The fourth reader review contest is over, and the winner is: Shane Wilson for The Tingler (read his excellent review here!)  Congratulations Shane!

Next week we’ll be focusing on (relatively) new releases, starting with our latest 366 Underground entry, Race War: The Remake (2011), and following with the star-studded (Megan Fox, Mickey Rourke) fantasy flop Passion Play (2010), and ending with either Miranda July’s sophomore effort The Future (2011) or Antonio Banderas’ shot as an existential hard-boiled private eye in Tony Krantz‘s The Big Bang (2011).  [EDIT: That should have read that we’ll definitely cover The Big Bang and either The Future or Passion Play].  To counteract all that newness, Alfred Eaker will travel back in time to finish off his series on silent Expressionist Paul Leni.

We discovered a theme in our weird search terms of the week: requests for info on movies we hope exist somewhere, but fear don’t.  In the “that’s nice dear” category, we noticed what was either a weird search term or an idle confession: “i saw a movie in the late 70’s it was weird.”  Getting into searches with just a bit more specificity, we tracked people looking for the lowdown on the following fascinating mystery films: “a movie about an alien parasite that likes paprika and has a big sexual appetite,” “late 60s sci fi movie about little orange monkeys,” “movie where people test on spinning machine and explode,” “shipwrecked breastfeeding movie,” and “japanese erotic movie ninja gets frozen.”  Our favorite, however, was “italian horror nuns impaled ape;” at least, we hope that was a search for a movie, and not a headline in the Milano Times.

Here’s what the massive reader-suggested review queue looks like: Kairo [AKA Pulse]; The Guatemalan Handshake;  The Seventh Seal;  Primer; 200 Motels; Private Parts (1972); Saddest Music in the World; Mulholland  Drive; The American Astronaut; Blood Tea and Red 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…

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

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

Bobby Yeah (2011):  Robert Morgan (of the crowd-pleasing horror short The Cat with Hands) has a new animated  23-minute short touring film festivals and, based on the trailer below, he’s developing a pleasing penchant for the peculiar.  Though the chances you’ll be able to catch this are slim, we’re happy to know Mr. Morgan is continuing his craft and hopeful he’ll be able to fund a feature some day.  Bobby Yeah official Facebook page.

SCREENINGS (NATIONWIDE):

Rifftrax LIVE: Jack the Giant Killer:  Jack the Giant Killer was a 1962 stop-motion kid-friendly fantasy inspired by Ray Harryhausen’s Sinbad adventures; it’s actually not half bad.  Nonetheless, MST3K alumni Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett will mock the movie mercilessly in this live broadcast simulcast in cinemas across the nation.  The show includes three comic shorts and a url will be revealed to download digital content.  Rifftrax LIVE: Jack the Giant Killer official notice.

NEW ON DVD:

Super (2010):  Read our capsule review.  Average guy becomes masked avenger by night in a sort of indie/alternative version of Kick Ass directed by Tromeo & Juliet screenwriter James Gunn. Buy Super.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Dead Man (1995):  Read our certified weird entry!  This Jim Jarmusch/Johnny Depp weird west fave lands on Blu-ray (not for the first time, however, as there had previously a Region free French release).  Supplemental features appear to be the same as on Miramax’s previous release (a Neil Young video and unused footage), but the image and sound are reportedly great, and the Blu-ray is value priced at under $10 (!) Buy Dead Man [Blu-ray].

Super (2010): See entry in DVD above. Buy Super [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Bill and Coo (1948):  A villain known as “the Black Menace” arrives in a formerly peaceful town, and it’s up to cab driver Bill to save the burg.  The weird part?  All actors are played by trained parakeets and other birds.  Watch Bill and Coo 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.

Greetings, as 366 Weird Movies broadcasts this week from an undisclosed Caribbean location, as part of an extremely weird tax evasion scene.  The fact that we’ll be sipping on piña coladas from the comfort of an air-conditioned beach (yes, the resort is that exclusive) won’t affect your weird-movie browsing enjoyment, however, as we’ll still be offering a full slate of deranged movie reviews, including with our first contest entry: a reader review of William Castle’s The Tingler (featuring Vincent Price freaking out on acid!)  We’ll also get to a couple of films from the reader-suggested review queue, tackling the magical realist serial killer period piece Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, and we’ll take a look at Jeremy Irons playing twin gynecologists (!) in David Cronenberg‘s creepy psychodrama Dead Ringers.  And more…

Some weeks it’s a struggle to try to find a search term weird enough to deserve the designation “weirdest search term of the week.”  Other weeks (like this one), the searchers worldwide seem to have been struck with a collective dementia, and it’s a struggle to narrow down the weird field.  First, although it wasn’t that bizarre a query, we have to report that we’re extremely proud to be Google’s number one result for the search term “ninja scroll had ‘no scroll.'”  On a slightly weirder and more disturbing note, Alfred Eaker was distressed to find someone searching for “alfred defilement videos.”  We’d like to see the film this guy was searching for—“clones come out of watermelons in a black and white movie”—and we think we might be willing to try some of whatever the guy who made this search was taking—“book of dead zombie lucifer and zombie jesus christ race zombie teeth cross.com.”  (You’d be surprised how many people throw in a generic “.com” at the end of their impossibly, obsessively precise search terms).  But for our winner this week, we select “скачать бесплатно weird sex illustrated sharking animations,” which gets bonus points for switching alphabets mid-search.   Sorry, ” “weird lumpy movie short,” you didn’t make the weirdest search terms this time around, try again next week.

Here’s that aforementioned reader-suggested review queue: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (next week!); Dead Ringers (next week!); Kairo [AKA Pulse]; The Guatemalan Handshake;  The Seventh Seal;  Primer; 200 Motels; Private Parts (1972); Saddest Music in 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…

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

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

Bellflower (2011):  Offbeat tale of two contemporary teens who build Road Warrior-inspired vehicles in hopes the apocalypse will come soon and bring adventure to their lives; a girl comes instead.  Opening in New York and L.A. this week, with pretty decent coverage (dozens of US cities) throughout the remaining summer.  Bellflower official site.

Cold Fish (2010):  “Based on a true story,” Sion (Suicide Club) Sono’s most recent film is set in the overlapping worlds of serial killers and tropical fish retailers.  Not likely to be tremendously weird, but it is reportedly quite intense and gruesome, and Sono definitely has his followers.  Cold Fish official site.

IN DEVELOPMENT:

“Lotus Community Center” (est. 2012?):  Val Kilmer announced on his Tumblr page that he will be playing “the WORST motivational speaker on earth” in an upcoming experimental short to be directed by Harmony Korine.  In other Korine news, the alienating auteur has apparently cast Marlon Wayans as a dollar bill in his upcoming scripted (now there’s an experiment!) comedy feature Twinkle Twinkle (est. 2014).

NEW ON DVD:

“4 Film Favorites: Raw Feed Horror Collection”: Packaging four films for the price of one DVD is not a bad marketing ploy.  The choices in this one are uninspiring, however: the forgotten Rest Stop (2006), it’s surprise sequel Rest Stop: Don’t Look Back (2008), and the forgotten evil suicide cult movie Believers (2007).  We mention this set because it contains the definitely weird (though not all that good) hospital-horror Sublime (read our review). Buy “4 Film Favorites: Raw Feed Horror Collection”.

“MST3K vs. Gamera”:  If you’re a fan of Mystery Science Theater (and if you’re not, you should be), then this set is a major event.  For years it was assumed that the Gamera films would never be released on DVD, thanks to Japanese reluctance to allow their giant, jet-fueled flying turtle to be mocked by uncultured Americans.  Shout! Factory worked some licensing magic and acquired rights to all five of the MST3K Gamera episodes for your pleasure. Buy “MST3K Vs. Gamera: Mystery Science Theater 3000, Vol. XXI [Deluxe Edition]”.

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Santa Claus (1959):  This amazing Mexican-made oddity about a Santa who lives in a castle in space and fights the devil is currently buried deep in our reader-suggested review queue, but you can get the jump on us by watching it on YouTube.  Watch Santa Claus (1959) 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.

There’s still time to enter the latest review writing contest for a chance to win a DVD.  Based on the number of submissions so far (0), your chances of being chosen the winner are outstanding right now.

Next week we’ll take a look at the obscure nudie horror fairy tale Blood Sabbath (1972); we’ll discuss Dario Argento‘s Suspiria warm-up, Deep Red; and, by popular demand, we’ll give our reassessment of Harmony Korine‘s Trash Humpers.

If you’re just here for our popular weekly series, “Weirdest Search Term of the Week,” then here’s your fix.  Almost every week we find someone searching for an extremely rare, incredibly specific, and almost always non-existent genre of movies, and this week is no exception as some sought a list of “old b movies horror for last century including killer vacuum cleaner.”  This next searcher may have been looking for a film genre as well, but due to the strange wording of his request for “free bizzares dracula online,” we really can’t tell for sure.  But, as usual, it’s the borderline smutty search strings that excel at weirdness, as exemplified by this week’s winner, “most most polesh sex lady.”  Is he looking for the most most polished sex lady?  Or maybe the most most Polish sex lady? The ambiguity is deliciously weird.

The reader-suggested review queue continues to grow faster than we’re willing to review them.  Here’s how it stands right now: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer; Dead Ringers; Kairo [AKA Pulse]; The Guatemalan Handshake;  The Seventh Seal;  Primer; 200 Motels; Private Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →