READERS CHOICE! PICK TWO FILMS TO GO ON THE LIST OF THE 366 BEST WEIRD MOVIES OF ALL TIME

12/15/2010: The poll is completed! Visitor Q was the winner of Group A, with 35 votes (Adaptation was the runner-up with 19 votes).  As I suspected, Alice was the runaway winner in Group B with 42 votes, but Dead Man made an honorable showing with a respectable 14 votes.  The “reconsider” category was the tightest race, with What? [Che?] making a late surge to nip The Wizard of Oz, 18-14.  Thanks to everyone who participated.  The data is extremely useful in determining what our audience regards as weird movie musts.  Visitor Q and Alice will be added to the List and get full-scale write-ups very soon.

We’ve looked at a lot of weird movies in two years of operation here at 366 Weird Movies, and to date we’ve Certified 71 of the eventual 366 movies as among the best weird movies of all time. That’s about 20% of the List completed.

Now it’s your turn to add a couple of movies to the List.

The movies listed below were all nominated as candidates to go on the List, but for one reason or another were not selected on the first pass. Many of them should eventually show up, but we want to make sure your favorites actually make it onto the final List. (Remember, we prefer movies that are both weird and good, but we’ll take either very good movies that aren’t that weird or very weird movies that aren’t that good).

You may vote for two movies: one from “Group A” (movies from 2001 on) and one from “Group B” (movies made before 2001). The movie receiving the highest number of votes in each group will be Certified for the List. You may vote once per 24 hours, and the poll will remain open until December 14.

Feel free to explain your vote in the “Comments” section. Maybe you can mobilize others to elevate your choice onto the List.



Still here? OK, we have one more thing for you to vote on… Occasionally we have rejected movies outright for consideration. Maybe the movie just didn’t suit the reviewers taste. We want to give you the chance to rescue one of the following movies from oblivion. We’ll make the winner of this poll into a List Candidate, meaning that it may get consideration for the List again at a later date. Vote to give one of the following movies a new lease on life:


11 thoughts on “READERS CHOICE! PICK TWO FILMS TO GO ON THE LIST OF THE 366 BEST WEIRD MOVIES OF ALL TIME”

  1. Interesting results so far. In Group A, I expected Visitor Q to do well, but I didn’t expect to see such a strong challenge by Cronenberg’s Spider. I expected Alice to run away with Group B, and it is. I’m also going to give strong consideration to whatever finishes second there. The “rescue” category is totally up for grabs right now, with The Wizard of Oz, Hour of the Wolf, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance and Repo! the Genetic Opera all tied up with 4 votes apiece.

  2. Just wanted to say that the readers choice poll was a great idea and I’m finding it fun and interesting seeing the results thus far. My picks are doing well (Adaptation, Dead Man and The Wizard of Oz). I’ve also given a little love for Dr. Phibes since it is a favorite of mine, although it doesn’t have a chance against Dead Man or Alice. I think in the near future maybe the Reader Recommendations submissions should be voted on in the same way. Great weird films like Kontroll and Big Man Japan deserve a new lease on life and a spot on the List soon.

    1. I have to admit, I overlooked Big Man Japan—it should have been in the poll. Kontroll I left out on purpose: make of that what you will. If I had it to do over again I’d leave out Alice; I think it’s just too obviously the pick of its group.

  3. Looks like there’s been an organized campaign in support of Visitor Q—after falling behind Adaptation, it’s surged back into the lead, 22-17.

    Alice is running away with Group B (as I should have guessed it would). Dead Man looks to be the clear second place finisher.

    I’m happy to see so much support for Wizard of Oz in the “rescue” category. It’s neck and neck with Polanski’s What?

  4. The Wizard Of Oz was a very weird movie for it’s time (1939), and I’m glad Buddy Ebson was allurgic to the tin paint, otherwise Ray bolger’s exellent performance as the Scarecrow would never have been seen. The music, the mood, and the casting is the best vibe of all time in one movie. The witch is the scariest character in all horror genre, when she looks directly @ the screen , it’s as if she’s looking directly at you. Similar favs would be Chittey-Chittey Bag Bang, and Bed****s and Broomsticks. All exellent Films.

    1. Oz is such a classic now that it’s entered the mainstream: I think it may be pretty weird, if you look at it through new eyes. Although it’s great, initially I did not think it was weird enough to sit alongside the works of David Lynch or Guy Maddin. I may have to reconsider.

      Side note: I installed a new spam-filtering program that contains an automated profanity filter, and it blocked the “****” in Bed****s and Broomsticks. I’ll have to get that fixed!

  5. I just have to say that, at the end of a pretty bad week, the post above about the spam filter made me laugh like a drain. Thank you speedracer and 366.

  6. It would be a shame if Adaptation won this. It might just be me, but I wonder if its doing so well in this poll because it is probably the most “well known” of the Weird Films in that list? (What I mean is, the chances of people have seen Adaptation is higher than say, Singapore Sling.)

    1. There’s always that danger in a poll of this sort. That’s one reason I divided the poll into two groups of older and newer movies, as I suspected people would vote for the newer ones just because they were more likely to have seen them. Still, right now Visitor Q has a healthy lead with time running out, so I think our particular audience here isn’t that swayed by what’s well-known in the mainstream.

  7. The interesting thing about The Wizard of Oz is that it CREEPS PEOPLE OUT. For some people it’s the flying monkeys, for others it might be that OH-WEE-OP song, for others it could be The Lollipop Midgets. For me, it’s that bit where the crushed witch’s feet curl up after her red shoes disappear. Oh, and there’s always the suspected midget hanging suicide in the background. Does the fact that it’s a bit creepy make it weird? Are the 2 synonymous? It pretty much follows a fairly typical fairytale narrative and is by no means WILLFULLY strange (if you know what I mean). Perhaps Mary Poppins should also be a contender. The story, as I recall, involves a couple of kids occassionally dropping acid with their hot nanny. Anyways, the poll is great stuff. Keep up the good work guys.

  8. The poll is completed! Visitor Q was the winner of Group A, with 35 votes (Adaptation was the runner-up with 19 votes). As I suspected, Alice was the runaway winner in Group B with 42 votes, but Dead Man made an honorable showing with a respectable 14 votes. The “reconsider” category was the tightest race, with What? [Che?] making a late surge to nip The Wizard of Oz, 18-14. Thanks to everyone who participated. The data is extremely useful in determining what our audience regards as weird movie musts. Visitor Q and Alice will be added to the List and get full-scale write-ups very soon.

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