Our weekly look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs, and on more distant horizons…
Trailers of new release movies are generally available on the official site links.
IN THEATERS (WIDE RELEASE):
Oldboy (2013): A man is imprisoned in a hotel room for twenty years without explanation, then just as inexplicably set free to seek revenge on his captor. Early notices on this seemingly-doomed Spike Lee remake of the shocking Korean original have been every bit as tepid as we expected. In particular, a woman named Grace did not like it. Oldboy official site.
FILM FESTIVALS – Cine-Rebis Porto Underground Film Festival (Porto, Portugal, Nov. 29-Dec. ):
Most of the movies playing at the Porto version of this festival of two cities are identical to the ones we reported on in the London version of the event, including Kelly Hughes’ zombies n’ drag queens mashup La Cage Aux Zombies, Brontis Jodorowsky in Tau, the Alejandro Jodorowsky-inspired Ritual: A Psychomagic Story, and the modern Expressionist horror The Demon’s Rook. Notable changes: no Escape from Tomorrow (Portugal is obviously not considered one of the happiest places on Earth), but to compensate there is a rare screening of Bruce Bickford’s surreal claymation short “Prometheus’ Garden.” Cine-Rebis Porto Underground Film Festival program (in Portuguese).
NEW ON DVD:
Animals (2012): A maladjusted gay teenager falls in love for the first time, but what will become of his only friend, a talking teddy bear named Deerhoof? The description makes it sound like Ted done as a psychological coming-out drama. Buy Animals
The Horror Show (1989): See description in Blu-ray below.
“Mystery Science Theater 3000: 25th Anniversary Edition”: The four main episodes included in this edition of the cult movie-mocking series are the Hammer-produced space opera Moon Zero Two, the epic fantasy The Day the Earth Froze (a confusingly dubbed and edited international cut of a serious Russian/Finnish fantasy film), the Universal horror snoozer The Leech Woman, and Gorgo (which is something like the British Godzilla). The bonus disc is a double-feature of two historically important series episodes: Mitchell, original host Joel Hodgson’s final bow, and The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, which introduced new frontman Mike Nelson. Buy “Mystery Science Theater 3000: 25th Anniversary Edition”
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
The Horror Show (1989): A killer continues to bedevil a detective and his family even after being executed in the electric chair. This absurd ripoff of Nightmare on Elm Street was titled House 3 overseas, even though it had nothing to do with the House series. Available in a DVD/Blu-ray combo pack only. Buy The Horror Show [Blu-ray/DVD Combo]
What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that I have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.
Thought this might be an interesting look at how low some people’s bar for weirdness is : http://www.totalfilm.com/features/50-weirdest-documentaries
Spoiler: Sans Soleil is nowhere near the list
“Weird” is subjective, sure, but a lot of those choices don’t make sense to me. I’m not sure who else but that author would call Werner Herzog‘s death-penalty doc Into the Abyss “weird,” to take just one example.
Often these documentaries cover unusual or disturbing subject matter, but do it in a conventional way. I don’t consider those “weird movies,” just movies with odd subject matter (i.e. the profiles of Robert Crumb, Bob Flanagan, G.G. Allin, Henry Darger).
We’ll get to consider a few of those, like Mondo Cane (and some of the movies it influenced) and Our Hitler.
Thanks for bringing the list to our attention.