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.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

Poor Boy (2016): Two redneck sons of a rodeo clown (played by Michael Shannon) try to marry a Native American woman so they can move to California in this scuzzily surreal experiment. Variety‘s Nick Schager inadvertently tries his best to sell it to our readers, complaining that it “has a strung-out, sunburnt feverishness that makes it seem, at any moment, poised to tip into outright insanity… tries too hard to be weird.” No official site located.

FILM FESTIVALS – Fantasia International Film Festival (Montreal, Canada, July 12 – Aug. 2):

As its name implies, Montreal’s Fantasia Festival originally began as a showcase for fantastic films from Asia; it has since morphed into a major event on the genre cinema calendar. Not that they’ve let mainstream success get to their heads; there’s still more rare weirdness to be found at Fantasia than at just about any film festival on the globe. We make watch lists from Fantasia’s programming, and we’re always saddened when less than half of the most daring films find meaningful distribution in the U.S. Because of the large number of entries, we’re highlighting only the most promising offerings here; it goes without saying that there will be new films by Takashi Miike and Shion Sono splashed across the screens. 366’s own Giles Edwards is in attendance and will be bringing us updates weekly (perhaps more frequently) on the Fest’s biggest and weirdest contenders. While realizing that surprise favorites always pop up, here are the top contenders for the throne of strangeness we took note of:

• Cam – A camgirl finds an exact duplicate of herself writhing onscreen, but transgressing her personal and professional boundaries; described as a “relentlessly tense surrealistic thriller.” Screens July 18 & 20.
• Chained for Life – The title is a reference to a 1952 exploitation film starring conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton (Freaks); the scenario involves “freaks” cast in a movie who “swipe the film’s camera equipment after-hours and make their own film”; the source is Aaron Schimberg, whose praised but little-seen debut Go Down Death earned comparisons to the work of Guy Maddin. Screening July 18 & 24.
• Hanagatami – Hausu‘s Nobuhiko Obayashi returns to realize his unfilmed first script (written in the 1970s), an eve-of-WWII tale of incestuous desire that The Telegraph called “avant-garde in the extreme” and “like nothing else around.” July 14 or 19.
• Mandy – Not just a Fantasia highlight, but one of the buzziest films of the year: Panos Cosmatos puts Nicolas Cage into a surreal supernatural revenge drama. Closing the festival on Aug 1, and already sold out.
  

Say “hi” to Giles if you see him. Fantasia Festival home page.

NEW ON HOME VIDEO:

Godmonster of Indian Flats (1973): Read the Certified Weird entry! From American Film Genre Archives (AFGA) comes this  special edition (!) of Fredric Hobbs’ strange modern Western/mutant sheep monster mashup that’s actually mainly about real estate shenanigans and staged dog funerals. The disc comes with exploitation shorts and a bonus feature, 1975’s The Legend of Bigfoot, on, uh, Blu-ray? Buy Godmonster of Indian Flats.

Yellow Submarine (1968): Read the Certified Weird entry! If you’ve been watching our “Repertory Screening” column, you’ve probably figured out that a restored version of The Beatles‘ psychedelic cartoon about the saffron submersible has been touring the country this summer in a 4K restored version. What has received less fanfare is the fact that (as of today’s writing) it’s available to stream free for subscribers on Amazon Prime; and, perhaps even more surprising, so is the soundtrack. We suspect both offerings will be up for a limited time.

CERTIFIED WEIRD (AND OTHER) REPERTORY SCREENINGS:

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). We won’t list all the screenings of this audience-participation classic separately. You can use this page to find a screening near you.

• Chicago, IL, 7/13-15 – Yellow Submarine (1968). At Music Box Theater.
• Columbus, OH, 7/13-14, 17, 19 – A Clockwork Orange (1971). At Gateway Film Center.
• Columbus, OH, 7/13-7/14 – Yellow Submarine (1968). At Gateway Film Center.
• Dallas, TX, 7/13-7/14 – Yellow Submarine (1968). At the Texas Theater.
• Dallas, TX, 714 – Dead Man (1995). With live local bands after (separate purchase required).
• Los Angeles, CA, 7/13 – Donnie Darko (2001) with Evil Dead (1981) (double feature). At the Aero Theater.
• Los Angeles, CA, 7/15 – Eraserhead (1977) with Being John Malkovich (1999) (double feature). At the Aero Theater.
• Memphis, TN, 7/13-7/14 (midnights) – El Topo (1970). At Malco Studio on the Square.
• Nashville, TN, 7/14-7/15 – Belle de Jour (1967). At the Belcourt Theater.
• New York City, NY, 7/13-7/14 (midnights) – El Topo (1970). At the Nitehawk Theater.
• New York City, NY, 7/13-7/14 (midnights) – A Field in England (2013). At the Nitehawk Theater.
• New York City, NY, 7/13-7/14 (midnights) – Blue Velvet (1986). At IFC Center.
• New York City, NY, 7/13-7/14 (midnights) – Suspiria (1977). At IFC Center.
• New York City, NY, 7/14 – The Woman in the Dunes (1964). At the Metrograph.
• New York City, NY, 7/13-7/19 – Yellow Submarine (1968). At IFC Center.
• Tuscon, AZ, 7/13-7/19 – Yellow Submarine (1968). At the Loft.
• Vancouver, BC, Canada – The City of Lost Children [La cité des enfants perdus] (1995). At the Rio.
• Yonkers, NY, 7/14-7/15 – Yellow Submarine (1968). At the Alamo Drafthouse.

NEPOTISM CORNER:

“Crest”: Longtime readers will know that shorts czar Cameron Jorgensen moonlights as the bassist of SLC-based progressive/hard rock group Visitors. After an EP release last year, their debut album drops today, 7/13/2018. Cameron describes it as “a concept record about a girl who falls in love, but begins to question if her love interest is real or a product of her mental illness” adding, mysteriously, “we recorded these songs two years ago in Portland, where I was bitten by a vampire while walking to a convenience store.” He hopes “a handful of people out there don’t hate it.” A local music writer didn’t hate it, at least, saying the band “sounds like Glassjaw and Letlive had a love-triangle baby with Chino Moreno, then that baby grew up on prog rock and had an obsession with reverse evolution.”

Here’s the opening tune, “Pollyana”:

You can tell that Cameron has been paying attention to the experimental shorts he’s been posting, since he also collaborated on the music video.

Visit Visitors’ Bandcamp page to purchase the album.

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.