Our weekly look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs, and on more distant horizons…

Trailers of new release movies are generally available at the official site links.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

Complete Unknown: Meeting at a dinner party, Tom (Michael Shannon) insists he knows Alice (Rachel Weisz), but she says she doesn’t remember him. Didn’t we see a similar idea done last year, at Marienbad? Complete Unknown official site.

Uncle Kent 2: Uncle Kent goes to ComicCon and loses his mind as the apocalypse approaches. What a weird idea: a sequel to a mumblecore drama almost no one saw, reimagined as a surreal comedy by strangeoid Todd Rohal. Uncle Kent 2 official site.

SCREENINGS – (Los Angeles, Cinefamily, Sunday, Aug. 28):

“The Phantasmagoric Films of Piotr Kamler”: An evening of seldom-seen shorts from the Polish surrealist animator, concluding with his unfairly underseen feature opus, Chronopolis. Also of interest at the ‘family this week: continued showings of Andrzej Zulawski‘s final film, Cosmos, and a newly-restored print of the shocking 1967 insane asylum documentary Titicut Follies. Check out the trippy trailer at “The Phantasmagoric Films of Piotr Kamler” at Cinefamily.

SCREENINGS – (Silver Springs, MD, AFI Silver Theater, Aug. 27, 29, 30-31):

Evil Dead 2 (1987): Read the Certified Weird entry! Sam Raimi‘s utterly over-the-top zombierama is about the most fun you can have in the theater, and arguably the greatest R-rated horror-comedy ever made. So what is AFI showing on Aug 28, when ED2 takes a break for a night? Just The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, that’s all. It adds up to a great week of weirdness for those in the DC metro area. Evil Dead 2 at AFI Silver Theater.

SCREENINGS – (New York, NY, IFC Center, Aug. 27 at midnight):

Blue Velvet (1986): Read the Certified Weird entry! David Lynch‘s masterpiece of psychosexual evil graces IFC’s midnight screen this weekend. An even more significant event, however, is their week-long revival of Fellini’s Cassanova, a film that is (for reasons mysterious to us) not currently available on home video. Blue Velvet at IFC Center.

FILM FESTIVALS – Venice International Film Festival (Venice, Italy, Aug 31 – Sep 10):

The world’s oldest film festival, Venice is still one of the most prestigious movie events of the year, although it has been losing ground in late years as many producers who miss the chance to debut at Cannes choose to premiere at the better-attended Toronto Film Festival instead. Still, Venice always lands a few scoops…

• The Bad Batch – Ana Lily Amirpour‘s much-anticipated followup to A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night features Keanu Reeves and Jim Carrey and was originally pitched as “a dystopian love story in a Texas wasteland and set in a community of cannibals.” Screens Sep. 6.
• David Lynch: The Art of Life – Documentary about Lynch, focusing on his formative years and on his painting; the third in an ongoing series of documentaries about the modern surrealist standard bearer. Sep. 4 & 6.
• Stalker (1979) – Andrei Tarkovsky‘s existential sci-fi mystery (which we certified weird) screens on Sep. 3 and 4.

Venice International Film Festival home page (English).

NEW ON DVD:

Woman in the Dunes (1964): Read the reader recommendation by Frederik Allemark. The Criterion Collection’s bare-bones 2007 DVD of Hiroshi Teshigahara‘s surreal masterpiece about a world covered in sand went out of print, but has been reissued with the company’s usual array of special features. Buy Woman in the Dunes [Criterion Collection].

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Modesty Blaise (1966): Fashion-forward spy Modesty Blaise travels to a Mediterranean isle to investigate a jewel heist. The semi-psychedelic spy spoof was a fairly big flop, but it’s one of those examples of late-Sixties cinematic excess that always make for a strange viewing experience today. Buy Modesty Blaise [Blu-ray].

Woman in the Dunes (1964): See description in DVD above. Crtierion’s Dunes reissue naturally includes a Blu edition. Buy Woman in the Dunes [Criterion Collection Blu-ray].

What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that I have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.

Our weekly look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs, and on more distant horizons…

Trailers of new release movies are generally available at the official site links.

SCREENINGS – (Los Angeles, Cinefamily, 8/19):

Suspiria (1977): Read the Certified Weird entry! Dario Argento‘s expressionist witchcraft classic is one of the most commonly screened Certified Weird films in the midnight repertoire. Screens tonight, Sug. 19, at 11:00 PM PST. Also playing at the Cinefamily this weekend: a selection of archival public access films made by the bizarre UFO cult the “Unarius Academy of Sciences” (Sunday evening); the Los Angeles premier of Danny Perez‘s psychedelic horror film Antibirth (with the director and star Natasha Lyonne in attendance) late Monday night; and their ongoing Andrzej Zulawski tribute wraps up with a screening of his first film, 1971’s The Third Part of the Night, on Tuesday, with his final feature Cosmos playing on Wednesday and again on Friday (August 24 & 26). Check out the entire Cinefamily calendar.

IN DEVELOPMENT (PRE-PRODUCTION):

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (201?): Writer/director Giorgos Lanthimos and acotr Colin Farrell continue their collaboration from the Certified Weird The Lobster with their next project, described as a “psychological thriller.” Farrell plays a doctor who takes in a troubled teenager; Nicole Kidman plays his wife. Lanthimos’s regular co-scripter Efthymis Filippou is also on board, as is distributor A24. To be filmed in Cincinnati. More at Variety.

IN DEVELOPMENT (IN PRODUCTION):

Jacob’s Ladder (201?): Read the entry for the Certified Weird original. A remake of a movie that relies on a twist ending that everyone knows by now? We’re required to keep an open mind, but it’s hard to see how this could possibly work. There are a few minor changes: the main cast is now African-American, and Jacob now has a brother who plays a prominent role. Variety has more details.

NEW ON DVD:

Wild in the Streets (1968): A rock musician gets the voting age lowered to fourteen, then runs for President on a platform that includes mandatory LSD dosing for anyone over 35. A counterculture goof with a minor cult following that has been hard to find on video for a while. Buy Wild in the Streets.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984): Read the Certified Weird entry! The adventures of the titular rock star/adventurer come to life on this collector’s edition Blu-ray in a disc packed with two commentaries, a new 2-hour featurette, and a bonus DVD with alternate footage, trailers and even more features. Buy The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension [Collector’s Edition Blu-ray].

Wild in the Streets (1968): See description in DVD above. There are no advertised special features on either the DVD or Blu-ray. Buy Wild in the Streets [Blu-ray].

YOU LINK US! YOU REALLY LINK US!:

We got a lot of traffic recently from the Screen Rant listicle “13 Cartoons Completely Disowned by Their Creators,” which borrows some knowledge from Alfred Eaker in their paragraph on Cool World. Cool!

What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that I have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.

Our weekly look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs, and on more distant horizons…

Trailers of new release movies are generally available at the official site links.

SCREENINGS – (Los Angeles, Cinefamily, 8/16):

The Devil (1972): Read El Rob Hubbard’s review! The posthumous Andrzej Zulawski lovefest continues with this medieval period piece about a Polish nobleman and a mysterious Mephistolean manipulator. From a newly restored print. Devil is surely scheduled for a video release soon. Also at Cinefamily this week: 1973’s Touki Bouki, Africa’s first surrealist film (tonight at 7:30 PM PST), John Waters‘s Multiple Maniacs (all week), and the Waters-esque new release The Greasy Strangler (“offsite at the Ace”—we confess we don’t know exactly what that means, but assume Los Angelinos will be able to figure it out). Check it all out on the Cinefamily calendar.

NEW ON DVD:

Baskin (2015): Turkish midnight movie about cops who are lured into the entrance to Hell. A Blu-ray/DVD combo pack from Shout! Factory with no advertised special features. Buy Baskin.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Basket Case 2 (1990): Duane and his former Siamese twin (who lives in a basket) hide out in a home for wayward freaks. The sequel is campier and more deliberately comedy oriented than the original, and 2 is mainly notable for its creative (if cheap) monster designs. Buy Basket Case 2 [Blu-ray].

Basket Case 3: The Progeny (1991): The final installment of the Basket Case saga sees Belial fathering a litter of freaks with his better (?) half. Widely regarded as a disappointing end to the franchise. Buy Basket Case 3 [Blu-ray].

Baskin (2015): See description in DVD above. Buy Baskin.

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES:

collective:unconscious (2016): Five underground directors (Dan Carbone, Josephine Decker, Lauren Wolkstein, Lily Baldwin, and Frances Bodomo) take turns interpreting each others’ dreams. Per producer Dan Schoenbrun, “We’ve decided to release the full feature online for free … It’s such a strange film that we don’t think we’d stand much of a chance in the traditional marketplace, but we think we’ve made something really unique and special, and we have faith that audiences will connect with it if we make it freely available.” We’ll review it soon, but in the meantime here are some links to view or download it:

Bit Torrent – this download includes supplemental material, a song mix, and a remixed edit of the film (the “Nyquil” cut)

Vimeo – stream, or download the film without the extra features

YouTube – stream only

What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that I have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.

Long-time readers of this site may have noticed that the format for our Certified Weird entries has changed slightly over the years. Starting with entry 201 (Blue Velvet, published May 6, 2015) we began adding a heading called “THREE WEIRD THINGS” to the write-ups (for the inaugural entry, those three weird things were “dream of the robins,” “candy-colored clown,” and “dead man standing”).

Since we started this category relatively late in the site’s history, there are still 200 movies on the List without a “three weird things” entry. Your challenge, should you chose to accept it, will be to compose a “three weird things” entry for one of the Certified Weird movies that does not yet have one. If you’re looking for a list of all the movies meeting that criterion, you can start here and use the navigation bar at the bottom to go forward (all entries on pages 6 to 25 of that list qualify). Here are just a few suggestions for popular movies without a “three weird things” entry yet: Gummo, The Holy Mountain, Begotten, Donnie Darko, Naked Lunch, Enter the Void, Evil Dead II, and Eraserhead.

The submission we judge to be best will win a factory-sealed Blu-ray of the 2014 horror filmThe Perfect Husband (see description below). As a bonus, the winning submission will also be added to the official review for the movie they chose, with a note identifying the winner by his or her chosen handle.

“Three Weird Things” entries should be short phrases (2-4 words each, rarely more). The ideal entry will identify the three legitimately weirdest elements of the chosen film in a way that’s clever, but without being too “jokey.” Also, the submission should not be vulgar and should not give away crucial plot points or spoilers.

The contest winner will be chosen by 366 Weird Movies and must furnish a U.S. address for prize delivery. Contest open to residents of the U.S. only.  By making a submission in the contest, you agree to allow us to publish your contribution with no further compensation. Contest closes Sunday, Aug. 14, at midnight and the winner will be announced on Monday, Aug. 15. Enter by making a comment on this post. Multiple entries for different films are acceptable.

ABOUT THE PRIZE:

A Blu-ray of The Perfect Husband has been provided by Artsploitation Films (distributors of the Certified Weird Der Samurai).

From the boxcover: “This unsettling psychological horror film is a bloody delight. A couple try to recover from a family trauma by spending a weekend in a cottage in the woods but what was supposed to be a romantic weekend suddenly turns into a deadly nightmare as seething suspicions, maddening paranoia and blind rage explodes around them.”

The Flick Fanatic’s Companion calls it “Blood and violent… terrifying and suspenseful… this is a great movie!”

Written and directed by Lucas Pavetto. Starring Gabriella Wright (“The Tudors”) and Bret Roberts. Bonus features: “Il Marito Perfectto (short film), The Perfect Husband behind-the-scenes, and Artsploitation film trailers.