A man buys a horse skull on the black market. CONTENT WARNING: Language.
Tag Archives: 2025
CAPSULE: JOHN LILLY AND THE EARTH COINCIDENCE CONTROL OFFICE (2025)
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DIRECTED BY: Michael Almereyda, Courtney Stephens
FEATURING: Voice of Chloë Sevigny
PLOT: A biography of pioneering cetologist and “psychonaut” Dr. John C. Lilly.
COMMENTS: John Lilly may best be known to readers of this site as the inspiration behind the canonically weird Altered States. The real Lilly seems to have lived a life that actually was “stranger than fiction.” A neurophysiologist by training, Lilly began his research career during the height of Cold War paranoia. The term “brainwashing” was first coined in the 1950s, when Lilly’s initial studies of mammal brains were designed to achieve “push-button control of animals and people.” In the 1960s he embraced the use of psychedelic drugs, leaving behind military research in favor of the counterculture. He described his moment of enlightenment as a “very bizarre and weird feeling.”
Almereyda and Stephens’ documentary traces the gamut of Lilly’s life-long research interests, from his early days hooking monkey brains up to cathode ray TVs to a daily self-experimentation regimen involving hourly doses of ketamine. What comes across is a portrait in contrasts. Though he came to see himself as living outside the bounds of mainstream “consensus reality,” American culture readily absorbed Lilly’s ideas.
Lilly is responsible for our belief that dolphins are intelligent creatures, and inspired the Greenpeace effort to “Save the Whales,” igniting an interest in environmentalism. He popularized the analogy likening the human mind to a “biocomputer”; he believed that only through the perception of other realities can we break free from our “programming.”
Lilly’s “feeling of weirdness” resulted from the realization that the animals he had been researching were not just test subjects but thinking, feeling creatures, whose intelligence and sense of consciousness could equal that of humans and, in some cases, even exceed us. After studying the brains of cats, monkeys, and dolphins, he decided to focus on dolphins, convinced they would have some ancient wisdom to impart to human beings.
The film’s makers present all facets of Lilly’s research and impart his intense curiosity regarding the mind and how it works. His evolution from straight-laced government scientist to drugged-out psychonaut proceeds without judgment. In the beginning, Lilly comes across as eccentric even when appearing on ’60s talk shows, likening inter-species communication to an alien encounter. In one episode the host is quick to point out that Lilly is a real doctor and not “some nut!”
The narration touches on important ethical issues regarding animal research, but never delves too deeply. Lilly’s personal fortune gets a
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366 UNDERGROUND: SWOLLEN CREEK (2026)
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DIRECTED BY: Dominic Martella
FEATURING: Mandy Lahey
PLOT: A woman with a conjoined twin in her torso seeks romance, but runs into an evil insect queen and her fly-headed, dung-harvesting assistant instead.
COMMENTS: Once upon a time, making a feature film required commitment: cameras were expensive, technical expertise was rare, and even film stock cost money and reshoots were costly. Even the most cynical exploitation pictures had to reach a certain level of skill and resources before they could proceed, and if you actually persevered and made your movie, you’d need to find a distributor with knowledge and contacts to get the finished work in front of an audience. And although today serious films still have those requirements, the advent of iPhones, free software editing suites, and YouTube uploads have meant that the only commitment required of anyone wanting to make their own movie today is time and friends who will work for free. This has unleashed a wave of vibrant creativity on the world. It has unleashed a much larger wave of dreck that never could have seen the light of day in a gatekept era.
The taxonomy of these no-budget movies, which now find ready homes on Tubi, YouTube, and similar non-to-lightly curated venues, is more fascinating than the vast majority of films themselves. Why were these things made? Some are by young film students more interested in learning the craft than creating a marketable project. Some are experimental films from artistically-oriented filmmakers with no resources at their disposal (the majority of films covered on this site fall into that category). Some moviemakers just hope to make a few meager bucks while having a good time on set. A few are made by delusional folk who, inspired by the legend of Robert Rodriguez‘ $5000 hit El Mariachi, believe that their stories are so compelling that they can compete for eyeballs with Hollywood (or at least budgeted indie) productions. And some movies are just made as a goof, to amuse the filmmakers themselves, with no serious intent of appealing to a wider audience.
I suspect the last is the category Swollen Creek falls into. Though pitched as a surreal anthology, it’s a complete narrative, not an anthology at all. And it’s “surreal” in only the most bastardized sense: the tone could charitably be described as absurd, although ridiculous and goofy are even better fits. Almost everyone in this movie, even disposable victims, wears an ill-fitting rubber mask. Rubber flies are pulled by strings with no attempt made to hide them. The protagonist has a Siamese twin in her belly—which I’m guessing is a blow-up doll—but the character never has any payoff. The film is congested by pounds of poop and fart humor. The moral seems to be that romance isn’t for freaks, and you should trust your controlling, repressive mother when she says the external world is full of nothing but cruel normies who will try to kill you. Swollen Creek seems like the kind of movie that would be made by teenagers in their back yards over the course of a few weekends, but the only unmasked actor we see—Mandy Lahey, who gamely plays 3 roles—is middle-aged. It’s all less amusing than it sounds, although it’s clear the cast had a blast. And somehow they got Debbie Rochon to show up for five minutes, either under a mask or providing voiceover for a stand-in under a mask.
I bear no ill will to the makers of Swollen Creek, but I must conclude it is not intended for an audience beyond friends and family. If you’re a non-professional and you’re tempted to try one of those obscure little movies with weird amateurish box cover art on Tubi, I recommend you don’t try it—not even once.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
I think this movie is weirder than average
I think this movie is better than average
CAPSULE: CAMP (2025)
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DIRECTED BY: Avalon Fast
FEATURING: Zola Grimmer
PLOT: A traumatized college girl reluctantly volunteers as a counselor at a camp for “damaged” kids, but when she gets there she finds the other female counselors are practicing homemade witchcraft.
COMMENTS: Poor Emily has had it rough the past couple years. Already wracked with guilt for a fatal accident that wasn’t really her fault, she finds herself responsible for a second unintentional death, making her feel like a serial killer. She leans on her father for support, and when he suggests the depressed girl could benefit by serving as a counselor at a Christian-themed camp for “damaged” kids, she agrees. There, she finds herself eagerly embraced by her fellow counselors, who aren’t nearly as Christian as management would prefer: every night is an campfire bacchanalia of dancing, flirting, pot, and alcohol. But, just as the Christians warn, weed, booze, and dancing are inevitably a gateway to witchcraft—and, perhaps, to psychic healing as well.
Where Camp is good is in the dreamy cinematography and imagery. Fast’s movie is shot through with experimental impulses, from fuzzy montages underlaid by indie ballads to a red-midnight rendezvous to overlays of twinkling stars as females cavort (and levitate) in the moonlight. Although the Alberta forest is entrancing, occasionally, mountainous backdrops seen from out the window are obvious matte paintings instead of natural vistas. After the indie dramatics of the first two acts, things slide towards the surreal: there’s a pay phone that pops up in the middle of a sylvan glen in the late going at a moment of crucial decision for our protagonist. In terms of setting a dreamy mood, Camp hits the notes it aims at, and for some, that will be enough.
But where Camp is bad is, sadly, pretty much everything else. Not only does the plot wander around aimlessly for most of the film, the characters are unmemorable. Emily’s female confidants are hardly developed: there’s the ringleader, there’s the kinda sexy one, and there’s… two others. The male characters are even sketchier, with only the camp’s senior leader, a wait-until-marriage hymn-singing straight-arrow, receiving significant attention. (There’s another guy who’s positioned as a potentially darker influence, but his plotline seems to fall victim to the cutting room floor.) And, although other critics seem to disagree, Emily herself is too much of a cipher: a knot of guilt, and little more. (What are her interests and hobbies, besides self-medicating and moping?) It’s not the actress’ fault: Grimmer portrays all the appropriate emotions, but why (beyond the obvious) and, more specifically, how her tragedies makes her “damaged” remains something of a mystery.
The overall result is disappointing, because Fast’s visual sensibilities are so engaging and the story has such a weighty theme that you wish these virtues had been wedded to a more affecting narrative. Instead, we get an often lovely mood piece with sincere impulses that’s undone by draggy pacing. If you’re looking for fun at a late-summer Camp, book Miasma instead.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
I think this movie is weirder than average
I think this movie is better than average
FANTASIA 2026: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: SPACETIME CHRONICLES (2025)
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DIRECTED BY: Stefano Bertelli
FEATURING: None credited
PLOT: Fred is a student whose attempts to resolve his various encounters—particularly his rendezvous with Hana in Japan—regularly land him in a cosmic inner space.
WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Papercraft stop-motion meets 4th-dimensional musings in Bertelli’s film, whose protagonist just cannot seem to wrap up events in his life. And there’s a talking cat.
COMMENTS: We are in a classroom, and Fred asks to be excused. He hoofs the school corridors to the bathroom, and makes it in time to spew forth a tidal quantity of ecto-green vomit, overflowing the toilet, overflowing the restroom, ultimately washing down the school hallway in a viscous wave. A cat asks what that was all about, and Fred replies, “That was just a memory.” Like all of us, Fred has countless memories; unlike us, Fred experiences his own mind space as a hangar-sized chamber, with a starlit background, a growing gyre spurting cubes, and, of course, an enigmatic talking cat providing comments and advice.
Stefano Bertelli pursues two grand ambitions with his feature debut. The first is long-form animation with paper stock. All motion and effects are achieved the hard way, as paper Fred interacts with other paper people and navigates a three-dimensional space made up of a paper sky with paper clouds above, and paper buildings and paper vehicles below. This vibrant aesthetic easily catches the eye and is a perfect vehicle for the odd sense of humor which runs throughout. Pratfalls in the cosmic mind, recurring encounters with a bully, paper Fred playing a paper rendered first-person shooter on a paper television: the playfully absurd mingles freely with temporal philosophy.
The last is the crux of the Bertelli’s second ambition, for Spacetime Chronicles has a great deal to say about happenstance, decision making, and fate. Fred wants to follow up his meet-cute with Hana, whom he encounters on a tram. But each step is interrupted by increasingly unlikely tripwires (indeed, what are the odds he’d end up in room number four on the fourth floor of the hotel just after learning that numeral is borderline dangerous?). The cat does its best to tidy his subconscious and tip him towards his desired fate, even tossing aside one of its nine lives in the effort. But it’s all quite confusing for Fred, and us as well; we’re told that to manipulate our lives is as simple as choosing to perceive our preferred fate. We learn alongside Fred, however, that that may be an impossible task, and we may all just be doomed to be reduced to a heap of memory boxes beneath a heap of rubble.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
I think this movie is weirder than average
I think this movie is better than average