Next week’s a little up in the air as to reviews; lots of different pots are simmering.   Definitely expect to see the bizarro extraterrestrial film, XTRO (1983).  As to the rest of the week, it could be any combination of Frownland (2007), Kontroll (2003), Loren Cass (2006), an update of Antichrist (2009), and the recent George Mieles box set.  You’ll just have to check back to see!

The Internet is falling down in its mission to amuse us with poorly conceived search terms used to locate the site in search engines.  More and more, people are coming here actually looking for “weird movies” or other completely appropriate search terms like “weird nude feature film jesus” or “sea shell bras.”  Looking for a notably weird search term, we’re forced to select “Anges exterminateurs free watches” because it makes us think someone is looking for a Jean-Claude Brisseau timepiece.

Updating the reader-suggested review queue: Xtro (next week); Basket Case; Suicide Club; O Lucky Man!; Trash Humpers (when/if released); Gozu; Tales of Ordinary Madness; The Wayward Cloud; Kwaidan; Six-String Samurai; Andy Warhol’s Trash; Altered States; Memento; Nightmare Before Christmas/Vincent/Frankenweenie; The Science of Sleep; The Attic Expeditions; After Last Season; Getting Any?; Performance; Being John Malkovich; The Apple; Southland Tales; Arizona Dream; Spider (2002); Songs From The Second Floor; Singapore Sling; Alice [Neco z Alenky]; Necromania (1971, Ed Wood); Hour of the Wolf; MirrorMask; Possession; Suspiria; Mary and Max; Wild Zero; 4; Nothing (2003); The Peanut Butter Solution; Ninja Scroll; Perfume: The Story of a Murderer; Danger: Diabolik; Faust; Sublime; Battle Royale; Pink Floyd: The Wall; Escanaba In Da Moonlight; Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter; Zardoz; The Films of Suzan Pitt; Toto the Hero [Toto le Héros]; Paprika; The Holy Mountain; Brazil; The Casserole Masters; Dark Crystal; Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets; The Nines; 964 Pinocchio; The Pillow Book; Final Flesh; Lunacy [Sílení]; Inmortel; Tetsuo; Dead Ringers; Kairo [AKA Pulse]; The Guatemalan Handshake; Dead Leaves; Frownland; The Seventh Seal; Taxidermia; Primer; Maniac (1934); Hausu; A Boy and His Dog; 200 Motels; Walkabout; Private Parts (1972); Possession; Saddest Music in the World; Mulholland Drive; The American Astronaut; Blood Tea and Red Strings; Malice in Wonderland; The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. II (for Lucifer Rising, among others); The Human Centipede (First Sequence); Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory ; The Bride of Frank; La Grande Bouffe; Uzumaki [Spiral]; Hedwig and the Angry Inch; Even Dwarves Started Small; Bunny & the Bull; “I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meat Hook, and Now I Have a Three-Picture Deal at Disney” (assuming I can find it); Cinema 16: European Short Films; Freaked; and Session 9.

A 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 on the official site links.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2008): Badly animated CGI birds attack community theater actors who swat at them with coat hangers.  Those of you who thought that the trailer we posted yesterday was an April Fool’s Day joke, consider yourself fooled. Birdemic is all too real.  Watch for midnight screenings this week in New York City, Phoenix and Los Angeles; in upcoming months it will play Austin, TX; Washington, DC; Portland, OR; Denver, CO; Detroit, MI; San Francisco, CA; Philadelphia, PA; Milwaukee, WI; Minneapolis, MN; Houston, TX; Dallas, TX; Cleveland, OH; and Seattle, WA.  Sounds worth a road trip.  Birdemic: Shock and Terror official site.

NEW ON DVD:

Alice in Wonderland (1951) (2 Disc Special Un-Anniversary Edition):  Disney re-releases Uncle Walt’s original animated version of Lewis Carroll’s tale to capitalize on the popularity of Tim Burton‘s mediocre live-action reimagining.  Extras on the second disc include a “making of” documentary, a deleted scene and a deleted song, the Mickey Mouse short “Thru the Mirror,” and interactive games.  Buy Alice in Wonderland (2-Disc Special Un-Anniversary Edition).

Girly [Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly] (1970):  Intriguing sounding, obscure British black comedy about a lunatic family that kidnaps hippies and forces them to play deadly games; losers are “sent to the angels.”  It’s comforting to see that offbeat, forgotten films like this still surface on home video from time to time.  Buy Girly.

I Sell the Dead (2008): Offbeat tale of a pair of Victorian grave robbers who specialize in digging up, capturing and trafficking the un-dead—a lucrative underground business they dub the “resurrection trade.”  With Ron Perlman.  Part of Glasseye Pics innovative “ScareFlix” series (which also includes the Certified Weird I Can See You). Buy I Sell the Dead.

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

The Usual Children (1997): No real information on this obscure movie, but it’s a family musical fantasy about a young boy who wishes his sister dead on Christmas Eve, and finds his wish granted in a parallel universe.  The hitch is, his little sister returns as a ghost to haunt him.  Sounds pretty odd to us.  Watch The Usual Children free on YouTube.

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.

A 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 on the official site links.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

Bluebeard [Barbe Bleu] (2009):  Sumptuous costume fairy tale retelling the story of the titular spouse-slaying aristocrat.   Directed by Catherine Breillat, notorious for including explicit sex in provocative movies like Romance, this film is receiving almost unanimous critical acclaim.  No official website.

NEW ON DVD:

Institute Benjamenta, or, This Dream People Call Human Life (1995): We’ve been awaiting the re-release of this surrealist story about a boarding school for servants from the Quay brothers, once known for their bizarre stop-animation shorts. Major props to the British Film Institute for rescuing this one from obscurity. Now for the bad news: it’s currently only available in Region 2. There is supposed to be a Blu-ray release as well, but we don’t see one in the U.S. (fingers crossed, yet).  Europeans can buy this from Movie Mail UK.

The Prisoner (2009) (Miniseries): American Movie Channel’s remake of the classic 1960s anti-authority/existential/absurdist cult-TV program about an ex-spy trapped on an island where everyone goes by a number, not a name, with Ian McKellen playing the sinister Number Two.  Fans of the original were outraged, often calling it “incomprehensible” (did they see the finale of the original?)  We’d be willing to give it a chance. Buy “The Prisoner” (Miniseries)

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.

Next week we’ll have reviews of the recently re-released post-apocalyptic robot movie Hardware (1990); ponder 2009’s Palme d’Or winner, The White Ribbon [Das Weisse Band]; and scratch the gory Japanese sc-fi’er Meatball Machine (2005) off the reader-suggested review queue.

The weirdest search term used to locate the site this week (with apologies to runners-up “bizarre insect porn” and “1960’s movie women in bras in capsules”) was “process of intercourse with movies.”

The review queue received a massive infusion of suggestions this week. Here’s how it stands: What? (Diary of Forbidden Dreams) (coming in two weeks); Meatball Machine (next week); Xtro; Basket Case; Suicide Club; O Lucky Man!; Trash Humpers (when/if released); Gozu; Tales of Ordinary Madness; The Wayward Cloud; Kwaidan; Six-String Samurai; Andy Warhol’s Trash; Altered States; Memento; Nightmare Before Christmas/Vincent/Frankenweenie; The Science of Sleep; The Attic Expeditions; After Last Season; Getting Any?; Performance; Being John Malkovich; The Apple; Southland Tales; Arizona Dream; Spider (2002); Songs From The Second Floor; Singapore Sling; Alice [Neco z Alenky]; Necromania (1971, Ed Wood); Hour of the Wolf; MirrorMask; Possession; Suspiria; Mary and Max; Wild Zero; 4; Nothing (2003); The Peanut Butter Solution; Ninja Scroll; Perfume: The Story of a Murderer; Danger: Diabolik; Faust; Sublime; Battle Royale; Pink Floyd: The Wall; Escanaba In Da Moonlight; Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter; Zardoz; The Films of Suzan Pitt; Toto the Hero [Toto le Héros]; Paprika; The Holy Mountain; Brazil; The Casserole Masters; Dark Crystal; Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets; The Nines; 964 Pinocchio; The Pillow Book; Final Flesh; Lunacy [Sílení]; Inmortel; Tetsuo; Dead Ringers; Kairo [AKA Pulse]; The Guatemalan Handshake; Dead Leaves; Frownland; The Seventh Seal; Taxidermia; Primer; Maniac (1934); Hausu; A Boy and His Dog; 200 Motels; Walkabout; Private Parts (1972); Possession; Saddest Music in the World; Mulholland Drive; The American Astronaut; Blood Tea and Red Strings; Malice in Wonderland; The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. II (for Lucifer Rising, among others); The Human Centipede (First Sequence); and Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory . Whew!

In other news, we’ve decided to phase out star ratings for movies. Parsing the difference between a one-and-a-half star and two-star movie has turned into a thankless, as well as meaningless, chore. From here on out, we’ll only be tagging movies with one of three self-explanatory quality ratings: MUST SEE, RECOMMENDED, or BEWARE. Most movies won’t get any rating; see those movies if you like the subject matter, director, star, plot description, or some other feature of the movie.  (We realize that some people will be tempted to seek out only movies marked “BEWARE”.)  It’s your call, but we don’t think you’ll be missing anything if you skip an unlabeled movie.  We can also use these tags to recognize and recommend movies that are excellent in their fields, but may not show the necessary level of bizarrity to deserve a place on the List.

We’re also adding another tag/label, WEIRDEST.  If you’re only looking for weird, and don’t care whether the movie is good or not, you’ll want to browse this tag.  We’ve been struggling with the tension between selecting the best weird movies and choosing the plain ol’ weirdest movies.   Many of the weirdest movies are uneven, distasteful, or too amateur to recommend, but we recognize that many readers will prefer to seek out the abysmal and disgusting Nekromantik ahead of an excellent, but not nearly as weird, movie such as Don’t Look Now.   The WEIRDEST! tag is a way to recognize movies that may not be good enough to make the List of the 366 Best Weird Movies of All Time, but definitely deserve props for going totally weird.

We’ll be using these tags exclusively from now on, and slowly re-rating the older movies.

Finally, let us plug the 366 Weird Movies 2009 Yearbook one last time… if you’re interested in purchasing a copy, please click here.