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 DEVELOPMENT:
Planet Diva: Director John Hartman is asking for funds to expand his thirty minute post-apocalyptic/grindhouse/dominatrix short (which played the Fetish Film Festival last year) into a feature film. Most of the budget will be spent on converting riding mowers into alligator-shaped golf carts, and the director promises “I don’t mind taking the audience through a really dark and weird tunnel.” Planet Diva feature page at Indiegogo.
NEW ON DVD:
The Demoniacs [AKA Curse of the Living Dead] (1974): Two women are raped by pirates, and make a deal with the devil to come back from the dead to extract revenge. In January of this year Redemption released remastered versions of five films by surreal horror specialist Jean Rollin. Several major titles were missing, but this three-DVD June drop (Rape of the Vampire and Requiem for a Vampire are also on tap) makes the majority of Rollin’s oeuvre easily available for the first time. Buy The Demoniacs (1974).
“The Found Footage Festival, Volume 5”: Another compilation of strange and frightening misfires from the golden years of direct-to-VHS video. Includes cats riding motorcycles, Linda Blair’s revenge video, and karaoke yetis singing beloved Christmas tunes. Buy “The Found Footage Festival: Volume 5.”
In the Realms of the Unreal (2004): Documentary on legendary outsider artist Henry Darger, a janitor who secretly wrote and illustrated a 15,000 page (!) fantasy novel called “The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion” that was only discovered after his death. Director Jessica Yu animates some of Dager’s beautiful but sometimes disturbing artwork, which mixes obsessive Catholic iconography with naked prepubescent girls—with tiny penises. Buy In The Realms Of The Unreal.
The Rape of the Vampire [Le Viol du Vampire] (1968): A psychoanalyst tries to convince four sisters that they are not undead bloodsuckers, but the Queen of the Vampires disagrees. Jean Rollin’s first feature was conceived of as a surrealist film rather than a horror movie; this farrago of vampires, sex and strangeness proved so lucrative that he built an entire career out of it. Buy The Rape of The Vampire.
Requiem for a Vampire [AKA Caged Virgins] (1973): Two young women fall into the clutches of an elderly vampire; he needs virgins to repopulate the nosferatu race, and being lesbians, they qualify… Requiem became one of Rollin’s best known movies because it was the only one that was dubbed into English and distributed in the U.S. (under the Caged Virgins title). Buy Requiem for a Vampire.
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
The Demoniacs (1974): See description in DVD above. Buy The Demoniacs [Blu-ray]
The Rape of The Vampire [Le Viol du Vampire] (1968): See description in DVD above. Buy The Rape of The Vampire [Blu-ray].
Requiem for a Vampire (1973): See description in DVD above. Buy Requiem for a Vampire [Blu-ray].
FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:
The Devil’s Backbone (2001): We view this creepy (but just short of weird) Guillermo del Toro ghost story set in a Spanish Civil War orphanage as the auteur’s warm-up for the Certified Weird Pan’s Labyrinth (2006). Many respectable people believe Backbone is the superior film, however. Watch The Devil’s Backbone fee on YouTube.
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.
That yeti looks as if it’s simultaneously battling a hangover towards the end. It just wanders around a little.