Weirdest Movies

[Dumbledore lives]

I was doing some surfing around the web, and found what may be the weirdest movie ever made. It's called What is it? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It%3F) and from watching reviews and trailers it looks just, impossible to comprehend. It was subsequently added to my top 5 weirdest movies. This is the basic list.

1.What is it?
2. End of Evangelion
3. Eraserhead
4. Primer (the last 15 minutes)
5. The Dreamers (This may have just been the circumstances of viewing)

Narrowly edged out was Evil Dead 2, 2001, this movie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tits_Zombie), and Dead Leaves. What are the weirdest or just most insane films you've ever seen?

[Eldan]

A friend once gave me a Japanese movie called Survive Style 5+. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survive_Style_5%2B) It's definitely weird. It's about... let's see. An artist who tries to kill his apparently invulnerable wife every night. Gay Yakuza wannabes. An English hitman and his interpreter. A hypnotist and the businessman he has hypnotized to think he's a bird. And... other things. You probably have to watch it.

[Tengu_temp]

I was doing some surfing around the web, and found what may be the weirdest movie ever made. It's called What is it? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It%3F) and from watching reviews and trailers it looks just, impossible to comprehend. It was subsequently added to my top 5 weirdest movies. This is the basic list.


Oancitizen reviewed that movie. Not only is it incredibly weird, but also incredibly offensive and overall terrible.

The weirdest movie I've personally seen is probably Pi. It's to math what Primer (which I haven't seen) is to physics, only more comprehensible and with heaps of symbolism added to compensate.

[Athaniar]

The weirdest bad movie I've ever seen has to be a Japanese... thing called Alien vs Ninja. Sounds awesome, but is just awfully werid. The weirdest good movie is definitely Kung Pow: Enter the Fist.

[NikitaDarkstar]

Hmm weirdest movies I've ever seen.. I don't watch movies or TV that much but lets see.. in no particular order:

Mirrormask
Donnie Darko
Brotherhood of the wolf
the Matrix (awesome.. but lets face it, it's weird.)

... and that's all I have and the second two aren't even THAT weird... just strange.

[H Birchgrove]

Zardoz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zardoz). Trippy as heck.

[Dienekes]

Best weird movie I've seen is Being John Malkovich, the plot is inane, goes on random tangents, character develop traits seemingly haphazardly, oh and also has this scene (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX9MtuqVrUQ#t=2m0s).

Yet somehow it all works.

Also Donnie Darko is a good one.

[Science Officer]

I'd say Hopital Brut (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXK4FMbFLQU). Warning, that video's kind of frightening.
Haven't seen more than that sample, but can't think of many others.


Hmmmm, would people consider Brazil strange?


EDIT: How could I forget Robogeisha (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqace4SYCkU)?

[Dr.Epic]

Hmm weirdest movies I've ever seen.. I don't watch movies or TV that much but lets see.. in no particular order:

Mirrormask
Donnie Darko
Brotherhood of the wolf
the Matrix (awesome.. but lets face it, it's weird.)

... and that's all I have and the second two aren't even THAT weird... just strange.

The Matrix isn't weird. It's Alice in Wonderland+random episode of the Twilight Zone+slow motion+BOOM! BANG! KABOOM! BANG! BANG! How could that be weird?

Also, that one Raggedy Ann animated film and the Adventurers of Mark Twain.

[SDF]

Southland Tales. Watch it and wonder!

[Weezer]

EDIT: How could I forget Robogeisha (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqace4SYCkU)?

Geisha Transform!

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Southland Tales. Watch it and wonder!

Seconded. So much.

[Ravens_cry]

2001: A Space Odyssey makes little sense if you don't read the book, something I consider somewhat a failing. Still, I enjoyed the book, even though I disagreed with many of the concepts, and the film remains visually spectacular.

[Dr.Epic]

2001: A Space Odyssey makes little sense if you don't read the book, something I consider somewhat a failing. Still, I enjoyed the book, even though I disagreed with many of the concepts, and the film remains visually spectacular.

What's not to understand about the film? The magic rectangle made the monkeys smart, traveled to the moon, the talking microwave turned evil, and what's-his-name became a big-headed baby.

[Weezer]

What's not to understand about the film? The magic rectangle made the monkeys smart, traveled to the moon, the talking microwave turned evil, and what's-his-name became a big-headed baby.

Don't forget learning that docking sequences take about 20 minutes and are always accompanied by rousing classical music.

[Dr.Epic]

Don't forget learning that docking sequences take about 20 minutes and are always accompanied by rousing classical music.

Right. Classic music always makes things better. That's why he uses it in a lot of his movies. Just look at A Clockwork Orange.

[truemane]

If by weird you simply mean non-standard (and not bad or stupid) then Tree of Life is certainly the weirdest film I've ever seen. I've seen a LOT of movies and I've never, in all of my days, seen a film even remotely like this. It was closer to poetry than it was to anything I understand as film. So completely outside the box was this film that I'm not even certain how I feel about it. It seems outside of my opinion of it, somehow.

It did, however, prompt me to purchase all of Terrence Malick's other films (all four of them - two of them in Criterion editions). And my cinematic education was increased thereby. And Days of Heaven, as it turns out, is a work of absolute, undiluted, undeniable, genius. So there you go.

But still. Tree of Life. ODD.

Also, I second Being John Malkovich. So good. So odd. Anything along the Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman axis is brilliantly off the beaten track, actually. Adaptation. [sic] may be the greatest screenplay ever written. It's certainly among the greatest.

Also, also, Bubba Ho-Tep. You want weird? How about Elvis and JFK (played by Ossie Davis, they dyed him after they faked his death you see) in an old age home battling an ancient mummy-ghost-cowboy who sucks people's life force from their anus(es)? That's value for your weird dollar.

And also also also Dillinger is Dead, Marco Ferrari's epic demented masterpiece. This guy is SO strange that most of his films haven't even been translated into English. It's possible the film isn't even meant to be understood. And if that was his goal, then mission accomplished.

And lastly, anything by this guy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seijun_Suzuki). He's so badass I can't even stand it. I want to be him when I grow up. That he continued to secure funding for his films is testament to the infinite power of wacky.

[McStabbington]

Well, the weirdest movie I've ever seen period is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Nevertheless, aside from a few scenes I hated that movie, because I hate movies that are weird for the sake of being weird.

The weirdest movie I've seen that was nevertheless good was Bubba Ho-Tep. For those of you who haven't seen it, let me summarize the plot of the movie in one sentence: a man called Sebastian Haff, who might be the real living Elvis Aaron Presley, or might just be an retired Elvis impersonator who has become confused in his old age, teams up with a black man convinced he's post-gunshot JFK to save his decrepit East Texas rest home from a soul-sucking mummy. Really. And for all that, this is a movie that works on multiple levels: it is at once a brilliant satire on action movies, a wickedly-sharp black comedy and a heartbreaking portrayal of a man who clings to the thought that he really is Elvis in no small part because that's the only respect he's allowed as an old poor man without any family or relatives. And it has one of the greatest scores of any movie in cinematic history.

[thegurullamen]

Well, the weirdest movie I've ever seen period is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Nevertheless, aside from a few scenes I hated that movie, because I hate movies that are weird for the sake of being weird.

It was weird for the sake of making a stylistic point about American excess/ugliness. I used to feel the same way about it as you did, but the more you watch it (and watching with friends helps), the better it gets. At least, that is the consensus among the people I know.

Weirdest movies thread needs more Czechoslovakian Alice in Wonderland in the form of Alice.

Also, Repo! The Genetic Opera.

[turkishproverb]

Tetsuo: The Iron Man.

[0Megabyte]

You people have such low tolerances for weirdness.

I counter the End of Evangelion with The Adolescence of Utena.

I counter almost everything else on the list with The Mirror, by Tarkovsky.

Mulholland Drive gets pretty darn weird. Then again, it makes significantly more sense than The Mirror. (I would mention Eraserhead if I had seen it. I haven't. Yet.)

Oh, watch Un Chen Andalou. Weirdness goes back even to the silent film era.

Weekend is pretty weird, in the fact that it is the antithesis of every filmic trope imaginable. "The end of cinema" indeed... The worst thing about Weekend? I enjoy it more every time I watch it. This frightens me.

Repulsion is less weird than those, but weirder than something like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

[turkishproverb]

Feh. Iron Man is weirder than most of the ones on your list, and if those aren't enough I'll throw in Bullet Man and BodyHammer.

[0Megabyte]

Have you seen Weekend?

[turkishproverb]

Have you seen Weekend?

That's the one where the couple car breaks down and they keep running into weird groups, that ends with cannibalism, right? The one with the...odd...traffic scene?

[0Megabyte]

We have a winner for understatement here, but yes.

Incidentally, you posted your choice at the same minute I made my post. Yours hadn't been mentioned, and I wasn't referring to yours when I posted: Stuff like the End of Eva, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, those were the sorts of things I was referring to.

I have no clue how weird yours is. But it has to be pretty weird to top Weekend, or The Mirror for that matter, which is both a nicer movie and much weirder than Weekend.

[turkishproverb]

I know we posted at the same time, but I still had to make a joke. To give you some idea though, film buffs who saw it compared it to eraserhead.

It also helped invent/reinvent the modern version of Body Horror.

And that's before getting into the oddity of the storytelling style.

[0Megabyte]

Well, if anything is going to beat the movies I mentioned, that might be the one. I'll have to see it next time I'm in the mood for something truly weird!

[turkishproverb]

You should. It's worth a watch whatever else it might be. And though the american release is out of print, it's not too hard to find.

[Starscream]

Had one when I was little called the Elm-Chanted Forest. It's a Yugoslavian animated film, and one of the odder contributors to my childhood. Recap from memory.

A painter goes into a forest to (badly) paint things, and sleeps under an enchanted elm tree. A weird anthropomorphic burr creature who cannot speak without shouting at the top of his lungs announces that this event is somehow significant, and when the painter wakes up he can talk to animals and make his paintings come to life.

But the forest is ruled by an evil cactus(!) who hates beavers(!!). He wants to destroy everything by having his army of anthropomorphic axes cut it down. Nothing seems to be stopping him from saying "Army of anthropomorphic axes, cut the forest down", but somehow the existence of this painter is wrecking his plans.

Painter-dude meets "J. Edgar Beaver", a football playing bear, a trio of cutesy young hedgehogs, an over-sexualized fox, and "Thistle", a crummy wizard who works for the cactus but switches teams because why the hell not.

After all the good guys have a trippy musical number, Cactus King tricks an anthropomorphic flame into setting the forest on fire, and Painter immediately forgives it because it allows them to deliver a message on fire safety to the audience. Then an even more trippy musical number introduces some frog-like guy who rules a swamp. Cactus (I think his name is Spine) likewise tricks him into flooding the forest.

Painter decides at this point that the reason Spine is so evil is that he is frustrated because he is a cactus who has never had flowers grow on him. Seriously, he just announces this as the only possible explanation, and everyone else glances at the running time of the film and figures he must be right. Thistle starts whipping up a "make flowers grow on the king" potion, but Painter-Guy falls down a hole.

What follows is the trippiest thing yet. He awakes in a cave filled with anthropomorphic mushrooms, some of whom appear to be wearing blackface. They announce that they are going to turn him into a mushroom as well, and sing a psychedelic musical number while a mushroom version of Michael Jackson or maybe Prince breakdances. They even grow fangs at one point.

Painter gets rescued by a snail, and joins the others who he is losing the ability to speak to. They sneak into Spine's castle, pour the potion down his throat, and he turns pink and nice and flowery. Painter is sad he has to leave his friends now (apparently sleeping under the tree again is somehow not an option), and departs.
This is just...off. I watched it all the time as a kid, and if you are interested the entire is split into parts on Youtube. At the very least watch the mushroom dance (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgeNBO-nwCE). Weirded me the heck out when I was younger.

[otakuryoga]

couldnt tell you what i think of 2001...never been able to get through the movie awake
soooooooooooooooo booooooooorrrrrrrrriiiiiiinnnnnnngggggggggg

[Shadow of the Sun]

Vase de Noces, which is better known under a rather more, uh, vulgar title. Pigs are involved.

A list of hypothetically possible weird movies:

An accurate retelling of James Joyce' Ulysses.

Gravity's Rainbow

[Eldan]

couldnt tell you what i think of 2001...never been able to get through the movie awake
soooooooooooooooo booooooooorrrrrrrrriiiiiiinnnnnnngggggggggg

I honestly loved every second of it.

[Serpentine]

I've seen a few. Can't remember many, though :/

The Box was definitely weird. It took a pretty good Twilight Zone episode, expanded it to a ludicrous degree, and added aliens, twisted philophy and some sort of teleporting water box. It's... not great. Ambitious, but not great. My Boy hated it.
The Fountain, on the other hand, is ambitious and... nearly great, but falls short. It switches between medical drama and sci-fi, sorta...

One of my top picks has to be a Japanese one. It involves a family with a bed-and-breakfast out in the sticks, a famous sumo wrestler who crushes his tiny lover to death, and culminates in a claymation volcano eruption. Can't remember what it's called, though.

Eraserhead definitely belongs in that top 5 list. It is bizarre, and amazingly disturbing.

Adaptation is probably the most meta movie I've ever seen. It's a movie of Charlie Kaufman - who wrote the movie (and Being John Malcovich) - writing the movie Adaptation, roughly true to life. When you watch it, note thatit devolves into action thriller movie style when his "twin brother", who keeps trying to write trite action thrillers, starts to help him write it. Yeah...It's quite a slow movie, though, 'til part way through, and you have to sorta watch it in a... a meta sort of a way, and remember that "adaptation" refers both to turning a book into a movie, and to evolution.

Oh, I know! An adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. Non-English, iirc, but I can't remember where it's from. I think it's pretty close to the book, but it's a bizarre mix of live-action, stop-motion and claymation. The White Rabbit, for example, is a stuffed toy (or a taxidermied rabbit, I forget) that keeps eating sawdust to replace the stuff that falls out. There's bird skulls, old dolls, and all sorts of weird stuff involved.

[polity4life]

House

Any of the Tetsuo series

Existenz

Ichi the Killer

Three of the four items on the list are Japanese films...go figure.

[turkishproverb]

House

Any of the Tetsuo series

Existenz

Ichi the Killer

Three of the four items on the list are Japanese films...go figure.

Getting nuked a couple times will do that to your national psyche.

[Science Officer]

Oh yeah, and Waking Life (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waking_life) is a little weird too. At least, for a movie.