American filmmaking has seen few characters more remarkable than Ray Dennis Steckler, who died in Las Vegas on Jan. 7, just weeks shy of his 71st birthday.
Not many people can be said to have worn so many hats on a film set –- nor gone by so many aliases (as many as 15, according to the Internet Movie Database). Of his work it has been said, "Watching a Steckler movie is a unique experience, kind of like breathing the air of a different planet."
The fact that Stecker starred in, directed, wrote, edited, and shot most of his productions was not indicative of egomania, for he could be quite self-deprecating. He just never had more a shoestring budget with which to work. His repertory company included his first wife, Carolyn Brandt, the infamously stiff Atlas King, and Steckler himself, usually under the nom du cinema, "Cash Flagg."
While the production values on a Steckler film were never lavish, working on the cheap enabled the Reading, Penn., native to create a series of films so idiosyncratic they defy categorization. Writing in Images Journal, critic Derek Hill opined that Steckler’s movies were "windows into the surreal underbelly of American pop culture." Other critical bouquets have included "unfettered creativity" and "a freewheeling, anything-goes sensibility."
For example, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (1964) was a horror film interspersed with musical numbers. In a 1998 Las Vegas Sun appreciation of Steckler, John Thompson Jr. described it as, "One of the most unusual exploitation films ever made, a beautifully photographed exercise in surrealism that also manages to keep its tongue firmly in cheek."
Or how about the quintessential Steckler production, Rat Pfink a Boo-Boo (1965)? The title alone is a subject of cult fascination. One account has it that the lab screwed up and left the "nd" off "and." Steckler liked to add to the mystique, saying, "Which [explanation] do you want to hear? I’ve got five." Rat Pfink started off as a very heavy and dark stalker film, but Steckler got bored midway through shooting. Armed with a song called "Rat Pfink," he turned it into a gonzo variant on Batman and Robin. The titular not-so-superheroes fought "Kogar, the swinging ape" in one reel because … well, because Steckler knew somebody who had a gorilla costume and it was free. Why not?
The Stecklerian oeuvre also embraced early music videos or "promotional clips," as they were called back then. These included shoots with Janis Joplin, Todd Rundgren, and "White Rabbit" for Jefferson Airplane. Given the hallucinatory quality of Steckler’s movies, he would have been a logical choice to tap into the LSD-tinged zeitgeist of sixties rockers.
Starting with 1962’s Wild Guitar, Steckler directed 28 movies, with his best-regarded work bunched in the early-to-mid-sixties. This was followed by relocation to Las Vegas (where he taught at UNLV) in 1969 and a decade devoted mostly to horror films, including 1971’s shot-in-Pahrump Blood Shack. He followed that period with another dominated by titles like Black Garters (1981) and Weekend Cowgirls (1983).
Looking back 35 years later, Steckler joked that he moved to Vegas because he couldn’t find parking in Hollywood. "Seriously, I wanted my kids to have a better life than being brought up in the Hollywood Hills." Then he deadpanned, "I’m not sure about whether that worked out or not." (Steckler had four children from two marriages.)
His penultimate directorial effort was a typically atypical choice: a silent-film homage shot in Lake Tahoe and titled Summer Fun. And like so many of Steckler’s movies, it was a family affair. When the lead actress took a powder on the eve of principal photography, "I turn to my daughter, who was up there on vacation," Steckler told Las Vegas Life. "’Bailey, do you want to star in this movie?’ She says, ‘How much?’ That’s how she got the part."
Steckler followed Summer Fun with a return to his Reading, Pa., roots in the wholesome Long Road Home (2005). He described the opus as "a couple of old-timers trying to find their way in life."
In his later years, Steckler went from making films to renting them, owning a pair of Mascot Video stores, at 2375 E. Tropicana Ave. and 4440 S. Durango Dr. Toward the end, beset by ill health, Steckler’s waning energies were bent toward the DVD reissue of those of his movies of which he’d been able to retain ownership. These included two versions of Blood Shack, featuring a commentary track by fellow cult figure Joe Bob Briggs.
He acted in other directors’ films, such as Ted V. Mikels’ 1997 Dimension in Fear, shot at TVM Studios (then located near Tropicana Avenue and Industrial Road) and "various Nevada locations," according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Steckler also headlined the July 2006 Grindhouse Film Festival, held at Tropicana Cinemas, hosting a screening of his 1964 The Thrill Killers.
During the final decade of his life, Steckler was dogged by heart disease, which was diagnosed as terminal in August 2008. Steckler died at Sunrise Hospital and was buried Jan. 11, following a funeral service at Palm Mortuary. Steckler T-shirts are available at www.RayDennisSteckler.com and many of his films can be purchased via Amazon.com.
Picasso said, "Good taste is the enemy of creativity." While Steckler’s films were rarely the apex of good taste, his was a life in which creativity was rampant.
