed about 20,000 of them to begin with. I think Norton must have a whole collection of these things somewhere. They came to me looking for one of his titles but even I didn’t have it. Ron Haydock made movies for me but no one else would give him a chance. I not only gave him a chance, I hocked my house to make those movies and to record those songs because I believed in him. Then he got screwed up with depression a couple of times thinking that no one cared about him. I cared about him. I say this, if you go through your whole life and you only have one person who cares about you, who is willing to sacrifice for you, then you are well ahead of the game. That’s honestly what I believe and when Ron killed himself there was no reason for him to do that except he felt he wasn’t wanted.

ET: Hold on, did Ron kill himself? I thought he died in a car accident hitchhiking back to California from visiting you in Vegas?

RS: It wasn’t an accident. I had given him a plane ticket too but he wouldn’t use it. I could talk about the whole story but I don’t want it changed. If enough people want to hear about it, I’ll tell you. It’s not a story that puts Ron Haydock down, he was my best friend. I think my career almost came to a halt when he died.

ET: Whatever happened to Mike Kannon who played Slug in “The Lemon Grove Kids”? I thought he was great in the Leo Gorcey part.

RS: He became a security guard at the Romane headquarters of Howard Hughes. He was the one who got tied up when Hughes was robbed and they got all his papers. He also acted in “The Getaway” with Steve McQueen. He was a fine actor.

ET: One of your later films actually takes its title from a character in “The Lemon Grove Kids”, how did you come up with the idea of “The Chooper”?

RS: Herb Robins played the character in the “Green Grasshopper” segment and that’s what he did, he went “choop, choop, choop, choop, choop”. So he became “The Chooper”.

ET: (Laughs) That’s it? That’s all there was to it! I saw a video box for the film one time and they had this elaborate definition for how a Chooper was a legendary evil spirit!

RS: Nah! Whatever we had, that was what we made a movie with. I said hey we’ve still got a Chooper suite so Ron became “The Chooper”! It didn’t even fit him, it was too small. My whole philosophy is when it’s someone else’s money your spending that’s a whole different ballgame than when it’s your own. Before you make a movie you look around and see what you have, not what you want to go get. Think about all the things you don’t have to spend money for and then write your story around them, because now you’ve already saved $20,000. If you look at my films you will see the same things here and there because if it was still good, fine, then we used it again.

ET: Was “The Chooper” released to theaters?

RS: It played in one theater in Denver, Colorado but was really just straight to video.

ET: So you were eligible for the Academy Awards?

RS: (Laughs) Yes, that’s a good line!

 

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15 of Ray Dennis Steckler’s 58 films

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Wild Guitar (1962)
‘Ray Dennis Steckler made his directorial debut with this surfer rock-scored, Elvis Presley-inspired B-movie about an aspiring musician’s sudden success. Swerving between Faustian fable, pop comedy and music industry parody, it features the early work of Oscar®-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond!’ — MUBI

the entirety

 

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The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (1964)
‘Hoping to relax for the day, beatniks Jerry (Cash Flagg), Angela (Sharon Walsh) and Harold (Atlas King) head for a seaside carnival. But after visiting strange fortune-teller Madame Estrella (Brett O’Hara), Jerry is transformed into a ruthless killer with a penchant for performing song and dance at the park’s nightclub. And as if Jerry’s attacks along the beach weren’t enough, Madame Estrella inadvertently unleashes a horde of undead minions on the unsuspecting carnival populace.’ — archive.org

the entirety

 

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The Thrill Killers (1964)
‘Thrill Killers follows three separate narratives that collide at the climax. Joe Saxon (Joseph Bardo) is an unsuccessful aspiring actor struggling in the Hollywood rat race, to the despair of his long-suffering wife Liz (glamour icon Liz Renay). Meanwhile, wild-eyed feral loner Mort “Mad Dog” Click (portrayed by Steckler himself under his fabulous acting pseudonym Cash Flagg) is embarking on a seemingly random killing spree. And then comes the news (relayed over a tinny transistor radio) that three ax-wielding psychotic murders have escaped from a high-security mental institution. While the violence is tame by modern standards (and mostly occurs just out of frame or in shadow), thanks to Steckler’s dynamic no-frills film-making it packs an unexpected jolt, with a visceral sense of panic and claustrophobia. Admittedly, the decapitated head bouncing down a flight of stairs is unintentionally funny.’ — Bitterness Personified

Trailer

the entirety

 

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Goof on the Loose! (1964)
‘‘Goof on the Loose‘ is an early Steckler curiosity that pays homage to slapstick comedies of the silent era. Some of it is funny, some of it is a bit too random but it’s nice to see Steckler’s range of interests and genres and his wife/ muse Carolyn Brandt. Made in 1964, the same year as his best film ‘The Thrill Killers’.’ — Dennis Vehlen

the entirety

 

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Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Monsters (1965)
‘Three short films directed by Ray Dennis Steckler, Ed McWatters and Peter Balakoff in 1965 feature the adventures of the “Lemon Grove Kids” in this “Bowery Boys” inspired kiddie film.’ — Videodrom Verleih

Trailer

 

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Rat Pfink a Boo Boo (1966)
‘The first half of this is a suspense thriller, but Steckler got bored and turned it into a superhero comedy for the second half. It climaxes with Rat Pfink and Boo Boo fighting a gorilla (a guy in a gorilla suit). It ends with Rat Pfink and Boo Boo riding in a real parade (I wonder if Steckler got permission or if he just crashed it), and the cast (including the gorilla) dancing on a beach. Scattered throughout are musical numbers. The moral: it’s Steckler’s movie and he can do whatever he wants.’ — Will Sloan

the entirety

 

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Jefferson Airplane White Rabbit (Official Music Video) (1967)
‘Music video for Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit.” A woman evocatively moves around a beach, a rock, and through waves while images of a caterpillar, a chess piece, and the band’s “Surrealistic Pillow” album cover are inter-cut.’ — IMDb

the entirety

 

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The Mad Love Life of a Hot Vampire (1971)
‘Dracula is a pimp who sends his female vampire hookers out to collect blood by the most unusual methods from unsuspecting and horny victims.’ — IMDb

Excerpt

 

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Blood Shack (1971)
‘Around the midpoint of BLOOD SHACK, Carolyn Brandt takes a somnambulistic midnight stroll. The wind whips her hair. The moonlight catches her eyes. The dark blue sky outlines her path. It’s poetic, chilling, and beautiful, like the climax from I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE combined with the artsy minimalism of Roberta Findlay’s A WOMAN’S TORMENT. This scene is at odds with the rest of the movie, which jams together mundane narration, ill-fitting music cues, and The Chooper’s baffling attack scenes. But that’s why I love it. From THE MAD LOVE LIFE OF A HOT VAMPIRE to LAS VEGAS SERIAL KILLER, movies from Steckler’s twilight years are scattered and unintentionally avant-garde — you never know what to expect from minute to minute. With its focus on barren desert vistas and stream-of-consciousness plotting, BLOOD SHACK is totally unconventional and thoroughly strange. In other words, it’s just one more reason why the work of Ray Dennis Steckler should never be forgotten.’ — Joseph A. Ziemba

the entirety

 

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The Sexorcist (1974)
‘When reporter Janice Lighting (Carolyn Brandt) follows up a hot lead on a mysterious document that can summon the devil, she brings death to her own door in this bloody horror-adult film hybrid featuring possessed prostitutes, creepy amulets and even creepier artwork.’ — Diabolik

the entirety

 

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Red Heat (1974)
‘RED HEAT is equal parts off kilter Vegas travelogue, bloody sex killer flick and raunchy loop package, all in one. The off-screen female narrator tells you of her wild times directing skin flicks. Then she tells you about her star Red Heat who went on a serial murder spree. The sex scenes are raunchy hotel room balling, populated by hardboiled, aged Vegas pros.’ — permateen

Trailer

 

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Teenage Hustler (1976)
‘The director’s credit on-screen reads “Ricado Malatote”, the usual credit went to “Harry Nixon”, but cult fave Ray Dennis Steckler has TEENAGE HUSTLER in his bag of tricks. Spotlighting an extremely sexy one-shot artiste “Mary Monroe” in several sex scenes the film is easy to absorb, even if crudely made. It tells the story of English Billy Boynton, described as a con man and a sex freak. In tandem with his confederate, an unscrupulous porn photographer, he schemes to bed down prostitutes and then blackmail them with photos of them in action. This makes very little sense, but is the hook for 64 minutes of porn. The girls are mainly no-name talent, including Amazonian Monroe (she towers over the male cast), busty, attractive and fresh looking. Late in the film the busy Eve Orlon plays another prostitute they scam named Trixie. English Billy eventually gets his comeuppance, but film ends promising a sequel purportedly concerning his new landlady and her daughter, which likely was never made.’ — hiroti_futasiko

Watch the entirety here

 

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The Hollywood Strangler Meets The Skid Row Slasher (1979)
‘Belonging firmly in the same camp as other sleaze epics of the time, DON’T GO IN THE HOUSE (1979) and DON’T ANSWER THE PHONE (1980), as opposed to the sustained terror of Carpenter’s then recent slasher opus, THE HOLLYWOOD STRANGLER MEETS THE SKID ROW SLASHER is slasher burlesque, pure and simple; just a celluloid conveyor belt of visual titillation clearly with Steckler not feeling the need to generate even a modicum of suspense. He does, however, make the most of the scenery: Hollywood at its very trashiest and sleaziest (much like New York’s Time Square’s Neon porno palaces were the backdrop for so many similar films around this time), it seems that there aren’t any other buildings apart from the streets and streets of ‘Flick’o’rama’s and ‘Sin-o-ram’s – it’s the apex of punk rock nihilism and post-60’s cultural decay (it’s hard to believe all this existed when compared to today’s relatively puritanical and antiseptic society). The film’s decided cheapness only adds to its overall no-darn-good ambiance: looking like a particularly threadbare 60’s trash movie (no surprise given who was behind the camera), probably shot on 16mm – it looks like it was all made without sound and was dubbed in post-production and has a bizarre soundtrack of music which veers from acid rock to burlesque stock to ambient musings, which just boosts that unrelenting grindhouse feel (in-fact the movies’ monumentally inappropriate closing song (“You’re my love … no one can deny!”) is the scariest thing in this flick).’ — Hysteria Lives

Excerpts & review

 

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Las Vegas Serial Killer (1986)
‘After six years incarceration for his famous strangling spree, Johnathon Klick is paroled on the technicality that most of the bodies couldn’t be found. Hearing the release announcement on the radio, two sunglassed sleazeballs make their way to Vegas, apparently to rate women’s legs and steal purses. Johnathon immediately resumes his old ways, choking a girl with her own bikini at a pool party, grabbing another outside a bar, interrupting a photo shoot for a mini model massacre, and he even gets hired as a delivery man for Pizza ‘n’ Pizza, driving exactly one pie to a topless girl in a Jacuzzi — all whilst muttering, “Die, garbage!” Aimlessly wandering around the Glitter Gulch for most of the film’s duration, the three criminals’ paths continually cross, leading up to a shock ending and one of the greatest freeze-frames in the history of cinema.’ — Bruce Holecheck

Las Vegas Film Locations Las Vegas Serial Killer 1987

 

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One More Time aka The Incredibly Strange Creatures 2 (2008)
‘The final film of maverick director Ray Dennis Steckler, a long-gap sequel to his most famous film, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (1964). However, Steckler himself referred to it as an “extension” of the earlier film, stating: “Would Orson Welles make a sequel to Citizen Kane?”

‘This is a 66-minute home movie, shot on video that was primitive even in 2009 (it may actually be videotape). Steckler reprises the character of Johnny, now an old man, who is haunted in his dreams by the murders from the 1964 movie (did they not actually happen? I’m unclear of this). We see Steckler wandering around an amusement park (the same one that was in the first movie, I believe), riding a bus, sitting on a bench, checking out a bar band (we see Johnny Legend perform “You Are a Rat Fink,” the theme from Steckler’s Rat Pfink a Boo Boo!), etc. As in the original film, he finds himself hypnotized by a fortune teller and driven to murder. Briefly we see zombies. All of this is heavily padded with scenes from the 1964 film, which underline how completely Steckler’s craftsmanship deteriorated when his early cinematographers Vilmos Zsigmond, Laszlo Kovacs, and Joseph V. Mascelli left him in the dust.

‘One More Time takes a meta turn in its last act. We see Steckler as himself interviewing potential cast members for an Incredibly Strange People sequel. Then we see Steckler at his Las Vegas video store being told that, while Incredibly Strange People is a beloved classic, nobody is willing to finance a sequel. However, Steckler’s business partner tells him, “You’ll get it done. You always do.” Steckler decides to try to win the budget at the slot machines, and the film climaxes with home movie footage of the Steckler family having fun at a Vegas casino.’ — Will Sloan

the entirety

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. The ‘Sark Matter’ link didn’t work. And I have a no Jordan Peterson policy so the second link was like a shuttered dark ride. ** Ian, Hey, Ian! No, the dark ride is a staple here in Europe. There are these mobile fun fairs — ‘fete forains’ as they’re called in France — that travel all over the country during the year, going from town to town, and they always have a dark ride, usually one quite elderly and barely refurbished over time. I’m happy that dadhood is sitting well with you. That was/is a cool find, that antho. I’ll try to search it out. Enjoy Roxy, natch. Oh, and I’ll be writing to you about you-know-what very shortly. Have a great one. ** Jack Skelley, I … don’t think you’ve used that one before, JackforkFestival! Ah, POP, my lost great love. It had a dark ride that was in the form of a fake mountain where you rode a train through caves and a tropical forest, I think, and there was scary stuff, I can’t remember what. It was lovely. I think all the other dark attractions there were walkthroughs. Sweet re: the tons to be caught up on. And, yes, Sabrina in the hood! And I will see you ‘with bells on’ tonight/this morning! ** Dominik, Oh, yeah, dogs like food too. But I always feel like dogs like other things too whereas I always feel like pigeons only like food. Me too, I’ve been a freelancer my whole life. With lots of stress but no regrets. Excellent that you have that current reliable and money-forking job. Hope they continue to value you highly. Wow, tough choice! I think I might pick ‘The Witches Forest’ just because it’s completely mysterious and has such a nice facade. And in working order, I think. And you? Love going back in time and forcing James Cameron to make the new ‘Avatar’ movie on a $50,000 budget, G. ** Steve Erickson, I like your script idea, natch. So how would said supernatural force taking over manifest itself visually in said film? Oh, yes, I liked your black hole derived music piece a lot. I think I forget to follow up on my listening experiences re: you and yours too often. The conceit is that home haunt in our film isn’t scary enough. It wants to be, and it tries on a homemade/household budget, but it isn’t. So it’s not extreme, for sure. It inspires an extreme act, but it itself is a charming disappointment. ** _Black_Acrylic, I so agree! Wow, maybe there are those recordings somewhere. I’m going to search. Happy about the progress on your flat, and I hope whatever butts are kicked that need to be kicked to get you over that welcome mat pronto-ish. ** Sypha, Oh, huh, about the date thing. I don’t remember where I found that one. I actually like ‘Cometh Darkness’ better but both titles are fine. Air quotes: I always forget to use them too. They’re so much better than emojis. ** T, T! Buddy boy! You have returned from the everything that seemed like nothingness from the blog’s point of view! We didn’t get the funding we wanted, but we got just enough to barely be able to make the film, and we’re going to, yes! You’re back next week! Yes, definitely hit me up when you set down and are ready for company. It’ll be great to see you! Lots of catch up on, no doubt! I’ll take that weekend you wished for. I don’t know why, but it sounds like perfection. Maybe because I’m going to Disneyland on Monday and I’m feeling impatient. May every cup of coffee you drink this weekend taste deliciously atonal. ** Right. I’m pretty sure that the great Dennis Dermody did something about Ray Dennis Steckler on his great site Original Cinemaniac which then influenced my decision to do a Day about this wacky filmmaking motherfucker. See you on Monday.

* (restored)

 

How did dark rides get started?

George LaCross: The forerunner to a single-rail dark ride was an “old mill,” a boat ride that went through a tunnel. When the old mills started cropping up around 1900, they were the first type of ride where you’d sit in a vehicle—a boat passing along a narrow channel—and see scenes or figures, called “stunts” in the industry. Some parks wanted these rides to be scary; others wanted them to be a trip through history, or a cruise around the world, that type of thing. These used mannequins—I think they were made out of wax, actually—to show the signing of the Declaration of Independence or Columbus landing on American soil. Some had dark areas for smooching, which is which why they got the nickname, “Tunnels of Love.”

Old-mill rides were very expensive because you had to have a tunnel with some type of a canal system, and then a wooden water wheel continuously spinning to push the water through it. And they were difficult to maintain. You had to constantly look for leaks in the wooden canal and patch them up during the off-season. I can’t even imagine what a nightmare it must’ve been re-boarding that stuff. Now, the ones that are still around have been converted to concrete canals, which are treated with special chemicals so they don’t leak. Back in the day, only the parks that were doing really well could afford to have old mills.

In the late 1920s, Tumbling Dam Amusement Park in Bridgeton, New Jersey, was struggling. The two owners, Leon Cassidy and Marvin Rempfer, desperately wanted to add some type of a dark attraction. And they were considering an old mill, but that was cost-prohibitive for them. Cassidy and Rempfer decided to build something on their own that wouldn’t involve the cost of putting in a wooden tunnel, something that used electricity.

So they took a “dodgem” car, also known as a bumper car—probably right off of their fleet—and modified the bottom of it to fit on a single-rail track. Then they ran this track through an older building that wasn’t being used. After a little tweaking, they got the dodgem to go around curves and so forth. I’m not sure exactly what they put in there, whatever they could come up with at the time, but they ended up with the very first dark ride, which they opened in 1928.

They ran a contest to name it, and the little girl who won called it Firefly, but they decided that might imply a fire danger, because they had electricity running through a wooden building. One of the first patrons came out of the dark ride, which had a lot of curves in it, and said, “Wow, I felt like I was twisted around like a pretzel.” So they changed the name to Pretzel.

And the earliest dark rides only had sound effects?

LaCross: Yes. These rides were all in pitch darkness. Pretzel patented many of the first sound effects, which were actually floor devices. You’d go over a lever on the track, and it would strike a cymbal, creating a sound like glass breaking. When the car would run over another lever, a container holding a bunch of ball bearings would get tipped up, and it’d sound like trash barrels tipping over. They had a string of bells hooked up, and they would just make a big clang when you went over that lever, which sounded like you were derailing.

Some of the earliest visual stunts they had—and some of them are still in operation—were motorless effects, lifted by the weight of the car. The sound effects weren’t necessarily right near these figures; those were usually positioned in the dark so you couldn’t see them. You’d be riding along in the Pretzel car in the dark, you’d hit a relay switch for the light, and then a lever for the figure itself. A small incandescent spotlight just focused on that black box would light up, and the cable would lift, say, a skull out of the bottom of the box.

For example, in the stunt called the “Jersey Devil,” you see what appears to be an empty box, and then the weight of the car forces a papier-mâché demon head to pop up inside it. For “Al E. Gator,” a lever on the track would tip a papier-mâché alligator on roller skates, and he’d lunge out at the riders. Some early stunts had limited gear motors, animating a head or hands going from side to side. Those would just go on, move for a few seconds, and then go back off again.

I read one of the earliest Pretzel stunts was just thread that hit your face.

LaCross: That was really innovative. It seems so simple, but Bill Cassidy—the second owner of Pretzel, the son of Leon—told us before he passed away that that was one of the gimmicks that he was most proud of. It was just a spool of thread. It would hang from a rafter in the ceiling, and it would rub up against people’s faces and creep them out. It’s supposed to be cobwebs, I guess, but it wasn’t an actual web. It was just a string, but you couldn’t see it. You weren’t expecting it. That got a real rise out people back then. It seems to me that just about every dark ride I rode in the 1960s had that. If it didn’t come factory-installed, I’m sure the park owners themselves would tack it up.

How did dark rides evolve over the years?

LaCross: First, they started making magnetic switches that they could put in the track to trigger stunts, and these were less likely to break than the mechanical levers. The most recent triggers used in dark rides are photo sensors called electric eyes. Some are set off by the motion of the car, but some are even more sophisticated, using light from reflectors on the car so the stunts are set off at the exact right time.

For sound effects, Pretzel had the noisemakers, but then some companies started producing 78-speed records that were just recordings of screams. You got a whole stack of them, and when one was done playing, the record player would drop down another one, so that you heard continuous screaming. When the eight-track came out, dark rides switched to one-track cassettes called “sound repeaters.” It would just be a small amount of tape that played the sound of a ghost or whatever that would coincide with the stunt itself and then stop at a particular point. And it would automatically be rewound for the next car that came by. The problem with those cassettes is that, again, if you’re continually playing a tape, stop-and-go, stop-and-go, it breaks. Plus, the atmospheric temperature had to be right. If it got too hot, the playback machinery would go crazy and start playing the sounds at high speed. Since then, those tapes have been replaced with digital cards.

How did the proliferation of television after World War II affect dark rides?

LaCross: I think TV enhanced the popularity of dark rides. The Spook-A-Rama operators in Coney Island, New York, did their own version of some of the old Universal monsters like Frankenstein, the Wolfman, and the Mummy, in addition to what was originally installed. That’s because in the late 1950s Universal gave TV stations permission to start showing some of their monster movies from the 1930s and ’40s. And Bill Tracy’s stuff was often inspired by old movies featuring villains and damsels in distress and the like.

Dark rides would keep up with the times. When the horror film called “The Tingler” came out in 1959, the Coney Island ride operators built a creature like that movie’s monster themselves and advertised it would be inside Spook-A-Rama. Around 1968, when Adam West used to play Batman in the campy TV series, the owner dressed up a male mannequin as Batman, and put him in the ride. Then he put a sign out that said, “See Batman!”

Why don’t we see as many of these old dark rides today?

LaCross: There was one pivotal moment in 1984, when a walk-through dark attraction called Haunted Castle caught fire at the Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township, New Jersey, and eight teenagers, who were trapped inside, died. Most parks had perfectly safe funhouses, walk-through scary houses, and single-rail dark rides, but after this fire, park owners grew so afraid of something happening. All kinds of new restrictions were put on these things; from then on, they always had to have sprinkler systems, smoke alarms, and emergency exits.

In the past, many dark rides did end up burning down because they didn’t have sprinkler systems. For the most part, the fire started at another attraction and just happened to sweep into them. Some dark rides did catch fire themselves. There was one situation where one of the ride operators tried to circumvent the fuse by putting a penny into it, and that caused the fire in the control panel and set a big blaze off.

But I don’t think the tragedy was reflective of most operating dark rides and funhouses in the 1980s. Yet a lot of parks did purge their rides shortly after. At this point, that tragedy seems pretty much forgotten. All of the operating dark rides that I know of have sprinkler systems, partially because these rides are so valuable now and they’re such attention-grabbers. Not only do the park owners want to protect their patrons in case a fire breaks out when the ride is operating, but they want to make sure that it’s protected when it’s not in operation, because the vintage ones can’t be replaced.

The older devices have been retrofitted with new insulated wiring and motors, which are pretty much fireproof. That doesn’t take away from the age and charm of the stunt. It does put a little bit of a bogus slant on the ride when you see that emergency exit sign in the darkness. But they have to do it. You never can tell what might happen. If the rides didn’t have those, they wouldn’t be operating. — from Collectors Weekly

 

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Hell n Back (1955 – 1963)
Asbury Park, NJ

‘This ride was located near where the Palace office and bathroom hallway was in the later years, inside the older building. After the Palace expansion of the 1950’s, this ride (in a newer rehash) ran way back, into the newer building to where the Wax Museum was, and right under the Fun House, on a long, straight run, all uphill! The ride’s facade featured some large “Ghosts” as well as the ” Funny, Fat Devil” poking a guy into a fiery death! There was also a rented Old King Cole “Laffing Man” that lead to even more “Ballyhoo” on the outside! It also had giant “Ghost” that waved into the air. There were large, animated “Heads with Fishbowl Eyes” that were made from defunct Donkey Ride parts. Some of the stunts included: A creepy “Witch” that was suspended by a wire, a “Guy and Coffin”, and lastly, a “Giant Octopus”, the last prop, that was to be used in later Dark Rides as well.’

 

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Dante’s Inferno (1983 – 2006)
Coney Island

‘Dante’s Inferno was decorated with a purple Cerberus in each tower, a werewolf out of one window, and skeleton warriors in another, its exterior’s centerpiece was a large devil holding a victim in his hand that is connecting to the tongue of an upside-down, lolling eyed creature, and a pitchfork in the other. The ride’s exterior resembled a castle, and its open area was decorated in graffiti style artwork includes Medusa’s severed head held by a Grim Reaper, as well as a mad scientist and several dragons. The passenger rode in a bumper car-like device and was sent through a maze of dark hallways. Most of the interior imagery was behind glass cases, including a dead woman rising off a table, a shaking mummy case, two gorillas, a werewolf popping out from behind foliage, skeletons, and various other horrors, in particular, scenes of a violent and gruesome nature such as a circular saw dismemberment and a man bound on all four limbs begging for help. Suspense was built by relatively long passages of nothing but darkness, strobes that simulate lightning, and sound effects, such as screaming, though some of these were lined with small, impish wall tiles. Little direct influence of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy was to be found, though this was not always the case. The ride seems to have had no particular theme. Across from the first gorilla was an unlit display showing a man with a crown opening a window, which appears irrelevant to a horror-themed ride. The ride had elements similar to a roller coaster, including hard-whipping turns and, midway through the ride, coming outside and being pulled down a steep slope before being plummeted through another set of doors to more horrors. Early in the ride, one specter was lowered before the tracks, but otherwise there was glass (or in the case of the begging man, mesh) between the rider and the various scares. Unlike either the Ghost Hole or the Spook-a-Rama, the other Coney Island dark rides, nothing came directly at the rider, or threatens to do so. The ride lasted one minute and forty-five seconds. The admission price was $5.00 at the time Astroland closed.’

 

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Earthquake: The Ride (1965 – 1984)
Cedar Point

‘Earthquake, the ride. Earthquake the ride opened in 1965. This ride was a dark ride based off of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. It was in operation before moving to Cedar Point at Freedomland U.S.A. The ride was in operation through the 1984 season.’

 

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Land of the Giants (1938 – 1965)
Staten Island

 

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Lumalusion (1979 – 2009)
State Fair of Texas

‘Everything was built in-house except for the 16 dark ride fiberglass car bodies, which were made from a Hush-Puppy car body mold that he acquired. Even the building itself was designed and built in-house. The building’s footprint was smaller than a typical Bill Tracy 2-story dark ride. Tracy’s buildings were approximately 70′ x 80′, where Lumalusion was 55′ x 60′ and included restrooms and shower facilities for the park employees. The smaller building created the need for the ramps to be steeper than in Tracy’s 2-story dark rides. This created an interesting challenge as the typical Hush-Puppy car’s motors were not strong enough to negotiate these steeper inclines. A custom built chassis had to be constructed with a more powerful motor for the drive system of the ride car. Specially built safeties were also installed that shut all of the cars down if any two of them got too close together. The interior was filled with optical and light based illusions. The facade was built completely on a level section of ground. Once finished, a crane lifted it into place on the completed building. After working almost 100 hours per week from January through June of 1979, Lumalusion officially opened on July 4, 1979. The ride has been a favorite at the State Fair of Texas and has remained almost completely unchanged since it opened more than 30 years ago. Lumalusion is a familiar “face”, but is also a unique, durable, and well-built ride in its own right that deserves its own place in dark ride history. This ride is a lasting tribute to the influence that Bill Tracy had on the dark ride industry and is expected to entertain guests at Fair Park for years to come.’

 

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The Witches Forest (1930 – ?)
Hunt’s Pier, NJ

‘Very little is known about this dark attraction. The photo of the ride was taken for Hunt’s Ocean Pier’s 1938 brochure.’

 

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Segreti Dei Sogni (2003 – 2007)
Castellaneta Taranto, Italy

‘The ride was themed to dreams, and featured weird imagary, projections, screens and set pieces. The ride stands SBNO to this day, together with the rest of the park. “I Segreti Dei Sogni” is Italian for “The Secret of Dreams”. It was a very particular dark-ride, characterized by a type of handling not very common in the dark ride world (spacecraft hanging from a track hooked to the ceiling), which certainly deserved a better fate. It closed with the park itself due to low visitor numbers.’

 

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Golden Nugget Mine Ride (1957 – 1985)
Hunt’s Pier, NJ

‘Designed by John Allen and constructed by Hunt’s Pier staff, the Golden Nugget was a custom built enclosed coaster and Hunt’s premier ride for the 1960 season. A runaway mine car will whisk you through a western frontier complete with cowboys and Indians. Once up the lift hill, you would be taken on a short jaunt atop the structure where you could view an old prospector panning for gold… a covered wagon and the boot hill graveyard just before being dropped down the bottomless shaft! As you fly through the interior you would encounter miners and skeletons…giant bats and buzzards…even the classic near head-on collision with another mine car. Additional visual effects included toppling barrels, collapsing mineshafts, trick waterfall, and a roll through a spinning barrel of golden nuggets.’

 

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Dinosaur Den (1963 – 1969)
Holyoke, Massachusetts

‘As far as my memory can recall, the circuit began with the car curving to the right and slamming through a set of heavy wood doors. The car immediately turned to the left and after a few yards slammed through a set of heavy wood doors. The car immediately turned left and after a few yards slammed through another set of doors with a tiger painted on them. The car would then turn sharply right 90 degrees and begin heading uphill. The first stunt was on the right. The car swung again to the right, about 90 degrees, passing an emergency exit and continuing uphill. Another stunt was on the left. Another right turn, about 90 degrees, was met with the next prop on the right. The car would then turn 180 degrees to the left. Another stunt would be on the right. Then after turning 180 degrees to the right and passing a stunt to the left, the car leveled off. It would slam through a set of doors, then another set, travel out onto the overhang, pass by a stunt of a cave type person at the center of the overhang, swing around to the left 180 degrees past a Tiger stunt and then slam back through another set of doors. After passing through yet another set of doors, the car began its decent. It passed by a stunt on the left, turned to the right about 180 degrees, passed a stunt on the left and then swung around 180 degrees to the left. Another stunt was on the right, as was an emergency exit down a set of stairs. The car would turn 90 degrees left and pass by an enormous stunt on the right. It was about 20 feet long and dropped down through the floor. Then the car swung 180 degrees to the left, passed by a stunt on the left and leveled off. A 90-degree right turn revealed a stunt on the right. The car was then traveling at the far right end of the building. Then another 90-degree turn to the right was met with another set of doors. After passing through them, the car was traveling in a sort of tunnel. Looking to the left, you could see the station and the midway. looking to the right, you’d see an animated stunt. Originally, it was a caveman dunking a cavewomen into a big pot. The last operational stunt was a Frankenstein, which bobbed up and down behind a stone wall. After passing that prop, the car collided with another set of doors, turned left 180 degrees, went through more doors and back across the tunnel area, only this time a little closer to the station. More doors were hit! The car took a sharp turn to the right into the final set of doors and then back into the station.’

 

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The Scary House (1961 – 2004)
Balboa Beach, CA

 

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The Ghost Hole (1989 – 1999)
Ocean City, Maryland

‘The Ghost Hole, a portable darkride that was a staple at Trimper Rides & Amusements for many years, offered a two-minute ride full of popup-style stunts and graffiti-style artwork destined to make any summer visitors turn their heads. Ghost Hole, formerly named “Geister Hohle”, was a German darkride that sat on Trimper’s side street beside the Matterhorn for nearly a decade. The stunts were quite primitive in nature when Ghost Hole sat on Trimper property, and consisted mainly of popup stunts using transistorized sirens and loud buzzers to scare the unsuspecting patrons during their two-minute adventure. Even though the ride was portable, the Trimpers still made the ride a pleasant one, filling the gaps with worthwhile stunts while making a constant effort to purchase new props every few years to keep the content fresh. The maintenance door that was entered when opening or closing the attraction was located on the front-center of the ride and was locked from the outside. The main entrance and exit of the ride, although clearly accessible to anyone walking by off-hours, was locked from the inside using deadbolts and steel bars.’

Outside

Inside

 

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Laff In the Dark (1934 – 1992)
Rye, New York

‘In 1934, Harry Traver advertised Laff at a cost of around $18,000.00 which included a building, 12 cars, stunts made of plywood, steel track, and a front and building that measured 93 feet wide, 40 feet high and 60 feet deep The earliest known façade at Playland’s Laff in the Dark hosted animated elephant and alligator heads as well as a few plywood clowns. Inside the ride lurked the Traver/Chamber two-dimensional plywood stunts common in all the Laffs they created. The Trahanas family purchased the ride in 1963. Nick Trahanas’s father was no stranger to the amusement park business, having operated a candy confection business in Asbury Park, NJ. Shortly after the elder Mr. Trahanas purchased Rye’s Laff in the Dark, the stunt sequence was as follows: An original plywood Popeye, then the Man in a Coffin. Then a classic Spider and Web. Towards the back wall was a stunt that is remembered fondly by enthusiasts, the Running Rats Along a Beam stunt! The ride had a turn inward that led to an old African Native Man with Spear scene. Next up, was yet another fondly remembered prop, the ClassicTraver/ Chambers Fighting Cats. The Devil was next, followed by a Coffin That Rocked Open. A Man in Jail scene followed, and then came an old Dragon’s Head. Towards the front right-hand turn was a Skeleton that flew out at you. Next were a Gorilla and then a Witch, with outstretched hands. Onward you would go through the Spinning Barrel. Frankenstein, a figure built by Mr. Trahanas’s father, was at the end of the barrel. Around the turn inward was yet another sadly-missed Traver/Chambers classic: The Kicking Mule stunt, constructed of sheet metal and wood. All the old stunts were enhanced with the sounds of classic sirens, buzzers and bells. The ride cars were originally single- seaters, but were later converted by the Trahanas family to two-seaters.’

 

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House of Shock (1992 – 2014)
New Orleans

‘House of Shock had thrilled visitors for 22 years when co-founder Ross Karpelman announced that 2014 would be the last season for the institution. Despite the popularity of the devilish fall destination, profit margins were always pretty slim, Karpelman explained. Too slim when the weather was unkind to the partially outdoor amusement. In 2012, Hurricane Isaac wrecked the two-story outdoor stage where the House of Shock’s explosive pre-tour performances take place, requiring a laborious restoration. Then, Halloween night 2013 was a rain-out.’

Pre-show

Test ride with the lights on

 

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Hells Poppin (1958 – 1962)
Muskogee, OK

 

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Haunted Hotel (1978 – 2006)
Myrtle Beach, FL

‘The Haunted Hotel was the best dark ride in the entire region, and the only haunted house ride– all other haunted houses are walk-throughs. This ride was destroyed along with other fixed structures in the park during Feb.-March 2007, after operating for the last time on the Sept. 30, 2006 “Last Ride” event. Burroughs & Chapin was unable to sell this ride, so the fate of the props, and effects is not known. During its last season of operation, it had many maintenance problems- when I rode it in August, and at the Last Ride, many of the effects weren’t working, different ones each time. The Haunted Hotel was originally the “Haunted Inn”, built in 1978 by Funni-Frite of Pickerington (Columbus), OH, which made props for many haunted houses across the country. Funni-Frite started in the early 1960s as a contractor to Philadelphia Toboggan Company, to produce gags and effects for their funhouses. They also built portable rides for carnivals, constructing almost 500 before they closed in 1999. Funni-Frite is no longer in business; the company and its assets were sold at auction on January 15, 2000.’

 

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Flight to Mars (1968 – 1994)
Texas State Fair

‘If you were a kid around here between the late 1960s and mid-1990s, those three words conjure a very specific image. It’s not a rocket, but a face, an alien with a fedora, eye patch and missing teeth, its bottom jaw rising and lowering, silently laughing at those foolish enough to come near. The gargoyle hung from the facade of the Flight to Mars ride, a creaky, campy fright show that became a rite of passage for a generation. By the time you finally mustered the courage to buy a ticket, you probably were too old to be scared. More than a decade ago, Flight to Mars was sold and dismantled.’ While the ride is gone, the phrase lives on. A local arts group adopted the name Flight to Mars, and for his solo band, so did Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready.’

 

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The Spook (1960 – 1967)
Coney Island

‘The rider was pulled around in a car resembling an old wooden barrel. These barrels looked like connected cars, but separate from each other at the beginning of the ride, so the rider had to go in alone, passing paintings that change imagery, and a skeleton before the car itself forces the doors open. Inside, the ride was one large, poorly lit room. Some of the old views included zombies, the face of an ogre composed of light bulbs, a demon slashing an axe toward the rider, a man in a straitjacket being electrically shocked, heads popping out of barrels, and a gruesome man being killed in an electric chair. On the way out of the ride, stringy objects hang from the ceiling that provided an extra fright. The ride ran over ten minutes and was billed as the longest ride on Coney Island, and the longest spook ride in the world.’

 

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The Haunted House (1962 – 1988)
Ocean City, Maryland

‘Your coffin crashes through two sets of double-doors, bringing you face-to-face with a giant rat perched on a tree stump. As you approach, he leaps at you, squeaking with the help of a self-contained transistorized siren. To your left is the first of many banisters; this one lined with gyrating skulls bearing spider legs. Entering another set of double doors, you’re headed down one of Tracy’s famous crooked chambers. Tracy’s use of off-center framing and a deceptive illustration at the chamber’s end gives you the forced perspective of infinity. Adding further credibility to the gimmick, an unseen ramp tips your car to the side as the digital sound bite of creaking timbers plays on. Next, you’re sucked into a vortex – actually a bridge running straight through a rotating barrel lined with day-glo patterns. No ramps needed here. Apparently the vortex also has impacted one of the house’s rooms, as a quick turn to right reveals a woman awakening to find her whole bedroom turned upside down. All the room’s furnishings are mounted to the ceiling, including an end table with a lamp. It’s that lamp that clicks on to illuminate the bedroom and the terrified woman. Leaving the bedroom, your car makes a short descent to the right, passing one of Tracy’s most bizarre stunts: Two disfigured clowns leaning over a birthday cake with a severed head in the icing. Next on the left is arguably Tracy’s most famous, yet controversial stunt, the Saw Mill where a female victim strapped to a conveyor belt is sliced in half by a table saw. Heard are the spinning of the saw and the final scream of the victim as she reaches the jagged blade. If you look back you’ll see the table tip backwards, returning the victim to her point of origin. It’s also interesting to note here that the sound for this stunt, like many others, was furnished by Tracy on a sound cartridge repeater in 1962. Next up, literally, is Tracy’s famous Swamp Ghost, which floats overhead. Below are plywood cutout gravestones on hinges, strategically placed in the path of your car so you knock them to the side. A plunge through double doors brings you into a room of neatly stacked barrels. Or are they? Just before you exit the room, a stack collapses, barely missing you as you escape into Tracy’s Wave Room: A ride over extended bump ramps with day-glo painted “waves” on either side. Those afflicted by seasickness best close their eyes here. Leaving the high seas, you’re confronted by a vampire woman as well as the apparent owner of the house, Frankenstein’s Monster. He rises from his chair, warning you to “Get out of my house!” Neither are Tracy stunts but both provide an excellent transition. You take the monster’s advice as your car exits to the daylight of the second-story balcony.’

 

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Le Moulin de le Sorcerier (1969 – 2005)
Montreal

 

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Mystery Ride (1960 – 1963)
Holyoke, Massachusetts

‘In 1960, renovations began on Laff in the Dark. An upper level was created. Six new cars were purchased. The transmissions of the new cars were modified to allow a swift and sure climb to the top. Each car had a differential gear in the rear axle and a lot of torque. They came with what appeared to be a colorful primitive ritual mask molded into their front in fiberglass. The ride was themed as an African jungle and called Mystery Ride.The letters on the building were placed on motorized shafts and rocked back and forth. Below the letters was the upper level, which featured a brief U-turn over the loading station. On each side of that were two odd figures with large ears and noses and gum-stick bodies that rocked back and forth. Below that was the station. On the walls next to the entrance and the exit doors were six brightly-painted masks, all different and sporting hideous grins.The masks also rocked back and forth. The clash of colors, the stylized paintings of jungle foliage and animals, the constant movement all over the building – it was a tour-de-force for Spadola and a feast for the eyes. For the interior, Spadola created a wide variety of three-dimensional fantastical scenes, from Hell.’

 

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The Tornado (1960 – 2003)
Lake George, New York

‘The Tornado tells a story. Upon entering, you’re in the tranquillity of farm country, then it gets darker and you hear the swirling winds of an approaching tornado. To your left is a farm family nervously looking ahead to the menacing twister that’s spinning in the foreground. None of these sets are behind chicken wire and the car brings you close enough to study them in detail. Next, you’re headed for the “eye” of the tornado – a rotating disk painted in day glow colors. But before you drive into ground zero, your car weaves down a country road towards some angry-faced trees. It’s here that hidden fans provide the feel of strong winds and the sound effects are much louder. Next, you approach a stack of moonshine that looks like it’s ready to collapse on you. My guess is that it did at one time. Then, you’re driving towards a farmhouse where you see an elderly lady holding on for dear life to a fragment of her porch and a terrified husband and wife whose bedroom is being swept up by the tornado. To your left is a twirling outhouse, and if you look closely, you’ll see someone inside it. Overhead is a still, life-sized cow and some chickens, all suspended by wires. You then find yourself in a chicken coup, but the chickens are motionless. Finally, you witness the aftermath of the storm: shattered debris along the roadside. And just before you exit, there’s a horse in a stable. The horse’s jaw has hinges, indicative that it used to speak – perhaps a conclusive statement. But it’s silent now, giving you a somewhat anti-climatic ride ending.’

 

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Phantasmagoria (1972 – 2006)
Tulsa, Oklahoma

‘While many of today’s haunted house rides are geared towards younger patrons, Phantasmagoria is geared towards teenaged riders and adults accustomed to hardcore horror films with its lack of restraint concerning gore. In one portion of the ride there was once a naked woman to tantalize the male riders. However, when the bare bottomed vixen spun around, she revealed that the front half of her body had been skinned down to muscle and bone. The ride is dark, but not without novelties. A waterfall pouring over the track appears to threaten riders with being drenched, but shuts off as the car passes underneath. In one pitch black room, the riders are teased by apparent nothingness, but are startled when a bullhorn blares and headlights reveal the front end of an actual bus, driven by a rotting corpse.’

 

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Boot Hill (1964 – 1977)
West View Park, PA

‘Rare view of defunct Bill Tracey designed walk and ride through, “Boot Hill” of the vanished “West View” amusement Park, P.A. Check out the “Steer Head” and Horns atop, a common prop of Tracey’s.’

 

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Maelstrom (1988 – 2014)
Orlando

‘Maelstrom was a dark ride attraction located in the Epcot theme park at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. Designed by Walt Disney Imagineering, the ride opened on July 5, 1988, in the Norway Pavilion of the park’s World Showcase section. Riders departed from a dock traveling by boat, which turned a corner into a dark tunnel and up the flume’s lift hill. A voice tells riders that those who seek the spirit of Norway face peril and adventure, but more often find beauty and charm. Arriving at the top of the hill, a lit face of the Germanic god Odin hovered above. Riders passed through scenes of seafarers and maritime villages depicting a mythological version of Norway’s Viking days. Entering a marsh, the boat would come face to face with audio-animatronic depictions of Dökkálfar and Ljósálfar from Norse mythology. The trolls, angered by the trespassing boat, cast a spell onto riders as the vehicle began to move backward rapidly, accelerated by hidden conveyor belts underneath the water’s surface. The boats floated briskly past scenes of polar bears and living trees, before coming to a stop on the edge of another waterfall, exposing the Norway pavilion’s main thoroughfare. The backwards edge of the boat peeked out through the facade as the track pivoted to let the vehicle travel forward again. Correctly oriented, the boats plunged forward down a 28-foot (8.5 m) flume into a stormy depiction of the North Sea. After passing very close to an oil rig, the ride came to an abrupt end in a calm harbor of a small village, where the narrator announced, “Norway’s spirit has always been, and will always be adventure.” As guests exited the ride, they had the option of watching a 5-minute tourism film, “The Spirit of Norway”, which highlighted various attractions in Norway including skiing, hiking, and Kjerag mountain.’

 

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Castle of Terror (1963 – 1978)
Rocky Point, Rhode Island

‘The architectural lines are somewhat distorted, as if the castle had gone through a meltdown. Patrons were left wondering “Was it due perhaps, to whatever was contained inside this Castle of Terror? Had some sinister presence, lurking within, caused the divergence?” This only added to the allure, as all the creepy adornments on this façade gave the riders plenty to consider while waiting in line. A stairway to nowhere ascended from the second floor balcony and was lost behind the dimly lit spires that rose over one of the two “pop-outs” over the midway. Years later, while taking a final tour of this dark ride with the lights on, it was plain to see that this ride was more than just your everyday plywood and papier-mâché creation. Cement and plaster coated metal construction netting was used to form the various turrets and passages – no painted plywood bally for this castle. This allowed the building designers to segue from the rigid, blocked structure you see at first glance to the creepy, cave-like openings that seemed to swallow the unsuspecting into the castle’s darkest recesses. When you added it all up, it was something out of your wildest dreams – or nightmares. All the excess on the exterior couldn’t be worth a 5-cent ride ticket if the Castle of Terror was anything less than – terrifying! Fear not, because the minute your little electric car takes that first jolt into darkness, the sensory overload begins. And those ride cars were works of art unto themselves. Each of the ten or so vehicles sported their own smaller artist’s rendering of the castle’s interior scenes, carefully painted with close attention to detail. For instance, the white car featured the graveyard scene in detail on its back; the red car depicted the Mad Scientist in his laboratory. Of course, the Giant Bat, Count Dracula, and the Spider were all given their own renderings on these multi-colored vehicles. While some dark rides may have themed their cars to the occasion, with a Mardi Gras motif or a padded coffin on wheels, these cars were true originals unique to this attraction. Once inside your vehicle, you found all the key features of a classic dark ride here; quick ninety-degree turns, plenty of wooden “crash” doors, black lights and day-glo paint galore. After barreling through the first series of plywood doors and an angry encounter with Dracula slamming his coffin door, you are yanked up the first chain-lift hill in the Castle’s center room. Though there may have been double-decker dark rides before the Castle of Terror, no other dark ride consisted of two chain-lift hills to take riders both up and down multiple levels. Also located in the castle’s center room is a detailed mural of a sinister hilltop castle, surrounded by scores of bats and other assorted winged creatures.’

 

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Casa Del Terror (1978 to 2014)
Santiago, Chile

‘Casa Del Terror was a Tracked Dark Ride built by Spanish manufacturer Robles Bouso Atracciones that was previously located at Fantasilandia in Santiago, Chile. Until 1990 the ride was previously known as Mansion siniestra.’

 

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Ghost Ship (1966 – 1969)
Pittsburgh

‘The facade for the roof for the ride featured a giant wrecked sailing ship washed ashore upon the rocks. A hideous skeleton of some large crab monster with a huge human skull for a head sat over the signage for the ride while its ugly face rocked back and forth. Underneath, the whole front of the dance hall building was transformed into a nightmarish underwater graveyard for lost ships. Passengers boarded their two person ship-shaped vehicles on the left side of the platform.Just to the right of the boarding area, a raised sloping platform sat in the middle of the loading/unloading area. Two cave like openings, the left side slightly higher than the right, flanked each side of the sloping platform. From time to time, a large wheeled dinghy would appear out of the left cave and roll down the platform and enter the right cave. Riding within the battered boat would be a hideous skeleton-like figure resembling the Grim Reaper giving waiting passengers and passersby alike a hint of what was in store for adventurous riders. After boarding their vehicle, passengers waited for the ride operator to dispatch them into the Ghost Ship’s winding dark labyrinth. Ghost ShipYou knew it was your turn when a loud buzzer sounded off in conjunction with the operator’s signal light above the tunnel entrance. As the car jerked forward, it moved rather rapidly for a dark ride vehicle and had a strange chain driven motor sound to it. The car made a quick right turn throwing passengers together to enter the tunnel. Once inside, the cars went up a slight inclined ramp and “bashed” through two sets of black doors to enter the building. After your eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness, you noticed that you were in a long mine shaft with eerily glowing green supports. The mine shaft appeared to go on forever as your car sped rapidly down the long corridor. Then suddenly, the car made an abrupt right turn and crashed through the mine wall (another set of double doors). Now, you were in the first of two revolving barrel rooms. The motion of the barrel around the track was quite dizzying and convincing.Immediately at the end of the barrel was the first animated scene, an old, evil looking fisherman or pirate sitting at a long banquet table about to eat some rather unappetizing looking food. What was unusual about this scene was that the whole scene rocked back and forth like Kennywood’s famed Noah’s Ark attraction. The lights within the banquet scene suddenly went out with a large banging noise as the car made a quick left turn into the captain’s quarters of a ship. In earlier years, only large crates and a treasure chest opening and closing were located here. In later years, a large animated polar bear was located here as if ready to pounce on passersby (anything can happen in a traditional amusement park dark ride it seems!). Ghost ShipWithin this room, the cars made a quick right handed U-turn and then sped down a series of dark winding passageways. Another left handed U-turn, and a hideous lobster man appeared from no where.A quick right handed U-turn, and there was an outhouse with a skeleton sitting inside. He pulled the door closed as the lights went out again and the car followed another long dark hallway. At the end of the hallway, a hideous ghoul appeared to be floating towards the car straight towards you, but an abrupt right turn brought the car out of harm’s way. Again, the car crashes through a set of doors, and up over the door frame of the next set of doors was a skeleton with a paint brush and pail. The whole platform that he was sitting on suddenly rolled over as you passed underneath and the paint can’s contents of fluorescent red paint appeared to be spilling out right on top of you! (Actually, it was just a red painted piece of canvas attached within the can that fell out to make it appear that the paint can was spilling.) Through the next set of doors, the cars found their way into a red, horizontally striped room. The red stripes on the walls, however, were on conveyor belts moving slowly downward which created the illusion that your car was rising in elevation. Another well done illusion by the ride’s designers. Another left handed U-turn placed the car into the second spinning barrel room, offering more dizzying illusions just after the moving wall room. Ghost ShipAt the end of the barrel, the next scene was aboard the deck of a ship at sea. A poor, unfortunate pirate was haplessly lashed to the ship’s wheel, spinning in the same direction as the spinning barrel you were in which helped amplify the spinning illusion. As you approached the pirate when you exited the barrel, another right handed U-turn occurred and you were approaching what appeared to be the tentacles of a giant octopus underwater.As you came closer, the creature’s monstrously deformed head appeared with a strange noise, and then the car whisked away in a quick left turn into an underwater graveyard room. Skeletons of dead fish hung from the ceiling and were painted on the room’s walls while bubbling sounds echoed around you. A treasure chest sat on the sea floor where it was being guarded by some sea creature in the far corner of the room. The car made a left turn along the edge of the room as you entered the strobe lit mirror maze. This short, curved mirrored hallway ended very abruptly. At the end of the hallway, two skeletons in a row boat were rocking back and forth among the rocks. Another abrupt right turn, and you were face to face with a large dragon which blew its hot breath at you. Ghost ShipFinally, another right turn and the car was headed down another hallway, this time with cracks of light ahead. You could make out what appeared to be the final doors and the exit to the ride. But separating you from the doors was a huge wall of water pouring down from the ceiling. Just when you thought that you would end up soaking wet before you got off the ride, the waterfall magically stopped, and only a few drops of water landed upon you as you crashed through the final set of doors and back onto Kennywood’s midway.’

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Truth be told, I think I just like talking about food too. I would say that’s weird, but I guess it’s the opposite of weird. If pigeons could talk, that’s all they would ever talk about, for instance. I too hate those kinds of events with a passion. Well, those kinds of events stress me out. Uh, flying to LA, as I’ll be doing before long, stresses me out, not the flying part, but the inevitable jet lag. And I do get stressed before I go on a trip anywhere almost always. Money stresses me out big time, it always has, which is why the whole fundraising -> goal part of the film project was such a nightmare. I guess a lot of things stress me out before they happen. Strange. Oh, gosh, I would so love to think the boys from ‘Body without Soul’ are alive and doing really well, but, wow, I really doubt that. But that might be because that film is so relentlessly gloom and doom. Love bringing back the days of the cupcake craze, just for one day, G. ** thomas, Hi, Thomas! Oh, thanks a lot for the tips/additions. Everyone, Thomas has a couple of excellent adds to the Ingrid Caven Day of yesterday. Here he is: ‘She also appears in this great video by the German band Tocotronic, ‘Im Zweifel für den Zweifel‘. They tend to play her famous chanson ‘Die großen weißen Vögel‘ after their sets too.’ Thanks again, man. I hope you’re doing wonderfully well. ** David Ehrenstein, Ah, the good old days when being married and gay was a thrill a minute. ** _Black_Acrylic, My great pleasure, naturally. I hope your way station is keeping you occupied (in the good way). ** Sypha, Hi. Well, I would argue that you’re a serious writer right now. The definition of ‘serious literature’ has been hijacked by boring, conservative snobs who just happen to have cushy jobs at the pinnacle of the hierarchy. A lot of what justifiably ends up being deemed serious literature was dismissed and marginalised at the time it was written and published. Shakespeare and Dickens were considered popular entertainers, just to pick obvious examples. Stick to your guns whatever they are, dude. That’s the route to seriousness. The body is a wild, unpredictable cat. Nothing bodily makes sense. ** Bill, Hi, B. Yeah, nice interview. It took some hunting. And, yes, about Jaimie Branch. Really shocking. ** Okay. Something I love almost as much as I love haunted house attractions are dark rides, and add defunct into the equation with all the charisma that adds, and … oh boy. So, no surprise, I’ve restored this old nugget from the pre-google murder days. And I hope at least of you out there will feel some form of delight. See you tomorrow.