Don't listen to the negative reviews

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I watched MST3K riff on another Steckler film "The Incredibly Strange Creatures"; it was a bizarre, gormless mess. So when I heard he'd done another one, which had an even bigger reputation as a goofy trash classic, I was sure it would be mind-blowingly stupid. I could hardly wait to discover how stupid it actually was. Well, I finally found it on YouTube, and found it was...actually way better than "Creatures". The parts that were supposed to funny were actually funny, in a Goon Show/Benny Hill chase kind of way. And the big "party" scenes were disjointed but had a groovy swinging/pretty girls dancing/rockabilly hep cat feel. I sort of wished I could be there, in fact. Incredibly cheaply made of course, and the stalker/kidnapping scenes were creepy, misogynistic, and overlong. Steckler should have tossed the "straight" crime scenes and inserted Rat Pfink into the movie about 20 minutes earlier. Reading about the background to the movie, I can now see why he didn't. But he should have.But watching Rat Pfink charge into battle cheerfully shouting (via unconvincing dubbing) "FIGHT...CRIIIIIME!" appealed to my inner 8 year old. That's about what I would have done when I was a little boy (if I had access to a motorcycle/side car combination). Pointless, goofy fun.

Objectively the current IMDb overall rating of 3.3 is probably accurate... but there's such love put into the frames of this quirky picture that it's subjectively worth so much more.I was first introduced to the film in an episode of 1988's "The Incredibly Strange Film Show", where the director explained that the entire genre of the picture changes halfway through as "I got bored with the movie".Beginning as a low budget, badly-dubbed thriller with catchy surf music, it gets around the halfway point and changes into an amateurish but enthusiastic superhero tale. Just as the pace starts to flag around the hour mark, a man in a gorilla suit comes on, and the whole thing's wrapped up in less than 70 minutes. Ray Dennis Steckler estimated that the budget was around $4000- $5000, and it shows. With tinted colour effects that change throughout the duration, it's a love letter to film, from the age of silent cinema to the then-present day. Steckler wasn't a man who let technical shortcomings restrict his ambition, and there is some talent that can be glimpsed between the restrictions.It all ends with a rock out beach party, as well it should.

Ray Dennis Steckler usually gets lumped together with Ed Wood in the pantheon of legendary 'bad directors'. That's unfortunate and unfair, because at his best Steckler is a talented and unique stylist. His best film, The Thrill Killers, is a taut melodrama set in the remote canyons of Los Angeles County, but for pure, unadulterated cinema nuttiness, Rat Pfink A Boo Boo is the one to see. It's a film of two parts: the first half is a heady blend of elements lifted from New York-lensed roughies such as The Defilers, Godard's Breathless, and every rock n roll movie of the late 50s, whilst the second half is a slapstick comedy influenced in equal measure by Batman and Beach Party. The film looks great: Steckler knows how to frame and light a shot, though he's less adept with action sequences, and the hyper-reality of the Los Angeles locations are effectively contrasted with the sur-reality of the comic sequences. It's also a well-paced 67 minutes, and Steckler effectively keeps your interest by constantly stirring new and unexpected ingredients into the pot. The cast are terrific: Carolyn Brandt is gorgeous as lady in distress Cee Bee Beaumont (who keeps a copy of The Autobiography of Malcolm X by her telephone!), Titus Moede does the best Royal Dano imitation you'll ever see as Titus/Boo Boo, and real-life rocker Ron Haydock makes for a convincing Lonnie Lord/Rat Pfink, who, we are told, has sold an astounding ten million records to his adoring fans. It's no one's idea of Great Cinema, but Rat Pfink A Boo Boo is a thoroughly enjoyable piece of outsider art.

I don't think I've ever laughed more in a movie theatre than the first time I saw "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies" (1963) at NYC's Thalia some years back, and have wanted to see Ray Dennis Steckler's legendary 1965 follow-up, "Rat Pfink A Boo Boo," ever since. And the good news is that, to my not-so-great surprise, this turns out to be an extremely entertaining short film in the superhero genre. Filmed on the supercheap for only $20 (as Steckler tells us in an excellent interview on this DVD)--although every penny of that is evident on screen--the picture tells a simple story, in which Cee Bee Beaumont, girlfriend of rock star Lonnie Lord, is tormented and kidnapped by a trio of thugs. Good thing that Lonnie is actually costumed crime fighter Rat Pfink, and that Cee Bee's doofus gardener is actually his cohort Boo Boo, who hop aboard their sidecar motorcycle to rescue her from the villains, as well as an escaped gorilla! The picture features remarkably fine photography and editing, and although there is no synchronized dialogue whatsoever, I was able to quickly adapt, especially when being thrilled by some very frenetic dukeouts and no less than four upbeat rock 'n' roll numbers. The varicolored tinting of the film only enhances the already impressive lensing, and, at a mere 65 minutes or so (not the 90 minutes widely stated), the movie never even begins to wear out its welcome. By turns amusing, suspenseful, exciting and ludicrously funny, "Rat Pfink A Boo Boo" is a worthy successor to filmdom's "first monster musical." And Steckler, in his lengthy interview, proves to be just as bright and funny as his films would lead one to believe. The man has a remarkable memory, and his articulate stories round out this DVD very nicely indeed.