Tag Archives: Zeb Haradon

366 UNDERGROUND: INCORPOREAL MAN (2025)

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Beware

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: None (completely generated by AI)

PLOT: A delusional bum with supernatural abilities tries to fight crime and save democracy.

Still from Incorporeal Man (2025)

COMMENTS: From the beginning, something feels off. Characters move clumsily and the imagery alternates between photorealistic and animated with no consistency at all. Then it becomes clear. This is a feature length film completely constructed with the help of Artificial Intelligence. But let’s not be negatively predisposed, assuming it will be the product of laziness and lack of talent, just because it doesn’t use real cameras and actors. Let’s soberly examine it for what it is, or at least attempts to be.

Director Haradon has a background in AI-made films: The Epic of Gilgamesh (2024) is a feature-length A.I. adaptation of the world-famous poem. Now, with Incorporeal Man, he works on an abandoned script of his own from 2004, bringing it for the first time ever on the “big screen.” The plot revolves around Jim, a disheveled drunkard (partly modeled on Haradon’s physical appearance) coming to town to catch the infamous serial killer “The North Butcher.” Jim develops a friendship with Roger, a cartoonish egg-shaped figure working at the Shit Factory—don’t ask–and through their conversations the protagonist’s background and special traits (like his superpower that allows him to travel through walls) are revealed. Pretty basic exposition, but it works.

Through Roger, Jim finds a job at the Shit Factory, too, studying kung fu in his spare time in hopes of saving the city from criminals and sickos. He mostly goes around talking about himself, though, getting trapped gradually in a series of destructive and self-destructive delusions. It all plays out like a dark comedy, with a protagonist who’s an exaggerated combination of two well known archetypes: half superhero, and half deadbeat detective out of a classic noir. Everything is archetypal, in fact, and mostly plays by the rules of classic narrative, with only the somewhat anticlimactic and ironic finale really making a difference.

If this movie wasn’t made by AI it would be basic, forgettable work. Here it has a distinct grotesque aesthetic, with decomposition and degradation imbued almost in every shot, not only in our low-life characters but in their environments, too. There’s also a nod to classic ian thrillers towards the climax.

For sure, there are some WTF elements along the way, such as the Shit Factory. The factory works mostly as an allegory, though, recalling shitty, alienating work environments most of us can relate to. The sound department is also AI software; it works okay, incorporating realistic voices and some classical tunes. There are some weird sound effects, however, like the farting noise heard whenever our character turns incorporeal to pass through walls.

All in all, this movie may appeal to a certain kind of audience that loves bad cinema. It is a Z-movie that might entertain for how outrageously silly it is. We do have to recognize the passion here. The movie is also available for free—legally—on YouTube, so you can check it out if the concept intrigues you. But a final warning: Incorporeal Man is in essence feature-length AI slop, nothing more.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The spirit of the late poet Bukowski becomes a ghost in the machine in the AI-tooled unconventional superhero feature The Incorporeal Man… Fans of Tim and Eric will like it, as this is way stranger and less irritating than the Tim and Eric feature movie.“–Michael-Talbot Haynes, Film Threat (contemporaneous)

POD 366, EPISODE 53: SLAMDANCING TO ZEB HARADON’S ETERNAL RECURRENCE

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Audio only link (Soundcloud download)

Quick links/Discussed in this episode:

The Eternal Recurrence (2023): Interview begins. In guest ‘s latest movie (available sometime in 2024), Jim recounts his dreams, which include aliens, monsters, bad parents, and a visit from Friedrich Nietzsche, all realized by A.I.

Zeb Haradon’s YouTube channel

Zeb Haradon’s homepage

“Chantal Akerman Masterpieces, 1968-1978”: Discussion begins. The Criterion Collection boxes up Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles with eight other rarely seen movies (many shorts). A few might be interesting experiments to those who can endure Akerman’s punishing minimalism. Buy “Chantal Akerman Masterpieces, 1968-1978.”

Curse of the Dog God (1977): Discussion begins. A uranium miner accidentally releases the Dog God, who curses everyone. From Mondo Macabro, it’s another reputedly bizarre Japanese exploitation horror in the vein of A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse. Buy Curse of the Dog God.

Hundreds of Beavers (2022): Discussion begins. Read El Rob Hubbard’s review and listen to Giles Edwards’ interview. The absurdist silent comedy featuring has a 100% positive on Rotten Tomatoes (as well as a “must see” from us). and is on a “Great Lakes Roadshow” tour of the Midwest. Trailer and screening dates available on the Hundreds of Beavers official website.

Impossible Object [AKA Story of a Love Story] (1973): Discussion begins. A married writer has an affair, but it may be all in his imagination. This reputedly surreal effort barely got a release outside of France and has been largely forgotten; the Indicator label rescues it from complete obscurity. Buy Impossible Object.

Slamdance 2024: Discussion begins.

Triplets of Belleville (2003): Discussion begins. Read the Canonically Weird entry! There doesn’t appear to be anything special about this re-release of Sylvain Chomet’s dialogue-free, jazz age animated musical. Buy Triplets of Belleville.

WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE:

No guest is scheduled for next week’s Pod 366 (although it’s possible someone could pop up at the last minute), but either way Greg and Giles will have a lot to talk about as there are a ton of odd movies released next week. Pete Trbovich will be bringing you another Weird View Crew video review as he check outs Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death. Coincidentally, perhaps, Cannibal Women is (Cannibal Women are?) in our reader-suggested review queue, and Shane Wilson will kick off our written reviews with another one that Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue with the strange Russian tank movie White Tiger. Rounding things out, Giles Edwards handles some Slamdance 2024 leftovers, and Gregory J. Smalley checks out the new New Age vision-quest movie Reflect (2023). Onward and weirdward!

ZEB HARADON’S REVISED TOP 10 WEIRD MOVIES

EDITOR’S NOTE: Zeb Haradon, writer/director/star of the Certified Weird Elevator Movie, has asked us to submit a revisedTop 10 Weird Movies” list.  Of course we complied without hesitation. (Here’s his [more conventional] original list).

A while ago I was asked to put together a list of 10 weird movies.  I did this pretty quickly without thinking much about it.  It was, I think, too hastily written, as if I was just writing an email.  Also the movies, while all excellent, were not all particularly “weird” enough.  I decided to put together this better list.

1. The Room – The plot of this movie sounds fairly straightforward and is hardly worth mentioning. It’s a domestic drama about a couple where the woman has an affair and the man becomes jealous and then finds out. The strangeness is in the tone and execution. This cult movie is widely known as an unintentional comedy “so bad it’s good”, but I think there’s something else going on. Notice how the dialog seems to come out of nowhere, how characters seem to say their lines with no particular motivation, or have motivations that change from moment to moment. I think what we’re seeing here is what a movie looks like to an autistic person who is not aware of the inner lives of other people. I think the filmmaker is making a movie of what society looks like to him, where everyone is made of cardboard and another human’s personality is unfathomable.

Still from Happy Days Reunion Special2. “Happy Days Reunion Special” – This “Happy Days” reunion special, made just a few years after the series ended, never saw the light of day, but a copy was leaked (bad quality with time codes), and you can find it if you know where to look. This was made in 1989, and also set in 1989, so it’s supposed to take place 30 or so years after the original. 90% of this hour long reunion is just dopey sitcom B.S., but there’s a jaw-droppingly incongruous subplot involving Fonzie discovering that he has become infected with the AIDS virus. This was probably due to a well intentioned effort to talk about the disease, but “Happy Days Reunion” was not the place to do it, which is probably why this ill conceived special never saw the light of day.

3. Silhouette – This movie consists of a series of explicit sex scenes, and the sounds and dialog are right out of hard core pornography, but the only images you ever see are shadows of the Continue reading ZEB HARADON’S REVISED TOP 10 WEIRD MOVIES