EDITOR’S NOTE: Zeb Haradon, writer/director/star of the Certified Weird Elevator Movie, has asked us to submit a revised “Top 10 Weird Movies” list.  Of course we complied without hesitation. (Here’s his [more conventional] original list).

A while ago I was asked to put together a list of 10 weird movies.  I did this pretty quickly without thinking much about it.  It was, I think, too hastily written, as if I was just writing an email.  Also the movies, while all excellent, were not all particularly “weird” enough.  I decided to put together this better list.

1. The Room – The plot of this movie sounds fairly straightforward and is hardly worth mentioning. It’s a domestic drama about a couple where the woman has an affair and the man becomes jealous and then finds out. The strangeness is in the tone and execution. This cult movie is widely known as an unintentional comedy “so bad it’s good”, but I think there’s something else going on. Notice how the dialog seems to come out of nowhere, how characters seem to say their lines with no particular motivation, or have motivations that change from moment to moment. I think what we’re seeing here is what a movie looks like to an autistic person who is not aware of the inner lives of other people. I think the filmmaker is making a movie of what society looks like to him, where everyone is made of cardboard and another human’s personality is unfathomable.

2. “Happy Days Reunion Special” – This “Happy Days” reunion special, made just a few years after the series ended, never saw the light of day, but a copy was leaked (bad quality with time codes), and you can find it if you know where to look. This was made in 1989, and also set in 1989, so it’s supposed to take place 30 or so years after the original. 90% of this hour long reunion is just dopey sitcom B.S., but there’s a jaw-droppingly incongruous subplot involving Fonzie discovering that he has become infected with the AIDS virus. This was probably due to a well intentioned effort to talk about the disease, but “Happy Days Reunion” was not the place to do it, which is probably why this ill conceived special never saw the light of day.

3. Silhouette – This movie consists of a series of explicit sex scenes, and the sounds and dialog are right out of hard core pornography, but the only images you ever see are shadows of the Continue reading ZEB HARADON’S REVISED TOP 10 WEIRD MOVIES →

Zeb Haradon, the writer/director of the Certified Weird Elevator Movie and the bizarre documentary Waiting for NESARA, graciously agreed to provide us with a list of his ten favorite weird movies.

The Hawks and The Sparrows (1966) – It’s just a really funny, strange, under-appreciated comedy with several gags that are in a class by themselves and have no precedent elsewhere.

Edvard Munch (1974) – This is the only Peter Watkins movie I like much but it makes up for all his other boring preachy movies. I don’t know exactly how he does this but the style is perfectly in sync with the content, and the 3+ hour length is never boring, really effective movie at setting a mood of a life with one or two good things in it, always out of reach.

Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) – Pasolini said he was making some kind of statement about capitalism or something with this movie, but to me it’s the best metaphor for public school I’ve ever seen on film, complete with sadistic teachers, fecal cafeteria food, other students turned collaborator, culminating in a graduation ceremony. A real horror movie where the monster is loss of freedom.

Careful (1992) – The first time I saw this I turned it off in the middle. Later I couldn’t get it out of my head. I picked it up again and now it’s one of my favorite movies and Maddin is one of my favorite directors. Watching this, and also his Cowards Bend The Knee, you get the sense he’s hiding some horrible scar underneath the surrealism. Aesthetically important in showing that a certain style isn’t worth giving up on just because something newer is available.

Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist (1997) – A great documentary that touches on universal themes by focusing on a peculiar idiosyncratic subject, about a guy dying of cystic fibrosis who tries to take ownership of his inescapable pain by falling in love with it and becoming a masochist.  Kind of a classic tragedy about someone who cannot escape his fate.

Last Feast of the Crocodiles (1996)- I saw this wildlife documentary in college and shortly afterward realized it was more than just another National Geographic special to watch on a bored Sunday, but I could never remember the name of it and spent years trying to find Continue reading ZEB HARADON’S TOP 10 WEIRD MOVIES →