What list of weird films would be complete without Mr Lynch? The king of weird films and master of surreal cinema. They say if you ask 100 people what Eraserhead is actually about you’ll get 100 different answers. For me, it’s a nightmare and the anxieties of everyday life contorting it. One of my all time favourite films, Eraserhead is a work of art that you experience. It gets under your skin, it’s like nothing else you’ll ever see. And the benchmark for all other strange films.
2. Visitor Q
You know with a Takashi Miike film it’s not going to be your every day ‘normal’ flick, and this is probably his most extreme film. Breaking pretty much every taboo, it crams in so much fetish imagery it’s too much for most. It’s about as completely batshit crazy as it gets.
3. Tetsuo
Industrial body-horror from genius Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto about man fusing with machine. A hyper-kinetic assault on the senses! On a technical merit it's worth watching just for the stunning editing alone.
4. Begotten
The plot synopsis pretty much says it all; ‘God disembowels himself with a straight razor. The spirit-like Mother Earth emerges, venturing into a bleak, barren landscape. Twitching and cowering, the Son Of Earth is set upon by faceless cannibals’. I found this a hard watch, and it’s full of unsettling, grainy imagery.
5. Inland Empire
Probably Lynch’s ‘hardest’ film, think Mulholland Drive X 10! With Laura Dern on great form.
6. Gozu
Miike again, I could have probably listed 10 of his films and had a decent weird films list. Gozu reminded me of Miike doing a comedy version of a David Lynch film. In a good way.
7. Gummo
It’s surreal, yet it’s very real. Shows how weird real life can be.
8. Meet the Feebles
Way before Peter Jackson got knee-deep in orc and elve shit he was making some pretty mental films, this might be his craziest.
9. Save the Green Planet
Manages to be simultaneously funny and heart wrenching, not to mention completely mad.
10. Naked Lunch
Cronenberg’s gone a bit straight-laced lately with his crime thrillers (History of Violence, Eastern Promises), not that they’re bad films, I really like them! But he used to make pretty demented schlock, this is probably his weirdest.
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