With a name like "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies," it has to make for some good bad movie fun, right? Wrong. This is arguably the most boring movie I have ever seen in my life; not even the wisecracks from the great MST3K crew could save me from dozing off several times before this "film" ran its course.

[My apologies if any of the details in this review are inaccurate: my mind has managed to erase a large chunk of said movie from my memory, probably as a defensive reflex.]

TISCWSLABMUZ begins at night in a carnival tent where some gypsy/fortune teller is trying to seduce a fat, middle-aged business man. Undoubtedly turned off by the golf ball sized mole on her face, the man resists her advances. The fortune teller lady (hereby known as FTL) is devasted by being turned down by this incredible hunk of man meat. The spooky "something big and evil and horrific is about to happen" music starts up as FTL grabs a bottle off the shelf (conveniently labeled with an ominous skull and crossbones in case the music failed to clue us in) and dumps its contents on the middle-aged guy. He shrieks in agony and promptly transforms into the closest thing this movie has to a mixed-up zombie. One might then wonder what makes this poor guy a "incredibly strange creature," as the only thing we've seen him do is shrug off Mole-girl, which doesn't strike *me* as being an incredibly strange thing to do.

Anyhow, the middle-aged guy roles around on the floor screaming until Ortega, FTL's shriveled Torgo-esque lacky, comes and throws him into a cell full of other "zombies." (It should be noted that these zombies look more like disfigured "Planet of the Apes" extras than zombies.) I have no idea how or why FTL keeps these creatures hidden in a crowded carnival, and if an explanation was ever given, I didn't hear it.

We cut to the opening credits and then to a long, boring montage of carnival scenes (presumably the same carnival that FTL works at) that finally ends at a dark lounge room where a couple is performing a boring ballet dance. (Did I mention that the director seems to have a "boredom" motif going here?) Five hours later, their performance ends, and the woman goes backstage where she has some boring dialogue with her boss and gets scared by a cat.

Cut to two guys driving around. One, our hapless hero (OHH), is pretty unmemorable except for his weird resemblance to Nicholas Cage and his insistence on wearing the same sweatshirt throughout the whole movie. The other, OHH's stereotypical sidekick/friend (SSF), is slightly more entertaining due to his unintelligible accent and his gravity defying hair. They pick up OHH's girlfriend and drive to the carnival, which leads to *another* boring montage, this time of the three pals having fun on the rides.

Then the guys go to a dance club (after a mildly amusing scene where OHH doesn't understand why the girlfriend won't come in with them) and watch a dance number. And then they watch another dance number. And another one after that. And then they listen to a dancer sing. And then we cut to some guy playing a guitar in the same lounge that we saw at the beginning. Nothing ever comes of this, and the guy is never seen or heard from again. Am I the only one who gets the feeling that the filmmakers would rather be making a song and dance ensemble pic than a horror film?

After that painful episode is *finally* over, OHH goes home and goes to bed. Little does he know that FTL and one of the dancers (Carmelita, I think) are making some spell to hypnotize him and use him to murder people. Why murder them? Why use him to do the deed? These trite questions are glossed over as we build up to: The Psychadelic Hypnotized Dream Sequence Thingy! That's right, apparently when you're hypnotized, your vision tilts and swirls more crazily than an out-of-control 747. How on earth can he kill people with eyesight like that? This was actually a pretty funny scene, or it would have been, had I not been begging for some Dramamine long before it was over.

Anyway, OHH does somehow manage to kill some people, amongst whom are the dancer from the lounge and the singer from the dance club. OHH comes to his senses after he tries to strangle his girlfriend, and he runs away.

I suppose I should also mention that at some point in here, the title characters escape from FTL's tent and come charging through the dance club. They're beaten back by some police, and that's the end of *that* subplot. Meanwhile, OHH has made it down to the beach with SSF, the girlfriend, and a cop chasing after him. He runs up to the top of a cliff on the edge of the ocean and jumps off. He crashes into the water, and everyone who's chasing stops short, because obviously no one could have survived a fall into the ocean from such a *huge* height. But wait! Could it be? Yes, it is! OHH manages to crawl from the ocean. But then he collapses in a heap on the beach! Oh no! Is he dead? Is he alive? The others rush up to him to find out, and the credits start rolling. That's right, apparently the filmmakers don't even tell us whether the main character survives or not. Of course, this may be the one time where the filmmakers had the audience in mind, because I can't think of a single viewer who would care.

Rating: Two turkeys for world class hecklers; one turkey for everyone else.

Scene to watch for: The Hypnotized Dream Sequence Thingy.

Best line: "Work makes you depressed. And that's what's wrong with the world today. It's in a state of depression."

Thing that makes you go "Huh?": Pretty much everything that occurs between the establishing shot and the "Filmed in Technicolor" notice at the bottom of the end credits.

Response From RinkWorks:

Wow. Sounds like a *great* ending.