Is this a lost cinematic masterpiece of a mad genius, or THE WORST MOVIE EVER MADE?
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. – Move over, Ed Wood and Tommy Wiseau: Grindhouse Releasing is about to put moviegoers through Hell in SCARLET WARNING 666, the legendary, long-lost Dallas disasterpiece starring do-it-all writer/director/crooner Palmer Rockey.
Hailed as “one of the most fascinating underground characters ever” (Forced Exposure), Rockey boasted of playing 7 different roles on screen and 47 different roles behind the scenes in what is reputed to be the worst film ever made.
The new restoration of SCARLET WARNING 666 will have its world premiere on January 20, 2026, at the Texas Theatre in Dallas.
Originally titled IT HAPPENED ONE WEEKEND, SCARLET WARNING 666 features Rockey as twin brothers entangled with Satanic skullduggery and bizarre occult rituals on a country estate.
Rockey expected Academy Award recognition for his efforts. After his ‘action suspense thriller’ was laughed off the screen at its ill-fated Dallas premiere in 1974, he refused to give up.
Rockey spent decades obsessively laboring over his magnum opus. He filmed new scenes, piling layer upon layer of cringe in a doomed effort to explain the incomprehensible plot. Rockey distributed the film himself, four-walling theaters to exhibit his epic in various incarnations as IT HAPPENED ON SUNDAY, SCARLET LOVE, ROCKEY’S STYLE, LOVE IS DEEP INSIDE, and SCARLET WARNING 666.
In 1980 Rockey released the film with an original “Movie Album” featuring his own vocal stylings. When this too met with audience mockery, Rockey attempted to frame the unintended laughs as “satire.”
Doug Smith, a.k.a. the Reverend Ivan Stang, co-founder of the Church of the SubGenius, saw Rockey’s movie during its theatrical run in Dallas as SCARLET LOVE. Stang couldn’t believe the insane display of incompetence on the screen, and evangelized for years about the film.
The Rockey legend grew when Jello Biafra wrote about the SCARLET LOVE soundtrack in INCREDIBLY STRANGE MUSIC, describing Rockey as a “disco lounge-lizard from Hell.” The ultra-rare LP became an obsession for record collectors, ultimately leading to a 2013 reissue in the UK.
Critics praised the album as outsider art, and Carl Broemel (My Morning Jacket) covered one of Rockey’s songs from the film. “Longing for You” is an attempt to revive a somewhat corny song by an enigmatic and shifty movie entrepreneur named Palmer Rockey. Rockey’s unfinished film has disappeared, but the remaining soundtrack is a rare cult classic of oddball music.”’ (Broadway World)
Although he never nabbed his hoped-for Oscar, Rockey ended up Oscar-adjacent: his final cut of SCARLET WARNING 666 was found in the Academy vault and restored by Academy Award-winning film editor Bob Murawski of Grindhouse Releasing.
To release SCARLET WARNING 666, Grindhouse Releasing has partnered with Rockey’s long-suffering widow Cookie (Mary Ann) Rockey, who financed Rockey’s misbegotten dream project by working double shifts at the U.S. Post Office. Cookie’s memoir THE ROCK: THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF PALMER ROCKEY is a must-read account of her surreal experiences on the outermost fringes of independent filmmaking.
“It seems to me that the real story is in the mental and to some extent moral decline of Palmer Rockey which is exhibited in the final version of the film,” said Dr. Ron DiSalvo, who played opposite Rockey in scenes filmed decades apart.
Now, at last, Palmer Rockey’s epic returns to Dallas for the world premiere of the restored SCARLET WARNING 666. Tickets are on sale now at the Texas Theatre.
REVIEWS
“Mr. Rockey extracted a promise from us to not review the film, which was no great sacrifice, since it is, in some essential way, beyond judgment.”
– C.W. Smith, Dallas Times Herald
“As exploitation holy grails go, few are more coveted than the lost outrage LOVE IS DEEP INSIDE (AKA Scarlet Love, AKA It Happened One Sunday, etc). You thought Doris Wishman could dislocate your senses? Gird your loins. You are about to experience one long, crazy trip inside the gassy, quizzical mind of director/star/singer/conman/egomaniac Palmer Rockey. “I do as I please,” declares Rockey, and what that mostly seems to entail for this pale, pompadoured middle-aged auteur is wiggling in shorts and black socks to limp rockabilly numbers of his own creation or pawing the hapless women he conned into participating in this threadbare, decades-in-the-making wonder. Which is to say nothing of Platinum Body, the Hollywood jacket or the wondrous Wheel of Justice…there is also plenty of yellow. This is Palmer Rockey’s song poem, and the ghosts of Rodd Keith and Fletcher Hanks howl in the bones of his face. Proceed at your own risk, America. And rock, rock, ROCK!”
-Jimmy McDonough, author of BIG BOSOMS AND SQUARE JAWS and THE GHASTLY ONE