Next week we’ll take a dive into the reader-suggested review queue to look at the funny side of the Ten Commandments with The Ten, and we’ll also strike on the new release front with a gander at Japan’s latest entry in the schoolgirl splatterpunk cycle, Mutant Girls Squad. Attenberg, about a girl who hates sex but loves inventing bizarre mating ritual dances, does double duty as both a new release and a reader suggestion. Add to that slate 1944’s Bluebeard (starring John Carradine and directed by Edgar G.Ulmer—a match made in Poverty Row heaven) and you’ve got yourself another weird week.

The competition for Weirdest Search Term was hot and heavy last week. First off, we can only hope that the person wondering “can catfish give oral sex” eventually found this movie, which may help answer her question. (Seeing is believing!) Next up is a truly incomprehensible search term we don’t really want to think too much about: “woody allen nudisten.” “Japanese film about women washing men with her vagina” and “weird movie for tripping acid jesus colleges cake” were this week’s entries in the “if that movie really exists, we really need to cover it” category. But the undisputed winner was “ancient greek war 2;biggest boob woman breast feeding the thirsty soldier. review…” which combines fetishism, unconventional punctuation and complete confusion about the actual object of their query into a bizarre brew worthy of being named 366 Weird Movies’ Weirdest Search Term of the Week.

Here’s how the ridiculously-long-and-ever-growing reader-suggested review queue now stands: The Ten (next week!); Attenberg (next week!); The Hour-glass Sanatorium [Saanatorium pod klepsidra] (out of print in Region 1, but we’ll keep looking); Liquid Sky (re-review); “Twin Peaks” Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

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 on the official site links.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

The Tall Man: When her own son goes missing a skeptical nurse (Jessica Biel) investigates child disappearances blamed on a legendary figure called “the Tall Man.” This genre-busting entry from the director of Martyrs has been dividing early critics and audiences. The Tall Man official site.

IN DEVELOPMENT:

Zero Theorem (est. 2013): Terry Gilliam‘s latest feature project will star Christoph Waltz and will shoot in Bucharest. According to the auteur it’s from a ” [v]ery original script about a man waiting for a telephone call that will give meaning to his life. Some other things happen as well.” Among the “other things” are naked people being sucked into a black hole. Get more juicy details in this Gilliam interview from Dreams.

NEW ON DVD:

The Living Dead Girl (1982): A toxic waste spill turns a beautiful naked corpse into a vampire/zombie hybrid. Redemption continues to exhume the weird works of Jean Rollin with this exceptionally gory late entry in the director’s erotic horror cycle. Buy The Living Dead Girl.

“Maidstone and Other Films by Norman Mailer: Eclipse Series 35”: Although many movie fans realize Pulitzer Prize winning author Norman Mailer directed the bizarre big-budget flop Tough Guys Don’t Dance in 1987, many still don’t know that he dabbled in making experimental films in the late 1960s. Here are his first three attempts: the improvised apartment drama Wild 90 (1968), the police procedural Beyond the Law (1968), and the most interesting effort, Maidstone (1970), a crazy fourth-wall-breaking satire about a movie director running for president. Buy “Eclipse Series 35: Maidstone and Other Films by Norman Mailer”.

Two Orphan Vampires (1997): Two teenage (lesbian?) orphan vampires terrorize the streets of Paris at night. One of Jean Rollin’s final movies before his death in 2010. Buy Two Orphan Vampires.

Zebraman (2004): A mild-mannered schoolteacher is forced to take on the persona of his childhood TV idol, Zebraman, in this wild but kid-friendly fantasy from none other than Takashi Miike. A rival company released a 2 disc special edition of Zebraman just 3 years ago, so this sub-sawbuck “Tokyo Shock Classics” re-release is aimed at bargain hunters rather than connoisseurs. Buy Zebraman.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948): Two bumbling baggage clerks accidentally revive the remains of both Frankenstein’s monster and Dracula; fortunately the Wolf Man arrives to help the buffoons defeat ultimate evil. OK, so it was a huge hit in its day and maybe it’s not super-weird, but this title does appear on page 1 of every cult movie reference book worth its salt. Available in a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack only; includes commentary and bonus features. Buy Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein [Blu-ray /DVD /Digital Copy].

The Living Dead Girl (1982): See description in DVD above. Buy The Living Dead Girl [Blu-ray].

Two Orphan Vampires (1997): See description in DVD above. Buy Two Orphan Vampires [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (1966): On the run from the law, Jesse James seeks refuge in the lair of Frankenstein’s granddaughter, who promptly turns one of his gang into a lumbering monster. Western director William Beaudine was known as “One Shot” Beaudine because of his refusal to waste money on second takes. Critics generally believe this one doesn’t live up to the high standard Beaudine set with Billy the Kid vs. Dracula.

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.

Here’s what we’ve got lined up next week: we’ll report on the British hit-man psychothriller Kill List (2011); investigate 1985’s Dreamchild, which explores the ambiguous real-life relationship between “Alice in Wonderland” scribe Lewis Carroll and his prepubescent muse Alice Liddell; and, bowing to public pressure, we grant David Cronenberg‘s disturbing gynecological fable Dead Ringers its rightful place on the List of the 366 Best Weird Movies ever made. We’ll even throw in a top 10 weird movies list from underground filmmaking team Daniel Fawcett and Clara Pais; something for everyone!

We start off our survey of this week’s weirdest search terms used to locate this site with one that really isn’t all that strange, but is nonetheless newsworthy: “if you dont appreciate wierd movies, i dont like you.” Moving on to weirder stuff, we noticed “nipping out brides.” That’s a bit weird, sure, but the next search term weirded us out a little because it made us feel like we’d come in on the middle of someone’s dirty chat conversation: “a angel is in the bathroom. that babe watches herself in the mirror..” Still, among this week’s crazy queries nothing beats the winner of our Weirdest Search Term of the Week, “flaying love white doll sex.” The icing on the cake? Google helpfully suggests the searcher may have meant to look for “flying love white doll sex.” Sure, that makes a lot more… wait, what?

Here’s how the ridiculously-long-and-ever-growing reader-suggested review queue stands: The Hour-glass Sanatorium [Saanatorium pod klepsidra] (out of print in Region 1, but we’ll keep looking); Liquid Sky (re-review); “Twin Peaks” (TV series); Society; Little Otik; Final Programme; Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

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 on the official site links.

SCREENINGS (Boston, Mass., Aug 24-26):

Daisies [Sedmikrásky] (1966): Read the Certified Weird entry! This Czech New Wave film about two spoiled girls who wreck their way through sundry surreal set pieces was so damn weird the Communist authorities assumed it had to be subversive, so when they couldn’t find any objectionable political content, they banned it because a food fight scene sent a bad message about wasting national resources. Janus Films has unexpectedly sent it on a U.S. tour; besides Boston, Daisies will sprout up in Chicago, Vancouver, Philadelphia, and other major cities throughout the remainder of 2012 and into early 2013. Check Janus Films’s Daisies theatrical release page to see if it will be coming to a theater near you.

FILM FESTIVALS: VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (Aug. 29-Sep. 8, Venice, Italy):

Venice is the oldest and second most prestigious (after Cannes) film festival in Europe. Since Venice accepts only films making their world premier in competition, there is no overlap with the Cannes slate of films. There’s not much that looks weird in Venice but here are a few movies that may be worth keeping an eye on:

• La cinquième saison [The Fifth Season] – All we know about this Belgian film is that the magical realist premise is that one year spring does not come to a rural village, and the social order disintegrates. Screening in competition Sept. 6.
• Forgotten [Du Hast Es Versprochen] – Horrible secrets revealed on a remote island in what director Alex Schmidt describes as “a mixture of psycho-thriller and mystery-horror,” adding “My aim was to depict the abysses of the human soul by intertwining them with fairy-tale-like elements.” Screening out of competition Sep. 7.
• Spring Breakers – The bikini publicity photos make it look like a typical teen-sex comedy, but with Harmony Korine at the helm we’re guessing this story of four college girls who get into criminal trouble on spring break will be anything but conventional. Squeaky clean Disney alums Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens will try to de-habilitate their images with this project. In competition, screening Sep. 5.
• Superstar – An ordinary man becomes a celebrity without any explanation why. The scenario is identical to the Roberto Begnini strand of Woody Allen‘s To Rome with Love, but director Xavier Giannoli promises the tone is “simultaneously Kafkaesque and Hitchcockian.” Aug. 30.

Venice International Film Festival home page

FILM FESTIVALS: EVERYTHING IS FESTIVAL (Aug. 18-23, Los Angeles, CA):

Looks like we missed the first half of this found-footage/general craptasticness festival sponsored by the weirdos from Everything Is Terrible! (why oh why didn’t we subscribe to the newsletter?), so we’ll spare you the regret of detailing what you missed and instead set our sights on the highlights to come. Saturday, August 25th brings us a mini-festival of outsider artists movies (backyard impresarios working beneath the underground) and a selection of weird short films (at least one of which has been featured on these pages as a Saturday Short) curated by Dave Hughes of the Adult Swim program “Off the Air.” Sunday brings a screening of the “take that, George Lucas!” viral sensation Star Wars: Uncut on the big screen. Other oddities include screenings of the kung fu flop Miami Connection (1987), a reunion for the cult kid’s show “The Adventures of Pete and Pete,” and found-footage montages themed around cats and religion. Los Angelinos can get the complete scoop and schedule at the Cinefamily website.

IN DEVELOPMENT:

Captain Ahab’s Motorcycle Club (201?): There’s really no solid information available yet on this mysterious project from American Astronaut auteur Cory McAbee. It’s intended as a collaborative affair involving musicians, graphic artists, and documentary filmmaker Gregory Bayne, to be at least partially created by “independent club chapters” (“participation equals membership”). Head to the Captain Ahab’s Motorcycle Club website, and if you figure out what’s going on here, please tell us!

NEW ON DVD:

Black Magic Rites [AKA The Reincarnation of Isabella] (1973): Muscleheaded Mickey Hargitay believes the blood of virgins (naked ones, of course) will reincarnate his 500-years-dead lover, so he rents a Gothic dungeon, sets up a torture chamber, and gets to work perving about. Fans of nonsensical Eurosleaze will perk up the ears (at the very least) at this typically naughty Redemption release. Buy Black Magic Rites.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Black Magic Rites [AKA The Reincarnation of Isabella] (1973): See description in DVD above. Buy Black Magic Rites [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Seraphim Falls (2006): Big time movie star Liam Neeson tracks big time movie star Pierce Brosnan from the mountains to the desert in this modern revenge Western that was overlooked at the box office because it turns bat-guano insane at the end. It’s not bad, rewarding the patient viewer with a dollop of high desert weirdness at the climax. Watch Seraphim Falls 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.

Next week, we’ll be focusing on a pair of new releases: Francis Ford Coppola’s overlooked dream-based horror Twixt and Guy Maddin’s surrealist gangster odyssey Keyhole. Plus, Alfred will train his eye at Nude on the Moon (1961), and we’ll cover a fourth movie to be named later (either another new release or something from the reader-suggested review queue, we’re not sure yet(.

We lead off this week’s Weirdest Search Terms of the Week rundown with one of those “we know what you’re looking for but we’re still amused by the way you phrased it” search terms: “movie with 1000 testicles.” Contrast that with this example of the “we don’t know what you’re looking for because you phrased it ambiguously and neither option makes a whole lot of sense” search strategy: “how to make coraline eye candy.” Of course, our favorite style of search term is the “we don’t know what your looking for because you’ve strung together a series of words in an order no human being has ever considered before in that sequence.” “Chick banges some guy after running european” fits that criterion to a T, thus winning the honor of being called 366 Weird Movies’ Weirdest Search Term of the Week. Congratulations!

Here’s how the ridiculously long, ever growing and sadly neglected reader suggested review queue stands: The Hour-glass Sanatorium [Saanatorium pod klepsidra] (out of print in Region 1, but we’ll keep looking); Liquid Sky (re-review); “Twin Peaks” (TV series); Society; Little Otik; Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →