Top 5

Top 5 weirdest movies

Surreal, absurd, disturbing, or just plain strange movies.  I got this idea from a discussion on IMDB, and I believe some movie website or magazine released a list of the top 20 a while back.  In terms of overall weirdness, here it goes:

1.  Un Chien Andalou

The old Bunuel-Dali collaboration.  This had me at the part where the eye gets sliced with a razor-blade.  It is quite possibly one of the most disturbing images I have ever seen, and it was made in 1929.  It is almost unsettlingly bizarre.  This easily takes the cake at a whopping 16 minutes.  Watching this film makes you realize how warped the human mind can be, and it's amazing.  It is where every David Lynch film is originated, and really where the surrealist genre was created.

2.  Eraserhead

Not much about this film can be explained that hasn't already been said a million times.  It is adequate to say that never has anything like it ever been seen, and it began a long and illustrious career of nightmares and dreamscapes.

3.  The City of Lost Children

This one is not quite surrealism, more like a plot-driven sci-fi nightmare that more than delivers on the absurdities.  However, it also makes up for such strange detachment with likeable characters and genuine horror.

4.  Brazil

Also one of my favorite movies, it is the crowned jewel of Terry Gilliam's catalogue.  The way in which the dream sequences are paralleled by Lowry's just as bizarre existence makes this a masterpiece of surrealism.

5.  So many to choose from!!!!!!

I can't pick this last one.  So, I'll make a list of honorable mentions:  Inland Empire, Mulholland Drive, Videodrome (and other Cronenberg), Dead Man, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Time Bandits (and most other Gilliam), 2001, Donnie Darko, all of Guy Maddin's shorts (some of which aren't in the Spout database......), Pi.

Considering this is labeled "Top 5 Weirdest movies", I'm afraid to include 8 1/2, since it's not per se "weird", but more dreamy and surrealist, which does not necessarily mean weird in my book.  All of the surrealist films I mentioned were really by-the-book WEIRD.  Am I wrong here?

Re:Top 5 weirdest movies

Gozu/Izo:

I know, I'm cheating by putting two films on here in one spot, but I can't decide which is weirder, and they're both by Takashi Miike. So if you're #5 spot can contain a whole list of movies, than I can include one tie. Gozu is a weird road trip as a yakuza tries to find and dispose of the body of his mentor in the weirdest small town this side of Twin Peaks. A man who collects the skins of dead Yakuza members for their tattoos, a woman who runs an inn and sells her breast milk to the town, and a giant minotaur demon are only three of the increasingly strange people he runs into. Izo is the tale of one man's rampage as he kills his way towards heaven, moving through time and space with every camera angle. There is not one 5 minute stretch of the film that takes place in one time period, and often past and future exist in the same setting. And, I have to be uncool and admit, I don't understand a lick of it.

Inland Empire

You had this as an honorary mention, and I'm putting it here because, well, it was the one time where David Lynch out-weirded me. I mean to say, I usually fall in love with all of his films and all of his surrealism, but Inland Empire kept shaking me loose faster than I could keep up with it.

Soul Vengeance

A pimp goes to prison, and while he probably deserved it for other crimes, he was basically railroaded by a racist cop(who tries to castrate him), judge and legal system. After he gets out of prison, he wreaks vengeance on those who wronged him by strangling them with his penis, which he discovered how to grow to a length of several yards. Seventies blacksploitation at it's craziest.

The Monkees Head

This movie is surprising even to the people who appreciate the surrealism and subversiveness of the Monkees TV show. For a band put together as a spoof, and mainly for commercial purposes, this movie is blisteringly anti-corporate. Wacky and silly like the show, but without the humor(intentionally so), with a script co-written by Jack Nicholson, Head is stranger than you could imagine. With some of the greatest music the Monkees ever produced, and a very funny Frank Zappa cameo. Watch it and marvel at what a G rated movie USED to be.

Riget I & II

Maybe this is cheating as well, since it's a Danish miniseries and it's technically two movies, but this deserves mention. There are certainly more surreal and bizarre things out there, but this one covers so much ground in it's run. You need only to watch it and witness Udo Kier's introduction to the series(towards the halfway point) to see that this movie deserves it's inclusion. A series about a haunted hospital that is one of the coolest things I've ever seen, and the only downside to it is that they will never finish the series as many of the principal cast members died after the second miniseries aired. There was an american remake, Kingdom Hospital, but it is no overstatement to say that it was a travesty on all accounts.

Re:Top 5 weirdest movies

Smooth_J:

 

Considering this is labeled "Top 5 Weirdest movies", I'm afraid to include 8 1/2, since it's not per se "weird", but more dreamy and surrealist, which does not necessarily mean weird in my book.  All of the surrealist films I mentioned were really by-the-book WEIRD.  Am I wrong here?

I wouldn't put 8 1/2 on the list, but possibly  Fellini Satyricon (1969).

Re:Top 5 weirdest movies

TheWorkingDead:

Inland Empire

You had this as an honorary mention, and I'm putting it here because, well, it was the one time where David Lynch out-weirded me. I mean to say, I usually fall in love with all of his films and all of his surrealism, but Inland Empire kept shaking me loose faster than I could keep up with it.

 

I remember feeling like that after I watched it as well.  It was the first Lynch film that I had felt oddly detached from, and I really didn't understand much of what was going on.  It begins to make more sense after a second viewing, but it's still such a bizarre movie that it seems to me that really "getting" it means you partially know what's going on for about half of the movie.

Re:Top 5 weirdest movies

i watched Summer Love the other day. It's a Polish spagetti western and truly one-of-a-kind weird.

Re:Top 5 weirdest movies

I'm just realy surprised that nothing by Alejandro Jodorowsky has been mentioned.  Surely he must trump even Lynch, and certainly some of the kind of midly weird not not THAT weird folks like Gilliam or Junet.

Re:Top 5 weirdest movies

Smooth_J:

TheWorkingDead:

Inland Empire

You had this as an honorary mention, and I'm putting it here because, well, it was the one time where David Lynch out-weirded me. I mean to say, I usually fall in love with all of his films and all of his surrealism, but Inland Empire kept shaking me loose faster than I could keep up with it.

 

I remember feeling like that after I watched it as well.  It was the first Lynch film that I had felt oddly detached from, and I really didn't understand much of what was going on.  It begins to make more sense after a second viewing, but it's still such a bizarre movie that it seems to me that really "getting" it means you partially know what's going on for about half of the movie.

The thing i've found is that i want to watch this again and again,like Mulholland Drive.. I have seen "Inland Empire"  three times but,it's just SOOO dark,that i am genuinely afraid of "going there"..Am i just a woos,or when the "actress" character finds herself in what looks quite a bit like "Henry's" corridoor ,and "confronts" the big Russian bloke..we get ,quite simply one of THE most grotesque and genuinely horrifying images EVER

Chris Morrell

     

Re:Top 5 weirdest movies

Risselada:

I'm just realy surprised that nothing by Alejandro Jodorowsky has been mentioned.  Surely he must trump even Lynch, and certainly some of the kind of midly weird not not THAT weird folks like Gilliam or Junet.

Well, c'mon then, you can't just dismiss our choices as 'not weird enough' and not put up any of your own choices. Educate us.

Re:Top 5 weirdest movies

chrismorrell:

The thing i've found is that i want to watch this again and again,like Mulholland Drive.. I have seen "Inland Empire"  three times but,it's just SOOO dark,that i am genuinely afraid of "going there"..Am i just a woos,or when the "actress" character finds herself in what looks quite a bit like "Henry's" corridoor ,and "confronts" the big Russian bloke..we get ,quite simply one of THE most grotesque and genuinely horrifying images EVER

Yeah, I'll have to agree with that.  I was completely terrified both times I've watched it, and it's really almost too much to bear especially after going through the whole movie.  Just when you think it can't get any worse, there's that final encounter in the corridor and it just completely blows your mind.

Re:Top 5 weirdest movies

Risselada:

I'm just realy surprised that nothing by Alejandro Jodorowsky has been mentioned.  Surely he must trump even Lynch, and certainly some of the kind of midly weird not not THAT weird folks like Gilliam or Junet.

I was thinking about mentioning him, but it may have been misleading considering I haven't seen anything by him yet.  I've been eying up his box set for months now but have never got to buying it.  From what I've heard, he takes the cake in this category.