More Time shortly before his death. It was filmed on location on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and Las Vegas on a budget of $3,800 using two Digital 8 cameras. The film was released direct-to-DVD via his website in 2009. Death Shortly after returning to Las Vegas, Steckler, who had been fighting heart disease for several years, died of cardiac arrest on January 7, 2009, aged 70. He was buried at the Palm Mortuary and Cemetery Green Valley. Legacy Wild Guitar was restored by director/fan Nicolas Winding Refn and featured at the Black Deer Festival in 2019. Mixed Up Zombies had since become a cult classic as being one of the worst movies ever made and has been celebrated by fans of B movies, camp or kitsch films. The rock critic Lester Bangs wrote an appreciative 1973 essay about Incredibly Strange Creatures in which he tries to explain and justify the movie's value: Falling into semi-obscurity past its eccentric title (as it was also the inspiration for the documentary series The Incredibly Strange Film Show which interviewed Steckler himself in one episode), the film gained notoriety once again in 1997, when it was featured on the television series Mystery Science Theater 3000. Steckler's low-budget often meant working for little to nothing, but his comradeship was often reflected in his productions. In his 1969 film Body Fever, Steckler created a bit part for then destitute fellow director Coleman Francis, who, by coincidence, also achieved belated fame via Mystery Science Theater 3000. Francis died not long after the making of the film. Filmography Director Wild Guitar (1962) Goof on the Loose (1963), short film The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (1964) The Thrill Killers (1964) The Lemon Grove Kids (1965), segment in film Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Monsters Rat Pfink a Boo Boo (1966) Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit, music video (1967) Nazz's Open My Eyes music video (1968) Sinthia, the Devil's Doll (1968) as Sven Christian Body Fever (1969) The Mad Love Life of a Hot Vampire (1971) as Sven Christian The Horny Vampire (1971) Blood Shack (1971) as Wolfgang Schmidt Sexual Satanic Awareness (1972) Triple Play (1974) Sexorcist Devil (1974) as Sven Hellstrom Perverted Passion (1974) as Cindy Lou Sutters Teenage Hustler (1975) as Harry Nixon Red Heat (1975) Teenage Dessert (1976) as Cindy Lou Sutters Sex Rink (1976) as Cindy Lou Sutters The Hollywood