It’s a simple deal: write the best review, win a DVD!  Specifically, you can win Trailers from Hell, Vol. 2 (review here), a disc that includes a copy of The Little Shop of Horrors (review here).  True, it’s a used copy, but it’s only been watched a couple of times for review purposes.

The rules of the contest are simple:

1. Write a review of a movie that you think should be on the List of the 366 Best Weird Movies, but that hasn’t been covered here yet.  Including the following sections: DIRECTOR, FEATURING (listing the most important actors), PLOT (a one sentence synopsis), WHY IT DESERVES TO MAKE THE LIST (a one sentence to one paragraph description of why you think the movie is weird), COMMENTS (one to two paragraphs describing the movie in more detail). If you have a suggestion for a still to represent the movie and/or a quote from a critic on the film, you can include those, but they are not required.
2. In rare cases, a well-thought out “second opinion” on a movie that we have already considered, but that you think we got wrong (either by putting it on the List when it shouldn’t have made it, or rejecting a film that should have made it), will be an acceptable subject for a review.  We would still prefer reviews of movies we haven’t yet covered.
3. Submit your work on our contact form. By submitting your entry on this form, you agree to allow 366weirdmovies.com to publish your work, either whole or in edited form, on this website. Your work may be selected for publication even if you are not chosen as the winner.
4. The contest is open to anyone whose work has not previously been published on 366weirdmovies.com.
5. You may not write a review promoting a film which you were involved in the production of, or in which you have a financial interest.
6. This site strives to remain “PG” rated; do not use profanity in your review.
7. The contest will remain open for one month, until August 13, 2010, at which time the editor will select the best entry. The winner will be chosen on the basis of writing style, insight, and appropriateness of the movie chosen.  The deadline may be extended, depending on the number of entries received.
8. In order to be eligible to receive the prize, you must supply a valid email address and a valid mailing address. International addresses are acceptable. If the winning entrant does not supply a valid mailing address, or declines the prize, the DVD will be given to a randomly selected entry with a mailing address in the United States. If no entries are from the United States, then the deadline to complete the contest will be extended.

TIPS: Avoid merely summarizing the plot in your comments. Avoid giving away “spoilers” in your descriptions that might ruin the enjoyment of the film. Obscure titles are fine—in fact, they may be worth bonus points—but try to pick a film that is available on DVD, or is at least likely to be released. If you write on a film no one will be able to view or locate, the movie may be judged as inappropriate.

One final tip: don’t be scared away by thinking you have to write something profoundly insightful. Simply consider it as a chance to describe and recommend a film to that narrow audience of people who are interested in the same kind of weird movies as you are.

Chances of winning depend on the number of entries received.

Have fun! The winner, and even the runners-up, may be invited to become regular contributors to the site!  (Just ask past contest participants Alex Kittle, Andreas Stoehr, Eric Gabbard , Kat Doherty,or Pamela De Graff!)

Next week, we’ll be hitting that reader-suggested review queue with reviews of Jan Svankmajer‘s horrific Lunacy (2005) and the bizarre ultraviolent anime Dead Leaves (2004).  We’ll also have coverage of Charlie Chaplin‘s The Great Dictator (1940) (recently re-released by the Criterion Collection).

Now, we could put in more reviews this week, but instead we’re going to feature a couple of interactive posts on Wednesday, so be sure to check us out then!

It was an extremely weak—almost pathetic—week in terms of weird search terms used to locate the site.   Where are all the weirdos, sunning themselves at the beach?  They’re certainly not in front of their computers, typing deranged search terms into Google.  We’re reduced to nominating such relatively normal strings as “cat people begging” and “why arizona ream is called to movie” as honorable mentions.  Yet, even in a poor field, there is one bizarre search query that stands out from the rest: “ninety black swan boobs.”  We can totally understand searching for “black swan boobs,” but why precisely ninety of them?  That’s the sort of incomprehensible eccentricity that makes for a great Weirdest Search Term of the Week.

Here’s that ever-growing reader-suggested review queue (more titles after the break, as always):  Lunacy [Sílení] (next week!); Dead Leaves (next week!); Perfume: The Story of a Murderer; Inmortel (2004); Dead Ringers; Kairo [AKA Pulse]; The Guatemalan Handshake;  Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

Monday is Independence Day here in the US, and what better way to celebrate our dissolution from the British Empire than with a review of the controversial, weird, and never-seen-in-the-US black comedy UK television series “Jam”?  Further on in the week we’ll take a look at Terrence Malick’s remarkable Tree of Life (now in theaters), the latest DVD compilation from “Trailers from Hell,” and He Who Gets Slapped (1924), a silent melodrama starring Lon Chaney as a vengeful clown that is not from Tod Browning.

We can’t say it was the weirdest week on record in terms of odd search terms used to locate this site, but we found a few notable head-scratching queries as always.  “Pull out their own sexual organs” had us wondering if the phrase was chopped off—who pulls out their own sexual organs?—and whether it would make more or less sense if we had the missing info.  The search string “weird movies made by drugs” was strange enough, but when the searcher didn’t find the answer he was looking for, he clarified with a more specific (and more bizarre) search for “weird ma movies made by drugs.”  Our weirdest search term of the week, however, is the simple but appealing “french existential animated dog mask circus.”  Now, that’s a circus we might actually go to!

Here’s the ridiculously-long reader-suggested review queue (as always, lots more titles after the break): “Jam” (TV show – next week!), Perfume: The Story of a Murderer; Lunacy [Sílení]; Inmortel (2004); Dead Ringers; Kairo [AKA Pulse]; The Guatemalan Handshake; Dead Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

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

There’s nothing weird debuting in theaters this week… though you may want to check out The Tree of Life if you haven’t already.  Frankly, summer blockbuster season can’t end soon enough for us. Fortunately, it’s a huge week for home video releases, so we don’t mind the drought at the cinemas so much.

IN DEVELOPMENT:

Alma (est. 2011-2015):  The creepy short film by former Pixar animator Rodrigo Blaas about a little girl sucked into a bizarre soul-stealing toy store has been greenlighted by Dreamworks, thanks to the intervention of new DW collaborator Guillermo del Toro, who will executive produce while Blaas directs.  Something about this career path—young animator with a cute/macabre style makes award-winning unreleased short, gets shot at making feature—reminds us of the story of a young Tim Burton, except that the studio is behind the artist this time.  Read the story at the LA Times.  The original short can be viewed below.

They Saved Hitler’s Brain (est. 2011):  Ever since it worked for Little Shop of Horrors, everyone is convinced they can take any crazy old B-movie and turn it into a hit musical.  The incredibly stupid and confusing Hitler’s Brain is the next target of this trend (which has already seen movies like Evil Dead and The Toxic Avenger turned into off-Broadway song-and-dance fests).   We can just hear the libretto in our heads: “Heil, heil Hitler, you’re just a head/No house to live in, use this jar instead!”  It’s listed as a 2011 production on the IMDB, but there hasn’t been any official news since the project was announced in 2008.

NEW ON DVD:

The Baby (1973): “Sick” black comedy/horror about a family who keeps their thumb-sucking, mentally-disabled 21-year-old son in a crib and diapers.  The DVD box cover proudly quotes DVD Drive-In as saying, “One of the most bizarre films to come out of Hollywood in the 1970s!”  This title is also currently in our reader-suggested review queue, so you can expect to see a review in the coming weeks. Buy The Baby.

Black Moon (1975):  A girl flees a land where the sexes are literally at war (with guns and tanks) and escapes to a farmhouse where she meets a unicorn, among other strange creatures, in this extremely surreal film.  Big-time weirdness from a cinema master (Louis Malle) brought to us by the Criterion Collection.  Buy Black Moon [The Criterion Collection].

“ReBoot: The Definitive Mainframe Edition”:  Anyone who caught this 1994 computer-animated kiddie show about a society that lives inside a desktop computer on a Saturday morning in 1994 might be forgiven for thinking they hadn’t yet come down from whatever substances they had consumed the night before.  It continues the great Saturday morning cartoon tradition of simultaneously appealing to kids and adults who love a little light weirdness.  Now the entire series is available in this 9 disc box set.  Buy “ReBoot: The Definitive Mainframe Edition”.

Sucker Punch (2011): Read our capsule review.  A young girl invents a fantasy world in this video game style spectacle. Buy Sucker Punch.

Tetsuo: The Bullet Man (2009):  A man begins to transform into a machine, to a soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails.  We certify Tetsuo: The Iron Man weird on Wednesday, and the second sequel/remake just happens to have been released to DVD the day before… coincidence?  Yes!  Buy Tetsuo: The Bullet Man.

White Lightnin’ (2009):  Biopic of Jesco White, outlaw, clog-dancer, gas-huffer, and perhaps the wildest of the insane Appalachian clan profiled in the surprise documentary hit The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia (2009).  Mentioned here because it was filmed in an experimental style with hallucinations and ends with a descent into madness that left some viewers scratching their heads. Buy White Lightnin’.

Zazie dans le metro (1960): Speaking of Louis Malle, weird, and the Criterion Collection, Zazie isn’t as aggressively surreal as Black Moon but it’s also of interest.  It’s a wacky, absurd, whimsical, and totally unreal slapstick satire of Paris. Buy Zazie dans le metro [The Criterion Collection].

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Black Moon (1975):  See description in DVD above. Buy Black Moon [Blu-ray].

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001):  Mindbending science-fiction anime about post-apocalyptic bounty hunters on the trail of a bio-terrorist.  Fans of the anime series will doubtlessly be thrilled by this Blu-ray debut, but word is the film stands up well as a standalone piece for those who never watched an episode of the TV show. Buy Cowboy Bebop: The Movie [Blu-ray].

Sucker Punch (2011): See description in DVD above.  Buy Sucker Punch (Blu-ray/DVD Combo).

Zazie dans le metro (1960): See description in DVD above. Buy Zazie dans le metro [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.