Happy New Year!  Looking back on 2010, we have to say that it was about two or three weird movies shy of being a great year; a lot of films that may end up being 2010 standouts haven’t made it out of the festival circuit yet.  But we did see a bonanza of great weird Region 1 DVD debuts from years past, including Antichrist (2009), Bronson (2008), Dillinger is Dead (1969), Hausu (1977), Taxidermia (2006) and You, the Living (2007), not to mention a restored version of Metropolis (1927), with footage that had been missing for almost 100 years!  So, it would be hard to say 2010 was a total waste.  Here’s our New Year’s Eve rundown of the weirdest movies of 2010 (so far):

1. Enter the Void: We had to cheat a little to qualify Gaspar Noé‘s neon psychedelic death-trip about a hallucinating expat ghost in Tokyo who sees his sister and best friend making love with glowing genitalia by reclassifying the film from 2009 (copyright date) to 2010 (date the editing was completed and the final version released to theaters), but it was worth it to get the most extravagant Buddhism-on-LSD movie of the last 35 years the top spot.
2. Surviving Life (Theory and Practice) [Prezít svuj zivot (teorie a praxe)]: We’re cheating even more by nominating Jan Svankmajer‘s latest (about a man who impregnates his own anima while undergoing psychoanalysis) because we haven’t even seen it yet.  But based on what we know about the crazy Czech, and what we see in the trailer below, we don’t think we’ll be eating any crow over this choice (unless it’s for not giving Surviving Life the top spot).
3. Black Swan: Darren Aronofsky makes Natalie Portman go crazy for her art in a dance fable mixing backstage melodrama, sexual repression, and body horror.  Portman growing feathers onstage as she dances her little heart out for the audience rates as the most beautifully weird moment of the year.
4. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World:  From the “pee meter” that goes from full to empty as Pilgrim voids to the enemies that shatter into a bunch of coins when vanquished, this beyond-eccentric comedy about a suitor who must defeat a girl’s seven evil exes to win her heart unapologetically adopts the short-attention span of the Playstation generation and produces something too special for the cineplex.  It’s like Tron scripted by the member of Monty Python.
5. Inception:  Leonardo DiCaprio stars as a con artist who specializes in embezzling ideas from the minds of VIPS while they’re asleep; he puts together a team of dream warriors to implant an idea in a the heir to an business empire, but will his subconscious summon his dead wife to wreck the mission?  A great movie, to be sure, mixing James Bond-style action with intelligent fantasy, but not weird enough to merit a higher spot on the year’s end list.
6. Oddsac: Animal Collective’s 52-minute “visual album” is nonstop psychedelia intended to be watched with a roach clip in hand, but is it a movie, or just an extended music video?  Whatever, it gets bonus points for including a melting vampire and a single line of dialogue: “He hates everything but green beans.”
7. Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated:  The public domain zombie classic Night of the Living Dead, remade with the original soundtrack illustrated by dozens of hungry young artists in morphing styles ranging from comic book to anime to baby-doll animation.  The weirdest and most original remake of the year.
8. Shutter Island: Martin Scorsese takes a stab at a melodramatic psychological thriller, and it’s pure atmosphere as Federal marshal Leonardo DiCaprio is stranded on an island housing a Gothic asylum, battling internal demons and suspected Nazis as thunderstorms rage.  It’s a great creepy ride, even if longtime mindbender fans figure out the twist long before the movie ends.  It’s strictly “Hollywood weird,” though.
9. Splice:  Two geneticists create a bizarre creature by fusing human and animal DNA in this throwback to mad scientist pictures of old.  Vincenzo Natali (Cube, Nothing) strikes again, and we wish he’s strike more often.
10. Mega Piranha: If most of the movies above all seem to heavy and dark for you, then this utterly ridiculous SyFy original movie about mega piranhas who jump out of Amazonian rivers and explode may be the perfect alternative.  Co-starring Greg Brady and a plump Tiffany; fortunately, they do not share a love scene.

You are welcome to disagree violently with these choices in the comments.