/ Cash Flagg (aka Ray Dennis Steckler) and Liz Renay in The Thrill Killers /
The Thrill Killers (1964). Alternate title: The Maniacs Are Loose. Tagline: “Homicidal Maniacs on a Bloody Rampage!” I’m using this period of enforced social isolation to explore the weirder corners of YouTube for long forgotten and obscure movies. (My boyfriend is accompanying me only semi-willingly).
The Thrill Killers (1964). Alternate title: The Maniacs Are Loose. Tagline: “Homicidal Maniacs on a Bloody Rampage!” I’m using this period of enforced social isolation to explore the weirder corners of YouTube for long forgotten and obscure movies. (My boyfriend is accompanying me only semi-willingly).
Recently I’ve plunged into the gleefully
low-brow wild, wild world of naïve outsider psychotronic auteur Ray Dennis
Steckler (25 January 1938 – 7 January 2009). While The Incredibly Strange Creatures
Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (1964) was an entertainingly incoherent
mess, surely dirt-cheap exploitation “roughie” The Thrill Killers - a precursor
to the psycho killer slasher flick - is Steckler’s tour de force? (Full
disclosure: I haven’t watched Rat Pfink A Boo-Boo (1966) yet). Yes, comparisons
to Ed Wood Jr are merited, but to Steckler’s credit, in this instance at least he
achieves genuine white-knuckle urgency. It
helps that Thrill Killers is only 69-minutes long, and that Steckler’s guiding
principle seems to be: motivation? Backstories? Character development? Nuance?
Who needs ‘em! Plus, there’s bongo music on the soundtrack, women with bouffant
hairdos, cars with fins and glimpses of atomic-era Los Angeles!
/ Liz Renay and Gary Kent grappling in The Thrill Killers /
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.
/ Above: is it wrong that I found Gary Kent as one of the three escaped lunatics outrageously sexy? He looks like just the kind of handsome thug Bob Mizer used to photograph clad in nothing but a posing pouch for Athletic Model Guild. The life and times of stuntman and actor Kent (still with us at the age of 87) was reportedly an inspiration for the character played by Brad Pitt in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) /
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.
/ Above: is it wrong that I found Gary Kent as one of the three escaped lunatics outrageously sexy? He looks like just the kind of handsome thug Bob Mizer used to photograph clad in nothing but a posing pouch for Athletic Model Guild. The life and times of stuntman and actor Kent (still with us at the age of 87) was reportedly an inspiration for the character played by Brad Pitt in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) /
/ Liz Renay in peril /
My favourite sequence: to ingratiate himself with the parasitic show biz community, Joe throws a lavish cocktail party at his home - which swiftly degenerates into an out-of-control bacchanal! Couples are gyrating frantically to loud twangy music. Hedonists are feeding each other bunches of grapes. One guy is wearing a toga. Alcoholic beverages are consumed. A girl gets pushed into the pool! Some delinquents drive a motorcycle through his living room! No wonder his wife is seething with disgust.
My favourite sequence: to ingratiate himself with the parasitic show biz community, Joe throws a lavish cocktail party at his home - which swiftly degenerates into an out-of-control bacchanal! Couples are gyrating frantically to loud twangy music. Hedonists are feeding each other bunches of grapes. One guy is wearing a toga. Alcoholic beverages are consumed. A girl gets pushed into the pool! Some delinquents drive a motorcycle through his living room! No wonder his wife is seething with disgust.
Speaking of Liz Renay: surely any film featuring the b-movie actress / burlesque queen / convicted felon / naive outsider painter / gangster’s moll / authoress of multiple volumes of memoirs (including My Face for the World to See and How to Attract Men) and all-round super vixen is in is an instant camp classic simply by virtue of her presence? I thrilled to the shots of Renay running for her life through the woods in her tight cocktail dress, shrieking half-heartedly. For John Waters aficionados, Renay is synonymous with Muffy St Jacques in Desperate Living (1977). It must be said Waters elicited an infinitely superior performance out of her than Steckler (and weirdly, Renay looks considerably younger in Desperate Living).
/ Note the poster for The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies on the wall behind Liz Renay - an in-joke? /
Renay is arguably upstaged, though, by Laura Benedict as Linda the café proprietress. In her sole film credit, the sultry and aloof Benedict is the embodiment of early sixties cool (winged Juliette Greco eyeliner, beatnik sweater, ironed hair) and is so imperturbably nonchalant throughout that she anticipates Aubrey Plaza.
/ Watch The Thrill Killers on YouTube below /
Further reading:
Read more analyses of The Thrill Killers here and here.
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