Review by Steve D. Stones
Severin
Films has recently released an awesome Blu-Ray boxed set of 20 incredibly
strange films by director Ray Dennis Steckler. Included in the set is his 1971
film – Blood Shack, and an alternative cut of the film - The Chooper. The boxed
set also includes an informative booklet about Steckler, his films and career.
In
Blood Shack, three young people in an antique car pull up to an abandoned house
in the middle of the Nevada desert. A young woman in the group named Connie,
played by Laurel Spring, has recently had an argument with her husband and has
left him. She dares the two young men she's with to stay in the abandoned house
overnight. The two men refuse to stay in the house, claiming a local legend
says it's haunted and that the entire ranch surrounding the house is possessed
by a sword slashing, ancient Indian spirit known as “The Chooper.” The two men
leave Connie alone at the house.
A
shirtless rancher named Daniel, played by Jason Wayne, warns Connie not to stay
in the house overnight. Connie ignores his warning and goes into the house. She
lays out her sleeping bag on a worn, soiled mattress in the middle of the front
room of the house and strips down to her underwear. The camera shows close ups
of large holes in the walls, torn wallpaper and a very dark interior. A dark
dressed figure enters the room and chases Connie throughout the house. He stabs
Connie several times with a sword, killing her.
Daniel
arrives the next morning to see Connie's dead body in the house. “I told you
the Chooper was gonna get you! I told you!” he screams out, as he places
Connie's body in the back of his pick up truck to bury her corpse out in the
desert. Apparently this is not the first time Daniel has found a corpse in the
house that was killed by the dark figure.
Carol,
played by Steckler's beautiful wife Carolyn Brandt, inherits the abandoned
house and the ranch from her family. She arrives soon after Connie's death to
inspect the property. She is immediately pressured by a local land investor
named Tim Foster (played by Ron Haydock, the hero of Steckler's 1966 film - RatPfink A Boo Boo) to sell the entire ranch. Carol refuses to sell the ranch to
Foster, but is pressured by Foster several times to sell. Foster becomes more
and more aggressive to buy the land as the film progresses.
Also
included on the Blood Shack disc in the Blu-Ray set is the alternative cut of
the film – The Chooper. This cut of the film runs 14 minutes longer. The
opening narration by Carolyn Brandt is also longer, and gives a greater
description of how the ranch curse and The Chooper began. This print of the
film is not as sharp as the Blood Shack print, so it likely has not been
digitally remastered. The opening titles of The Chooper, however, are much more
interesting by showing crudely painted bloody graphics and titles which omit
director Steckler's screen pseudonym of Wolfgang Schmidt. Steckler's name does
not appear in the opening credits of Blood Shack.
The
Chooper also has a scene in which Carol speaks to Daniel in an office room with
posters from many of Steckler's movies hanging on the walls. This scene is not
shown in the Blood Shack print of the film. Other added scenes in this cut of
the film show Tim Foster confronting Carol at a worn down gas station to ask
her again to sell the ranch. More scenes of Steckler's children Linda and Laura
are also in this cut of the film that are not shown in Blood Shack.
A pony named Peanuts stars in The Chooper in a brief scene and also gets a screen credit at the end of the film. Steckler inserts several scenes of a local rodeo in the film. These scenes are more frequent in The Chooper cut of the film. Steckler is careful not to reveal the face of The Chooper every time he appears in a scene to chase and stab his next victim. Blood Shack is also known for its third title - “Curse of The Evil Spirit.” In an opening commentary, movie critic Joe Bob Briggs says The Chooper is the original cut of the film. Happy Viewing.
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Editor's note: McFarland Press has just released a new book, The Incredibly Strange Features of Ray Dennis Steckler, by Christopher Curry. We have ordered it. You can here.
