It’s time for the 2022 edition of the Weirdcademy Awards, the premier (only) awards contest focused on weird films, chosen by weird film fans. That means shorts as well as features. We’ve collected all five nominees for 2022′s Weirdest Short of the Year together in one place, for ease of voting. You can cast a vote for your favorite until March 11 at 12:00 Noon EST. Choose carefully, because this year you can only vote once. Cameron Jorgensen, 366 Weird Movies under-appreciated, recently retired shorts Czar, discovered and selected these unusual films through his own research. This year’s slate includes 90s horror videogame parodies, Bangladeshi vampires, killer cassette tapes, creepy robots, and piping hot tea.
You can watch all the nominees in full below before voting (shorts may contain strong language, animated gore, and/or crude humor):
The Online Film Critics Society awards for 2022 are in the books. As expected, Daniels‘ Everything Everywhere all at Once fared well—in fact, better than expected (and maybe better than even I thought it deserved). No other films of weird bent received much notice at all. Still, overall I think we got it right this year: two films (Everything Everywhere and Banshees of Inisherin) stand far above all the others, and deservedly dominate the awards.
As always, despite the occasional levity in my tone, I take my voting responsibility seriously. I do not put forward weird films at the expense of worthier mainstream candidates just because it’s “my thing.” Here is the list of this year’s winners, along with my choices and a touch of personal commentary for the major categories.
This post was written before the 2022 Academy Awards nominations were announced, but the slates turned out to be similar enough that this can also serve as an Oscar preview.
BEST PICTURE
Winner: Everything Everywhere All at Once
Also nominated (listed ranked in order of votes): The Banshees of Inisherin, Tár, The Fabelmans, Nope, RRR, Top Gun: Maverick, Aftersun, Women Talking, EO
My vote: Everything Everywhere All at Once
Comments: An easy choice here. What surprises is that mainstream audiences and critics like Everything every bit as much as those who crave strange fare. We might worry about the cosmic implications of the collision of the weird cineverse and the mainstream cineverse: will they annihilate each other? Is it a sign of the End Times? Coincidentally, the movies finished in the voting in almost exactly the same order I would have ranked them.
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Winner: Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Also nominated: Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Turning Red
My vote: Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Comments: I have no issue with Guillermo del Toro‘s antifa take on Pinocchio winning this award. I, however, found Marcel an unexpected, charming surprise. The fact that Phil Tippett‘s life’s work, Mad God, did not get any love was a huge disappointment. I also thought Inu-Oh had a legitimate shot at a nomination.
BEST DIRECTOR
Winner: Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert – Everything Everywhere All at Once
Also nominated: Todd Field – Tár, Martin McDonagh – The Banshees of Inisherin, Steven Spielberg – The Fabelmans, Charlotte Wells – Aftersun
Don’t worry, Cameron Jorgensen is perfectly fine and in good health. He’s just stepping down as 366’s official shorts czar after today’s post.
Cameron is a talented musician who has played bass and drums in Salt Lake City rock bands. He’s also a master yo-yoist. And a very private person. And, since 2009, he has discovered and posted (by my estimate) 667 weird short films, rarely missing a week in the 13 years he’s been doing this. He may be the most underappreciated member of the 366 team, so I’d like to simply and personally say:
Thank you, Cameron, for the years of weirdness.
I’ll be taking over the posting of Saturday Shorts in the future (unless another competent volunteer steps up to the plate). So, expect the quality of this feature to diminish, though hopefully I’ll be able to operate at 90% of Cameron capacity.
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Our weekly look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs and Blu-rays (and hot off the server VODs), and on more distant horizons…
Trailers of new release movies are generally available at the official site links.
NEW ON HOME VIDEO:
Bat Pussy (1971): Female vigilante Bat Pussy (Dora Dildo) tries to thwart a middle-aged couple from making a pornographic film, but ends up joining in. It’s ugly people attempting flaccid sex and may be the worst, least arousing pornographic film ever made—but you don’t soon forget the sight of Bat Pussy bouncing across the countryside on her Bat Space Hopper. Runs less than an hour, but is presented in two cuts (a print with extra footage was discovered in 2019 and dutifully restored), with shorts and the bonus porno feature Robot Love Slaves. Bat Pussy is on Blu-ray, Angel’s Egg is not. Amazon thoughtfully refuses to stock it, but you can buy Bat Pussy directly from Something Weird (if you hate sex, and hate your own entertainment even more).
Damselvis, the Daughter of Helvis (1994): The ghost of country singer Helvis visits his daughter, Damselvis, in a dream and sends her on a quest to resurrect him. The rarely-seen debut of rockabilly-surrealist auteur John Micheal McCarthy gets a Blu-ray release (though it’s currently listed as “out of stock” at Amazon, you may be able to grab a limited edition copy from Vinegar Syndrome when their website goes back live on January 1). Dare we hope for Teenage Tupelo soon? Buy Damselvis, the Daughter of Helvis.
“The Films of Doris Wishman: The Daylight Years”: Something Weird/American Film Genre Archives’ final Wishman set (after The Moonlight Years and The Twilight Years) covers the nudist films that got her started in the sexploitation biz. Obviously, the jewel here is the incomparable Nude on the Moon, but if you like to see naked people (minus the pubic regions) playing volleyball, this is your jam. Buy “The Films of Doris Wishman: The Daylight Years.”
Sylvio (2017): The story of a small-town gorilla stuck in a debt collection job, who dreams of starting a puppet show. The debut from Strawberry Mansion‘s Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley, this arrives on home video for the first time (Blu-ray only) with bonus shorts (but is listed as “out of stock” at the time of this writing). Buy Sylvio.
This section will no longer be updated regularly. Instead, we direct you to our new “Repertory Cinemas Near You” page. We will continue to mention exceptional events in this space from time to time, however.
WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE:
Lots of changes coming to 366 Weird Movies in 2023. Old names will be gone, new faces may appear. Let’s discuss some of the disruptions, shall we?
1. “Saturday Shorts” will continue, for the time being (you’ll see why we mention this fact soon enough).
2. The Big Book of all canonized weird movies will be released in 2023, even if we have to self-publish.
3. The entire website may be radically redesigned after the book is published.
4. New category title: “It Came from the Reader-Suggestion Queue.” We can no longer promise to cover every movie suggested in the massive suggestion box, but we’ll keep looking at them and reporting on ones of interest.
5. The column you are reading right now—“Weird Horizon,” one of our longest running features—may go on hiatus, return in scaled down form looking drastically different, or disappear entirely. That’s because…
6. We’ll be debuting the 366 Webcast/Podcast in its place. (Name still pending: we’re considering the functional title “The 366 Weird Movies Podcast,” or perhaps “Pod 366: A Weird Movies Podcast.” Suggestions are welcomed in the comments.) We plan discussing new releases—on home video or theatrical—in that forum, with the occasional guest to spice up the discussion. The first episode is set to debut a week from today, with Gregory J. Smalley and Giles Edwards contemplating what looks weird at the upcoming Sundance and Slamdance festivals. Joe Badon is booked as guest on the second episode, where the topic will be “weird movies.” This project is expected to evolve over time.
7. Over the course of the year we’re going to try to hold a watch party for every canonically weird movie that is currently available for streaming on Netflix. Amazon Prime, Hulu, or free services (via our Discord channel). These will be held on various nights at various times, whether anyone shows up or not. First up will be Metropolis (1927) at 8PM ET on Monday, January 2nd (time negotiable), via Tubi/Discord.
But we’ll continue bringing you reviews of weird movies in the format you’ve become accustomed to. For example, next week we’ll release our official list of the 10 Weirdest Movies of 2022 on New Year’s Day. In reviews, The Electric Man (2022) shocks Giles Edwards; Shane Wilson goes back to the reader-suggested queue for They Came Back [Les Revenants] (2004); and Amy Vaughn puts on a tight leather catsuit and rides with The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968). Onward and weirdward!
What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that we have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.
Celebrating the cinematically surreal, bizarre, cult, oddball, fantastique, strange, psychedelic, and the just plain WEIRD!
Winner: Everything Everywhere All at Once