Finnisterrae. About two ghosts (that were people with sheets over their heads) walking through spain. As the film went on the sheets got filthy. There was also a horse that was sometimes real and sometimes was a hobby horse. I swear i didnt dream this
Finnisterrae. About two ghosts (that were people with sheets over their heads) walking through spain. As the film went on the sheets got filthy. There was also a horse that was sometimes real and sometimes was a hobby horse. I swear i didnt dream this
I'll probably go with the oft-mentioned Eraserhead, which I saw a few years after it was released (or perhaps escaped). So many images that remain in the mind, even many years later.
I'm still a little bit haunted by the short film The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes - the only film I've seen where several people ran, not walked, from the cinema.
Other candidates:
La Cabino - surrealist Spanish short film about a man and a telephone box
Chris Marker's famous film La Jetee (the inspiration for Gilliam's 12 Monkeys) is pretty weird too. Searched for this for years after I first saw it in a cinema. Finally got a rather expensive copy on VHS, and now here it is for everyone to see after a few key presses on YouTube (There's also an English dubbed version uploaded which is the one I saw originally, and works perfectly well, since there is only a narrator. But the image quality on the one I found was not as good).
In the cinema, the curtains (yes, there should be curtains!), should close at the precise moment the film ends, leaving the audience to silently contemplate the final reveal. On YouTube, I suppose we all just move on to the next comical cat. Technology at once empowers us and yet diminishes the experience...
The Music of Chance. I saw it about twenty years ago and was mesmerized but quite baffled. I didn't know the title so couldn't find it until recently, when I saw it again and was equally disturbed and confused by it.
Baghdad Cafe I thought was odd. An unusual, European film set in nowhere-ville USA. The premise was good, but they ran out of steam halfway through and clearly not having a clue how to end the film, plumped for a song and dance routine that was so out of fit with the rest of the film.
The strangest films I have seen in the past twelve months:
Le Quattro Volte (2010). No audible speech. The central characters include a tree and a goat.
Holy Motors (2012). M. Oscar travelling around Paris in a stretch limo adopting various roles in weird scenarios for unseen cameras or clients. Includes a musical episode with Kylie Minogue.
Another vote for Eraserhead. Saw it many years ago and its probably the only time I have felt scared walking up to bed with the lights off afterwards.
Its odd odd odd, weird in a very unsettling way and it kind of plays with your head.
I wonder if even anyone involved with it actually fully understood what they were creating.
That's just the greatness of David Lynch. For all of the strange oddities in his work nobody has ever been able to pigeon-hole and categorise him as a horror film-maker yet he's crearted some of the scariest charcaters ever seen on TV/Film. I was happy that I watched Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me before the TV series because the visuals in that film are terrifying, even the silences.
I'm not that keen on Meshes. A Study in Choreography for the Camera is a favourite. Mostly because it's one of massive influences on my editing.
I can understand some not being that taken with Meshes and preferring other works. Yet it was the one I saw first and made such an impression, as is often the case. Deren proved quite an influence on many from what I gather.
The Music of Chance. I saw it about twenty years ago and was mesmerized but quite baffled. I didn't know the title so couldn't find it until recently, when I saw it again and was equally disturbed and confused by it.
The book is fantastic, though I think the film had a slightly better ending.
Fittingly for such an oddball drama, the book's author - Paul Auster - plays a cameo role as the driver at that better ending.
Agree with a lot of choices here, especially Eraserhead and Possession.
Carnival Of Souls is also a very weird cult film. And I love Celine & Julie Go Boating, though it's probably more conventionally French surreal (if not an oxymoron).
Carpenter's In The Mouth Of Madness gets my vote for nuttiest Hollywood genre film.
Yes, Eraserhead takes some beating. I saw it with a few close friends around 25 years ago and it's still mentioned in conversation such was it's impact
I can't for the life of me remember what this film was called, but there was a group of four friends (I think there were four of them?) and for some reason they were stuck on top of some pyramid type thing in the middle of a rain forest somewhere. There were flesh eating plants on it, and some of them got eaten. But there was a tribe on the ground who wouldn't help them? Does this ring any bells with anyone? Anywho, that's the strangest film I've ever seen. That and The Happening.
EDIT - Google is my saviour. It's called The Ruins.
Gozu, God knows what was going on in Miike's mind that time. Also Ichi The Killer, another Miike serving.
Edit- oh and Visitor Q (by Miike)
That's not all Miike, though. Ichi the Killer, a comic adaptation, was scripted by Sakichi Sato, who's best known for his macabre sense of humour and his love for nihilism (he also scripted Gozu). Visitor Q was scripted by Itaru Era, best known for his weird imagination.
(Mind you, I tend to view Miike as a ridiculous hack director, but I do credit his unfortunately lesser-known films, which are actually coherent. )
I can't for the life of me remember what this film was called, but there was a group of four friends (I think there were four of them?) and for some reason they were stuck on top of some pyramid type thing in the middle of a rain forest somewhere. There were flesh eating plants on it, and some of them got eaten. But there was a tribe on the ground who wouldn't help them? Does this ring any bells with anyone? Anywho, that's the strangest film I've ever seen. That and The Happening.
EDIT - Google is my saviour. It's called The Ruins.
I didn't find the ruins strange, it was just a by-the-numbers horror film with killer plants. Watch Eraserhead if you want to see what's meant by strange, or Videodrome. Primer is another... I didn't know wtf was going on watching that
I saw the start of a movie once in Hamburg. I can't remember what it was called but a guy took a girl to his room and as they started to undress he took off both his legs. My friend and I left at that point.
I didn't find the ruins strange, it was just a by-the-numbers horror film with killer plants. Watch Eraserhead if you want to see what's meant by strange, or Videodrome. Primer is another... I didn't know wtf was going on watching that
I think I missed the beginning, so didn't understand why they were up the pyramid, hence why I found it strange.
Comments
:eek::eek:
I'm still a little bit haunted by the short film The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes - the only film I've seen where several people ran, not walked, from the cinema.
Other candidates:
La Cabino - surrealist Spanish short film about a man and a telephone box
Chris Marker's famous film La Jetee (the inspiration for Gilliam's 12 Monkeys) is pretty weird too. Searched for this for years after I first saw it in a cinema. Finally got a rather expensive copy on VHS, and now here it is for everyone to see after a few key presses on YouTube (There's also an English dubbed version uploaded which is the one I saw originally, and works perfectly well, since there is only a narrator. But the image quality on the one I found was not as good).
In the cinema, the curtains (yes, there should be curtains!), should close at the precise moment the film ends, leaving the audience to silently contemplate the final reveal. On YouTube, I suppose we all just move on to the next comical cat. Technology at once empowers us and yet diminishes the experience...
I also thought Mulholland Drive by David Lynch.
Also, The Wicker Man was a bit strange as well as sinister.
Meet the Feebles ,another of his early films was odd. A grubby muppets type film with flies and poo.
Braindead wasn't quite so strange, just demented.
I first watched Eraserhead when I was ill, which didn't help matters.
Sextette a crap musical with Mae West and Timothy Dalton is fairly stupid and weird.
Its odd odd odd, weird in a very unsettling way and it kind of plays with your head.
I wonder if even anyone involved with it actually fully understood what they were creating.
Le Quattro Volte (2010). No audible speech. The central characters include a tree and a goat.
Holy Motors (2012). M. Oscar travelling around Paris in a stretch limo adopting various roles in weird scenarios for unseen cameras or clients. Includes a musical episode with Kylie Minogue.
That's just the greatness of David Lynch. For all of the strange oddities in his work nobody has ever been able to pigeon-hole and categorise him as a horror film-maker yet he's crearted some of the scariest charcaters ever seen on TV/Film. I was happy that I watched Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me before the TV series because the visuals in that film are terrifying, even the silences.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZowK0NAvig
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAGh_Fl4cMw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UozhOo0Dt4o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UzvsEGtSqU
The book is fantastic, though I think the film had a slightly better ending.
Fittingly for such an oddball drama, the book's author - Paul Auster - plays a cameo role as the driver at that better ending.
Edit- oh and Visitor Q (by Miike)
Two things you should know about this film.
1) it by Ed wood
2) 'sex-change movie'
I think that qualifies as 'strange'....;)
Carnival Of Souls is also a very weird cult film. And I love Celine & Julie Go Boating, though it's probably more conventionally French surreal (if not an oxymoron).
Carpenter's In The Mouth Of Madness gets my vote for nuttiest Hollywood genre film.
Sean Connery must have sleepless nights about this, even 40 years later.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbGVIdA3dx0
Yes, Eraserhead takes some beating. I saw it with a few close friends around 25 years ago and it's still mentioned in conversation such was it's impact
EDIT - Google is my saviour. It's called The Ruins.
That's not all Miike, though. Ichi the Killer, a comic adaptation, was scripted by Sakichi Sato, who's best known for his macabre sense of humour and his love for nihilism (he also scripted Gozu). Visitor Q was scripted by Itaru Era, best known for his weird imagination.
(Mind you, I tend to view Miike as a ridiculous hack director, but I do credit his unfortunately lesser-known films, which are actually coherent.
I didn't find the ruins strange, it was just a by-the-numbers horror film with killer plants. Watch Eraserhead if you want to see what's meant by strange, or Videodrome. Primer is another... I didn't know wtf was going on watching that
I think I missed the beginning, so didn't understand why they were up the pyramid, hence why I found it strange.