Grade Z filmmaker and actor who achieved cult infamy with his lowbudget 1960s features. His first solo film, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? (1964), co-starred his one-time wife Carolyn Brandt and was budgeted at $38,000. He took the film on the road himself and made it a success under a number of titles, including "Diabolical Dr. Voodoo" and "The Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary". The film received more notoriety again in 1997, when it was featured on the television series "Mystery Science Theater 3000" (1988).At 15, upon receiving an 8mm home movie camera from his stepfather, he shot an amateur pirate film with friends. He came to Hollywood in the late 1950s where he initially found work as a prop man, assistant director and director of photography. He first directed the 1959-made short film Goof on the Loose (1964).Later directed a handful of 1970s and early 1980s softcore adult films. He was also known by the pseudonyms Sven Christian, Sven Hellstrom, Harry Nixon, Michael J. Rogers, Michel J. Rogers, Wolfgang Schmidt, Cindy Lou Steckler, R.D. Steckler, Ray Steckler, and Cindy Lou Sutters -- the last being his "porn name".Was working on the film "Incredibly Strange Creatures: One More Time" a follow-up to his earlier 1964 cult film at the time of his death.Friends often teased wife Carolyn Brandt that perhaps she shouldn't get involved with Steckler because he was always killing her off in his movies. The two were married in the mid-sixties but divorced in the early seventies. They continued to work together on film projects together, however, and Steckler continued to kill her off in nearly every one of them.Had four daughters: Two, Linda and Laura, from his first marriage, and two, Morgan and Bailey, from his second.Later ran a video business in Las Vegas.His two daughters appeared in some of his early 1960s work.Served in the United States Army.Arch Hall Jr. reminisces about his colleague Steckler in the book "A Sci-Fi Swarm and Horror Horde" (McFarland & Co., 2010) by Tom Weaver.Father of Laura Steckler and Linda Steckler .
While driving through the desert, a teenage girl is frightened by a seven-foot giant which appears in her path. After escaping, she returns to the site with her boyfriend and her father in an attempt to find the giant. They do, and it proceeds to terrorize them and the rest of Palm Springs, California.