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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.

FILM FESTIVALS –(Sundance Film Festival, Online, 1/20-1/30):

The 2022 movie season officially kicks off with Sundance, where a hopeful horde of independent films, including a few off-the-wall ones, vie for a handful of distribution contracts. Due to the omicron surge, this year the entire festival was moved to online-only status at the last minute.

There are usually a couple of weird films to be seen at Sundance (last year, Prisoners of the Ghostland was a hot ticket), but this year the pickings look a little slim for cinematic strangeness. Among titles we’ve noted previously, the festival will screen the gender-bending Rwandan sc-fi musical Neptune Frost and Speak No Evil, a psychological horror film that’s one of the subjects of the Göteborg Film Festival’s hypnotism experiment. Of new arrivals, here are a couple we will keep our eyes on:

• Hatching – A Finnish girl finds a giant egg and raises the hatchling as her pet and surrogate daughter. In the Midnight section.
  
• Something in the Dirt – Despite threatening to break into Hollywood’s A-list, Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson stay indie for at least one more movie, a supernatural mystery with a plot that’s under wraps (but which, given their previous work, probably has a weird twist to it). In the “Next” section.

Sundance Film Festival homepage.

FILM FESTIVALS –(Slamdance Film Festival, Online, 1/27-2/6):

Sundance’s more affordable, punkier sibling kicks off a week after its big sister. $10 gets you a pass to see everything on the slate—a bargain even if you find only two or three films you enjoy. Here’s what caught our eye:

• Snow White Dies at the End – A movie about a backwards-farting society and the brave forward-farters who defy convention (at least, that’s what the synopsis says; the trailer doesn’t really hint at that subplot).

And of course, loads of shorts, which are more likely to hold weird promise than the features (they even have a section titled “Department of Anarchy”).

Slamdance homepage.

IN DEVELOPMENT (post-production):

She Is Conan (2022): Bertrand Mandico is busy at work on his third feature, a Conan adaptation with a female playing the role pioneered by Arnold Schwarzenegger. It’s already set to be distributed by Altered Innocence, who are pitching it as “a lesbian ‘El Topo ’ in space!” Variety has the news and a sport but inspiring Madico interview.

IN DEVELOPMENT (Netflix):

“Scott Pilgrim” (202?): Sex Bob-om, Ramona Flowers (and her seven evil exes) and the rest of the gang live again, as the graphic novel Edgar Wright turned into a cult hit (and a canonically weird movie) is getting an animated series (styled as an “anime.”). Bryan Lee O’Malley, author of the original graphic novel, is onboard as writer and executive producer. Will it be weird? No telling, but we suspect the film version will always remain tops in that regard. Hollywood Reporter has the scoop.

NEW ON HOME VIDEO:

The Mafu Cage (1978): After their father’s death a woman takes care of her sister, who is obsessed with her pet gorilla (“mafu”). An experimental psychological drama originally sold (to disgruntled audiences) as a horror movie, it certainly sounds like an oddity. Scorpion releases it for the first time on Blu-ray. Buy The Mafu Cage.

Vampire Hunter D (1985): Read Giles Edwards’ review. This Section 23 Blu-ray of the cult classic vampire anime is subtitled only. Buy Vampire Hunter D.

CANONICALLY WEIRD (AND OTHER) REPERTORY SCREENINGS:

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:

Join us tomorrow night for our Weird Watch Party, the demented puppet fairy tale Gutboy: A Badtime Story (2017). The show starts at 10:15 PM on Amazon Prime (subscription required). The link to join will drop here, on Facebook, and on Twitter around 10 PM (subscribers will get an email reminder, too).

And if you haven’t yet, take a moment to vote in  the latest round of our Unofficial Reordering of the 366 poll.

Next week, Gregory J. Smalley will still be attending to family business but still should have time to drop a review of the reader-suggested Hanger (2009) (it’s not a movie that requires a great deal of thoughtful analysis). Giles Edwards will also dip into the reader-suggested queue for Steven Soderbergh‘s Kafkaesque Kafka (1991). There may be an additional surprise dropped in there for you all, as well. 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.