10 Weirdest Films Ever Made !!!

May 23, 2010 in TV & Movies

Everyone enjoys watching a good movie. Whether it’s curled up on the sofa with your partner or pet dog to watch a DVD, or at the cinema to see the latest Hollywood blockbuster. There are an incredible selection of genres to enjoy to suit every body’s tastes: action, romance, comedy, thrillers, sci-fi, horrors etc. We all have our favourites that we’ve seen over a hundred times and could probably quote a few of the most memorable lines. I have a friend who can recite the whole Gladiator speech! There are some films which are truly bizarre though and Weird could probably be a genre in itself. The list of the weirdest films ever made could probably be quite significant in its size, but here is a list of ten.

1. The Idiots

Image source - Films-Area

A film, as states in the trailer, that is made by idiots for idiots about idiots. The Idiots is actually about a group of intelligent people pretending to be mentally retarded in society in order to gauge how the public reacts to their behaviour. It’s kind of like Jackass with regards to the stunts they pull, but with a bit more thought behind it as it is more of a social experiment than a group of mates pratting around.

2. Pi

Image source - Wikipedia

This is not a film about Magnum P.I. and nor does it star the moustachioed Tom Selleck. If you look at the film poster it’s actually called π, the mathematical symbol for Pi. You therefore get the gist that maths is the central theme to this film. It’s about a misanthropic mathematical genius called Max Cohen who at the age of six stared at the sun for too long and now suffers terrible headaches. His obsession is discovering numeric patterns, which leads to him working with the Wall Street traders and a guy called Lenny. A very weird and dark tale, it was directed by Darren “The Wrestler” Aronofsky.

3. Delicatessen

Image source - Wikipedia

A French dark comedy about a post-apocalyptic world, the film focuses on the tenants surviving in an apartment building. Food is scarce and is used as currency. The owner of the delicatessen also owns the apartments and hires a former clown to be his new handy-man. But this naughty little butcher/deli owner/landlord has a habit of luring people to him and eventually chopping them up and selling the meat to his tenants. Will the former clown survive? Basically it’s a French version of Sweeney Todd, cue ultimate weirdness.

4. Brazil

Image source - Wikipedia

Terry Gilliam is the master of the imagination but even this film is truly bizarre even for him. Its central character is Sam Lowry and the theme is loosely based around George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Sam is stuck in a dead-end job where everyone is monitored and controlled by the state. He one day spots a mistake on some paperwork, which leads to the arrest of an innocent man. Sam spends the rest of the film trying to correct the error, whilst simultaneously trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams. The film has got a large cult following at least. If, like me, you’ve ever wondered why it is called Brazil when it is set in Britain, it is because of the recurring theme song – Aquarela do Brasil. That just makes it even more weird!

5. Naked Lunch

Image source - Wikipedia

From another cult film-maker extraordinaire – David Cronenberg – comes Naked Lunch. The story is about an exterminator called William Lee who discovers his wife has become addicted to his bug powder. Following into her addiction he one day accidentally kills her. But by this point William is well over the brink because he’s entered a hallucinatory world in which he believes he’s a secret agent reporting his mission to oversized bugs…

6. Crash

Image source - Wikipedia

Another Cronenberg cult classic. Crash, based on the novel of the same name, is a sexually charged slightly disturbing story about a group of people who get turned on by car accidents. Following a car accident and the loveless marriage he finds himself in, James Ballard (played by James Spader) has an affair with the woman from the crash and together they join a cult: the people who are sexually aroused by car crashes. Creepy, weird, and wrong in so many ways by the time these people start making love to crash victims’ wounds, it is no wonder the film was released to very mixed reactions by critics and audiences.

7. Eraserhead

Image source - Wikipedia

Where to begin with Eraserhead…well it’s directed by David Lynch, who can be categorised with David Cronenberg when it comes to film-making. That’s a start. As for the plot…well…it basically is about a gentleman called Henry (that’s Henry with the hair in the poster). Henry is abandoned by his wife after she gives birth to a deformed baby leaving him to raise the child alone. The rest of his life is surrounded by some very surreal events, such as the encounters with the Lady in the Radiator, dreams of his brain being used for pencil erasers, and a disturbing scene when he goes to carve a chicken. YouTube any of the scenes to fully understand and decide for yourself whether it is far to uncomfortable to watch or whether it is a brilliant piece of original film-making.

8. The Wicker Man

Image source - Wikipedia

British horror film released in the 70s tells the story of a celibate, devout Christian police officer sent from Scotland to somewhere in the British Isles to investigate the disappearance of a local girl. When he’s there though he notices that all the locals are acting rather odd. He becomes suspicious of everyone’s strange behaviour, notably their high sexual energy. Turns out they are all into paganism and they have plans for him involving the Wicker Man. The ending is quite predictable but this film is still regarded highly by critics.

9. El Topo

Image source - Wikipedia

Although it may be visually stunning in some scenes El Topo is filled with a bunch of bizarre characters in a ever stranger theme. It’s a surreal Spaghetti Western, except the film’s trailer claims it isn’t a Western? Written by, directed by, and starring Alejandro Jodorowsky (talk about narcissistic!), he plays a the film’s hero…a violent gunslinger dressed all in black. On a quest for enlightenment he meets monks, dwarves, outlaws and representatives of various religions.

10. Fantasia

Image source - Wikipedia

Disney films are supposed to be engaging with the audience right? Obviously the main target audience being children, I struggle to understand what made Disney believe this would grip a child’s imagination. I mean, it sure confused the hell out of me when I first watched it as a child and seeing clips of it now I still don’t get it! Fantasia is broken down into eight segments with no dialogue and just strange animated sequences played out to classical music. Now, unless the next Beethoven was watching this it really isn’t going to appeal to many children. It’ll either bore them, scare them, or simply leave them feeling quite confused over what just happened over that period of 125 minutes (which to a child can seem like 125 days!) Ask everyone you know what their favourite Disney film of all time is and note how many answer you with Fantasia!