Is your baby tired of regular old disgusting breast milk? Try nacho cheese flavor! (Despite being age-restricted, this video is a tiny bit gross but not especially inappropriate, unless you consider breastfeeding shameful.)
POD 366, EP. 174: LINUS O’BRIEN ON THE STRANGE JOURNEY OF ROCKY HORROR, AND A LOT OF NEW RELEASES
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Discussed in this episode:
Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror (2025): The definitive documentary on The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Alpha (2025): Read Gregory J. Smalley’s review. Although it concerns a plague that turns people into statues, Julia Ducournau‘s third film resembles a Euro-style family drama more than it does the shocking horror films of her early career. Now on Blu-ray. Buy Alpha.
Careful (1992): Read the Canonically Weird entry! A 4K remaster of Guy Maddin‘s neo-expressionist masterpiece about sexual repression (particularly of the incestuous kind). Playing select art-house theaters. In Chicago and NYC this week; check out Careful at Zeitgeist Films for all screenings.
“The David ‘The Rock’ Nelson Collection Vol 3”: Features the epic backyard horror movie anthology Monster Tales (2002), made by a former amateur boxer turned direct-to-VHS auteur (who proudly refers to himself as “The Ed Wood of the 21st century”). How did we miss the first two volumes? Buy “The David ‘The Rock’ Nelson Collection Vol 3”.
Desperate Living (1977): Read the Canonically Weird review! The third entry in John Waters‘ “trash trilogy” is the most ambitious, a depraved fairy-tale for perverted sociopaths. The Criterion Collection does it right, in your choice of Blu-ray only or 4K UHD + Blu-ray. Buy Desperate Living.
Dogra Magra (1988): A man awakes in a mental asylum with no memory and is informed he killed his wife on his wedding night. Toshio Matsumoto‘s final film was an adaptation of an “unfilmable” novel; a commentator once suggested the film is like a Japanese mashup of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari with Last Year at Marienbad. This is Radiance’s standard version of the collector’s edition released in late 2024. Buy Dogra Magra.
“Girl Internet Show: A Kati Kelli Mixtape”: A Blu-ray collection of the work of digital creator Kelli, partly curated by Jane Schoenbrun. Some (most?) of the bits featured on this collection were unreleased on her YouTube channel. Buy “Girl Internet Show: A Kati Kelli Mixtape”.
Hairspray (1988): Read Gregory J. Smalley’s review. John Waters’ PG-rated 50s Baltimore nostalgia piece gets the Criterion Collection treatment, also in Blu-ray or 4K UHD + Blu-ray. Buy Hairspray.
Malpertuis (1972): Read the Canonically Weird entry! The Blu-ray debut of this very strange Belgian/international movie about a sailor who returns to the mansion where his very strange family lives. From Radiance, with some new interviews and lots of archival extras. Buy Malpertuis.
Mare’s Nest (2025): Moon explores a strange world with no adults. Discover the extremely limited screening schedule for this art-house experiment at the Mare’s Nest page at Grasshopper Films.
Mr. K (2025): Read Enar Clarke’s review. The deeply surreal Crispin Glover-led effort about a hotel where you can check in but never leave, now on Blu-ray. Buy Mr. K.
The Nude Vampire (1970): Read Gregory J. Smalley’s Apocrypha Candidate review. Jean Rollin‘s sophomore film includes one of his most bizarre scenarios and sets the plate for the vampire films to come. This is the “US Standard” edition 4K UHD (no Blu-ray), but it contains essentially the same material as the old limited edition. Buy The Nude Vampire.
“Roman Porno Reboot Collection, Vol. 1”: Around 2016, Nikkatsu studios asked contemporary directors to make new movies in the style of its early 1970s “Roman Porno” softcore films. One of the first, and the standout of the series, was Sion Sono‘s subversive Antiporno, included in this set along with more conventional sex pictures with titles like Aroused by Gymnopedies, Dawn of the Felines, Wet Woman in the Wind, and White Lily. “Buy Roman Porno Reboot Collection, Vol. 1”.
Weirdsville (2007): Read Gregory J. Smalley’s review. A quirky (not weird) story of junkies fighting Satanists, on Blu-ray for the first time. Buy Weirdsville.
What Dreams May Come (1998): Read Gregory J. Smalley’s review. Robin Williams goes to Hell in this romantic drama with amazing hand-painted visuals. On 4K UHD + Blu-ray from Shout! Buy What Dreams May Come.
WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE:
No guest scheduled for next week’s Pod 366 (although we suppose a surprise could always pop up), but the crew will be back to discuss the week’s weird news and new releases. In written content, Michael Diamades sets the stage for Decorado (2025), Enar Clarke scores a Fresh Kill (1994), Shane Wilson decides to Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets (1971), and Gregory J. Smalley wonders what a Wetiko (2022) is. Onward and weirdward!
CAPSULE: THE NAPA BOYS (2025)
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AKA Napa Boys Present: Napa Boys 4: The Sommelier’s Amulet
DIRECTED BY: Nick Corirossi
FEATURING: Armen Weitzman, Nick Corirossi, Sarah Ramos, Jamar Neighbors, Nelson Franklin, Mike Mitchell, Chloe Cherry, Paul Rust, Vanessa Chester
PLOT: The Napa Boys and a slew of friends and hangers-on assemble for one last wine country adventure in this fourth installment of a franchise whose first three movies were never made.
COMMENTS: The Napa Boys are, as near as I can tell—having, like everyone else, missed the first three movies—Miles Jr., Jack Jr., and Kevin. And maybe, once upon a time, Stifler? Miles Jr. is a neurotic virgin in his 30s with a dead wife and son (just roll with it). Jack Jr. is a lecherous jackass. Kevin is… well, so forgettable that he disappears without explanation for most of the movie. They are joined in their wine country adventures by fill-in Boy Stifler’s Brother and stowaway Puck, a female fan with a Napa Boys podcast. There’s also affable ally Mitch, owner of Mitch’s Winery, and fascistic enemy Squirm, owner of Squirm’s Winery. Three of the characters acquire love interests, a female drug dealer and a pair of waitresses. Adding to the crowd are unexpected cameos by Jay and Silent Bob and Francis Ford Coppola. Not to mention the Milfonator.
All of that sounds like fertile ground for a wacky comedy, but that’s not what’s on the filmmakers’ minds. The high concept here implies that, as the fourth film in a franchise, the blush is fading off the rosé. Thus, the in-universe movie script is desperate for new twists and turns, while continuing to work the formula and deliver bits the in-universe fans have come to expect. That means a lot of apparent references to past events that Napa Boys fans would know about, but we don’t. Corirossi and company are going for clever rather than funny, with the “joke” being ultra-meta. The cast act badly on purpose, delivering their lines in an anti-comedy game of coming as close to a joke as they can possibly get without actually making one. (For example, when Mitch spills wine down his chin, Puck observes that he’s dribbling, and the vintner explains no, he just prefers wine filtered through his beard.) There were about three jokes in the whole thing that made me giggle. I’m sure they were included by accident; no anti-comic can bat a thousand.
A surprising number of critics misdiagnosed the film’s humor because they hadn’t encountered the concept of anti-comedy before. And if professionals are missing the point, you can be sure 99% of the film’s potential audience is, too. (It’s a shame that Rex Reed never lived to see this; the film’s writers would have treasured his dismissive takedown). The Napa Boys was designed to alienate and encourage walkouts; not only is the anti-humor off-putting until (and maybe even after) you get what they’re up to, but they also put the grossest of gross-out scenes relatively early in the first act. Anyone who makes it through Jack Jr.’s desperate encounter with a wine barrel without heading for the exits is in for the long haul.
There are three possible reactions to Napa Boys: you either don’t get it, or you get it, or you get it but conclude it wasn’t worth getting. I vacillate between the last two options. But what kept me watching was the unpredictability. The plot seems road-movie random, but is more structured than it first appears: subplots that appear to have been dropped reappear at unexpected moments. And even after all the plot threads seem to have been wrapped up, the movie keeps going on in a long epilogue, introducing new characters intended to set up the in-universe sequel or a spin-off. And the stop-motion moose surprised me, too. The Merlot may have been foul at times, but I can’t say my trip to wine country was entirely wasted. If you want to go, just be sure to pack a lot of patience.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: ROWS (2015)
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Rows is available for rental or purchase on-demand.
DIRECTED BY: David W. Warfield
FEATURING: Hannah Schick, Lauren Lakis, Nancy Murray, Joe Basile, Kenneth Hughes
PLOT: The daughter of a prolific real estate developer must find her way out of a mysterious maze after she attempts to deliver an eviction notice to a malevolent tenant.
COMMENTS: If you’ve driven across the American Midwest and Great Plains in summertime, you’ve probably been witness to a notably dissonant image: vast fields of corn and wheat, dotted with a mix of ramshackle, rotting old farmhouses and barns teetering on the brink of collapse, contrasted with brand-new, modern houses with lush green lawns and a pair of fresh-off-the-line pickup trucks parked out front. You zip through an economic metaphor, a thruway uniting past and present, a great big landscape of disconnect. Rows knows this feeling. Rows is clearly stimulated by the perplexing feelings that this vision inspires. And Rows is still trying to figure out what comes next.
The world that Rose (get it?) stumbles into bears some of the marks of that confusion. She’s a pretty, rich girl whose only job is doing office chores for her daddy. She’s already feeling the pain of her privilege. As a result, she’s nervous long before she first sets foot inside the house of Mrs. Haviland to boot her from the premises, but her encounter with the woman (and her highly suspect cookies) is proof of how dangerous it is to leave suburbia to venture into America’s breadbasket. We know Rose is going to have to do some penance. What’s intriguing is that her punishment seems to be mental, as she finds herself in a recursive loop which drags her and her friend Greta into the inescapable maze of the cornfield, with escape leading inevitably back to the farmhouse. It’s very nearly Groundhog Day meets Drag Me to Hell.
Writer-director Warfield puts a lot of skill on display. The film is fantastically shot, making the endless fields of corn look both alluring and ominous. (Surprisingly, the classically Midwestern settings were shot in Maryland.) He also has a knack for pacing; even when Rose’s traps and time loops feel inevitable, there’s a steady unfolding of dread that keeps the psychological horror fresh and visceral. If you aren’t particularly interested in logic or the familiar beats of storytelling, then Rows is a reasonably impressive effort. If anything, the cracks start to show when the script actively adds new elements to keep things interesting, like the addition of an outsider character posing another threat to Rose and Greta, or the out-of-left-field introduction of some malevolent spirit trying to seduce Rose’s father. Rows plays the weird card very effectively, especially once you recognize the repetition that serves as Rose’s purgatory.
When you move past the film’s gimmick, you have a production that looks good but has no real depth. The movie never invests in its characters, for example, especially Schick, the only person in the film we can be certain is real. Without that, the appeal is reduced to its lead actresses wandering through the cornfields in tight tank tops. (The performances are serviceable, although the leads seem to have matriculated at the Joey Tribbiani School of Acting.) The script never really wraps up its intriguing plot, framing the climax as Rose finally learning to look deep inside herself, but then couching it inside other Twilight Zone-ish twists. Rows has some solid tricks up its sleeve, but that only makes the stab at some sort of relevance feel not just unearned but premature. It’s a pity, because there’s genuine filmmaking talent at work, and Warfield has stumbled on to an issue and a community that could really be at home in the thriller and horror genres. There’s some interesting houses along this road, but ultimately a lot more empty fields of grain.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
(This movie was nominated for review by Jay. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)
CAPSULE: HOUSE OF DREAMS (1963)
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“The house stood alone,
a mere ghost in the midst of the modern, uncaring world.
Within her skeletal fibers secrets remained secluded forever.
The only one who might have revealed them
was now lying in a world where neither time nor flesh existed.”
– quote from Lee Hansen’s novel in House of Dreams
DIRECTED BY: Robert Berry
FEATURING: Pauline Elliott, Robert Berry, Charlene Bradley, Lance Bird
PLOT: An author writing about a haunted house begins having eerily prophetic nightmares.
COMMENTS: A low-budget horror film made by college students, House of Dreams is, understandably, an amateur effort. It’s also rather impressive for what it manages to accomplish with limited resources and a novice crew. It contains way too many uninteresting scenes of marital bickering, broken up by far too few dream sequences. Reverse the proportion of dream to reality and it would be a satisfyingly weird little chiller along the lines of Carnival of Souls (to which it’s often compared). House of Dreams doesn’t quite succeed in sustaining a spooky atmosphere but, in its best moments, it conjures surreal dreamscapes worthy of Cocteau‘s Blood of a Poet.
Lee Hansen (Berry) suffers from writer’s block. As he struggles to complete his latest novel, he begins experiencing disturbing dreams. If that wasn’t bad enough, his wife Elaine, a recovering alcoholic wrestling with her own demons, accuses him of neglecting her. She wants to take a vacation to rekindle their romance but he insists on finishing his book first. What seems like a responsible adult decision backfires on him as the subject of Lee’s book, the “old Winninger place,” takes over his unconscious mind.
Filmed on location in an actual rural Indiana “haunted” house owned by the director’s mother, House of Dreams makes good use of a genuinely creepy setting. Each of Lee’s nightmares begins with him driving to the dilapidated house and slowly approaching it from the front walkway. He reluctantly enters the front door which, of course, opens on its own to welcome him. What happens next varies from dream to dream but, amid the usual ghostly tropes, some startlingly original images appear, each nightmare concluding with a frightening final scene.
Creative use of interior architecture and unusual camera angles add to the mood of unease. With a few simple props and generous use of chiaroscuro lighting, Berry and his cinematographer show how less can be more when it comes to crafting suspenseful horror. The minimalist soundtrack, an original score, also takes a less-is-more approach.1 Occasional metronomic tappings add tension to the scenes of everyday life, and menacing electronic organ strains accompany the dream sequences. A scene in which Elaine suddenly appears in Lee’s study, wearing a ghostly white dress, feels all the more unsettling for taking place in complete silence.
As tragedies begin to befall Lee’s family members, he realizes his dreams foreshadow things to come. Unfortunately, the family drama element of the plot isn’t very compelling. The student actors aren’t quite up to the task, and unnecessarily long conversations are a major weakness in the script. Pauline Elliot isn’t bad as Lee’s wife, and Berry does his best in the lead (a role intended for a professional actor who ended up declining the part). As director, actor, writer, and editor, Berry demonstrates a solid grounding in the fundamentals of storytelling. Footage of the Winninger place, including shots of the dramatic staircase and the overgrown well, periodically intercuts the domestic moments, illustrating the house’s growing hold over Lee and his relatives. White roses, briefly glimpsed in the opening act, recur throughout, a symbol whose full significance isn’t revealed until the very end.
Eventually, Lee decides to investigate the Winninger house in real life—or is he already trapped inside the nightmare? His penultimate foray plays out like all the other dream sequences. Lee drives to the house, he hesitates on the walkway, and the front door hangs open, taunting him to enter. Will Lee escape the house’s strange power or has he already become its final victim? Fans of low-budget ’60s horror will find House of Dreams worth a visit.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
1An alternate score written in 2019 received Berry’s approval, and the latest Blu-ray release from Vinegar Syndrome/Bleeding Skull includes both.
![House of Dreams [Blu-ray]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51FRpQK5HIL._SL500_.jpg)