I can’t believe that someone mentioned “Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video”. I hope I don’t offend anyone, but in my opinion, that movie wasn’t worth the film it was printed on. As I recall, the whole movie was a bunch of unrelated scenes that seemed like rejected SNL sketches that were edited into 2 hours worth of crap just to make money. I’m wondering if Mariah Carey’s new movie Glitter might be better than this dreck or maybe even Battlefield Earth. Not that I’ve seen either of these two movies. But don’t let my opinion stop you.
Disney’s “Three Caballeros” starts out as a cartoon travelogue about South America (with a South Pole-themed short thrown in for padding), but then devolves into a surrealist nightmare with Donald Duck whipped into a sexual frenzy over Mexican women. This and the “Pink Elephant” sequence from “Dumbo” make me nostalgic for when Disney movies were more than jumping-boards for Broadway war horses and Icecapades.
Bizarre is his speciality. Just to name a few:
Videodrome
Crash
Dead Ringers
Naked Lunch
The Fly (okay, this one is mainstream but still a tad bizarre)
Oh yeah, this one’s high on the bizarro list!
God I love it-it’s basically a Betty Boop jazz cartoon with kinky sex and Oingo Boingo, Herve Villechaise and a painting by Robert Blue. Good call, sir!
For pure weirdness I would recommend ‘Alice’ by Jan Svankmajer. Here’s the link:
http://amazon.imdb.com/Title?0095715
It’s incredibly unsettling-‘Alice In Wonderland’ done by Kafka with fucked-up, creepy stop-motion characters. Cripes, it was days before I could get that damn White Rabbit out of my head…brrrr!
Also, The Brothers Quay Collection: Ten Astonishing Short Films 1984-1993 is a real mind-fuck.
Good lord! No one’s mentioned ANYTHING by Ed Wood, Jr. yet?
Glen or Glenda
Bride of the Monster
and my favorite: Plan 9 from Outer Space.
How much more bizarre do you need?
Freaks was mentioned already… so that makes twice
But anyway, one of these posts reminded me…there is a movie starring Rosie Perez as the girlfriend of a Mexican voodoo priest guy. He kidnaps two teenagers (one played by Heather Graham’s little sister). The name of the film is the female character’s name. Like “Perdita Whatshername” or something like that.
It is weird, violent, rambling, and bizarre. Lots of sex scenes, too.
Wow! I’m bowled-over by all the suggestions! I’m printing out all of these and keeping a copy in my glove box in the car so that I can keep it handy for those unexpected trips into the video store. It’s going to be a busy winter with lots of movies to see. Hope my family can hack some of these. heh. I’ve seen several of these movies already and I agree with most of the choices. Thanks everyone! Greatly appreciated!
The Fourth Man directed by Paul Verhoven (before he left Holland for Hollywood) is amazing. It was written by Gerard Reve and stars Jeroen Krabbe. Avoid the dubbed version.
I’ll recommend Greaser’s Palace. I don’t think I’ve seen anything weirder.
One bizzare film I saw at the Seattle International Film Festival this year: Battle Royale is a Japanese flick with Beat Takeshi in which junior high school students are forced to kill each other off, in incredibly gruesome fashion, on a remote island. Some of it is effective satire, but mostly this movie just creeped me out.
I keep wondering if this film will see a broader release. I doubt any American distributer will touch it, especially in the wake of Columbine and 9/11.
A few people mentioned Tetsuo – Tetsuo II: Bodyhammer is equally strange.
I would categorize most Jim Jarmush films as bizzare (and overrated, but that’s another story).
I can’t believe nobody’s mentioned “Sindbad of the Seven Seas,” starring Lou Ferrigno! Very bad, very bizarre (and has some interesting parallels with Disney’s “Aladdin”)
“B.C. Rock,” An animated film. I saw it once in High school and haven’t been able to get it out of my head.
“Metropolis,” The first science-fiction film ever released. 1926–silent.
There are others that I can’t think of at the moment. I’ll post them when I remember. If I remember to post them.
All my nominations have been named already… I will just say that even if Pi and Jacob’s Ladder are not the most bizarre movies, they are my favorite bizarre movies.
Lost Highway was Lynch’s rather flaccid attempt to get bizarre, but didn’t quite succeed in being good.
I haven’t seen Naked Lunch, but I will someday. I’m told it was quite faithful to William Burroughs’s book. Haven’t seen Zardoz either but I want to.
The Crying Game does not count as a bizarre movie. It is not even that good. It’s just about playing a trick on the audience. “Ha ha! Made ya look!”
A Boy and His Dog—more grim than bizarre, but it did have that bizarre touch. One thing that stood out was the combat sequence early on: it took several pages to describe in the book, but when filmed it took about ten seconds. It was very tightly directed. The semen-milking machine was the bizarre part but that was not in Harlan Ellison’s original story.
I can’t believe no one has mentioned Mondo Cane: the bizarre movie that added the word mondo to slang English. Actually, mondo is Italian for ‘world’; mondo cane, ‘dog world’. (Koyanisqaatsi and Baraka played that theme far better without so much bizarrity but with more heart.)
Henry and June was really sexy, but I don’t know why you would consider it “bizarre.”
Hey, how about James Coburn in The President’s Analyst? That was such a hip, funny, weirdo movie, one of the best of 60s psychedelia combined with political satire.
Lisztomania—oh yeah, that one :eek: I saw it when I was 16 and it permanently warped my mind.
Wrong. Sorry.
From The Earth To The Moon based on Jules Verne’s novel, came first. Around 1906-09?
However, Metropolis is the best sf/silent film, I’ll give ya that.
How about ** Repo Man**?
Barton Fink.
Ed and His Dead Mother with Steve Buscemi
Hedwig and the Angry Inch involves a botched trans-sexual operation and a really off-the-wall band touring a chain of seafood restaurants.
Rocky Horror Picture Show - I didn’t notice anyone mention this classic involving cross-dressing aliens.
The Sound of Music presents a family of aristocrats as wholesome, down-to-earth people, as opposed to traditional oppresors of the common man.
Carnival presents domestic violence as a valid means of expressing affection.
Bonzo Goes to College provides an accurate preview of the Regan presidency.
Sorry about the bolding in my previous post. I forgot another bizarre favorite:
Putney Swope concerns an African American becoming Chairman of the Board of a successful advertising firm. The ads that come out of this transformed firm are a riot!
I’m going to give “Eraserhead” another mention, (a) because it really is a bizarre film and (b) because it has personal meaning for me: it was the first film I saw after I moved into my new flat and it set the tone of the next five years, until in the end I abandoned the place. (I still have dreams about that wretched chicken).
For my own contribution, however, “Micky One” was pretty peculiar, and “Lilith” was quite odd also (not to mention “Dr Mabuse”).
Happy watching
Anything based on a Roald Dahl book, specifically Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and The Witches.