Weirder sci-fi films

[acrow]

big fan of both of those. good call. genuine positive karma film suggestion big up coming your way.

[prwc]

2 great 60s sci-fi films, both concerning identity are Seconds and Face Of Another (Which has a lovely UK Eureka Masters Of Cinema DVD). The Last Frankenstein is a totally underrated gem which is sadly only available through grey market[nb]Cinemageddon[/nb] means, it has plot points about suicide as a spreadable disease and mutants in love amid many other interesting and well balanced themes. The Twelve Months of the Summer is a masterful Swedish TV film, again totally obscure and only available via shady avenues, but one of the most subtly effective and disturbing slices of bleak sci-fi I've ever seen. Wax, or the discovery of Television Among the Bees is also worth your time, though it has been quite a while since I saw it. The IMDb links should offer better summaries than I am capable of.

[Famous Mortimer]

Kin Dza Dza (1986, Georgiy Daneliya) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db7pqpylMUA Russian sci-fi black comedy.

Unless I'm reading the captions wrong, available in its entirety on Youtube here.

[Custard]

I'd heartily recommend Cypher, starring Lucy Lui. Has a neat central premise, and some genuinely good twists and turns.

The Thirteenth Floor is aces, too. Was one of many sci-fi's punted out after The Matrix hit, and has a similar kinda premise. But is really well done, and they play with the idea really interestingly

Dark City was another film kinda overlooked at the time, due to The Matrix, but is excellent stuff, and well worth seeking out

[samadriel]

Dark City came out a year before The Matrix.  Good though.

[Blumf]

Although it's a great little film, I'm not sure you could class Cypher as 'weird' sci-fi, the same for The Thirteenth Floor. They're both well worth watch though.

More fantasy than sci-fi, but I'd give a shout for Highway to Hell, which has some nice bits to it (I particularly like seeing them pave the titular highway)

Meet the Hollowheads definitely fits 'weird' and Nirvana probably does too.

[phantom_power]

Does Upstream Colour count as sci-fi? I think so. Or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?

[Mister Six]

Does Upstream Colour count as sci-fi? I think so. Or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?

Yes and yes. Surely?

[futon]

Unless I'm reading the captions wrong, available in its entirety on Youtube here.

Yeah, though "captions" might be to the point. The tiny non-Russian-speaking minority here will probably want to track down a version with subtitles.. It is out there!

[Famous Mortimer]

Yeah, though "captions" might be to the point. The tiny non-Russian-speaking minority here will probably want to track down a version with subtitles.. It is out there!

I think there's an "enable subtitles" option on Youtube. Well, it's beta, and the five minutes I just watched as a test only had a few lines of dialogue, but it seemed reasonable.

[Zetetic]

I wouldn't worry about them being 'beta' - they're subtitles supplied by Mosfilm, not auto-captioned (like the Russian ones are).

[futon]

I think there's an "enable subtitles" option on Youtube. Well, it's beta, and the five minutes I just watched as a test only had a few lines of dialogue, but it seemed reasonable.

Wow, worth the embarrassment of my mis-snark to learn about that. Thanks for the info - you're right!

[garbed_attic]

Possibly more horror than sci-fi, but if you haven't seen the original Tetsuo: Iron Man it's scrappy, punk, erotic fun!

[Famous Mortimer]

Wow, worth the embarrassment of my mis-snark to learn about that. Thanks for the info - you're right!

Hey, I've been wrong three times today, it's nice to get one in the win column :)

[BlodwynPig]

Thanks to everyone who recommended or guided me to Beyond the Black Rainbow. What a blast!

[Canted_Angle]

William Shatner directed - Groom Lake is not normal in any way. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0270393/?ref_=sr_1

[zomgmouse]

The Thirteenth Floor is aces, too. Was one of many sci-fi's punted out after The Matrix hit, and has a similar kinda premise. But is really well done, and they play with the idea really interestingly

I haven't seen this, but it's an adaptation of Simulacron 3 (aka Counterfeit World) by Daniel Galouye; the first film to adapt it was in fact World on a Wire, a 1973 TV film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Worth watching; it's fairly dated in some respects but it's still quite interesting.

[Blumf]

Just remembered one. The Final Programme

Imagine if James Bond had taken a heroic amount of LSD, then appeared in a not-very-good film involving some sort of psychic cannibal, a booby trapped manor house, hallucinogenic needle guns, and the end of the world.

Not a great film by any measure[nb]no idea about the books it's based on, would be interested in reading some[/nb], but definitely fits the weird sci-fi category.

[futon]

It's just occurred to me that Peter Greenaway's early effort, The Falls (1980) might come under this thread, 92 short biographical films examining the impact of the VUE ('violent unexplained event') on their subjects.

It's obviously weird but borderline science fiction. Director's introduction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdQM_o-PZCY Sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WRXA_Uz170

[Famous Mortimer]

I bloody love that film.

[Sony Walkman Prophecies]

Nice little 25 minute SF concept here called "The Obsolete Man"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZymJAsxHbVg

[GeeWhiz]

Have we mentioned Phase IV yet? The sole directorial credit of Saul Bass, title-sequence-animator general. It's a very 70s psych-addled affair about hyper-evolved ants - oodles of fuzz guitar on the soundtrack, plenty of 'far-out' visuals. The sort of thing you'd imagine Monster Magnet looping in the background during a live set. in the mid 90s. The trailer's here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuhgBvOWb_k

[BlodwynPig]

The line "This is no message" is sumptuous. Thanks Geewhiz.

[billtheburger]

I'll recommend A Boy and His Dog and come back later when I remember more.

[GeeWhiz]

The line "This is no message" is sumptuous. Thanks Geewhiz.

Ah, not to worry. It really is a muddle of a film, occasionally very laggy and certainly not one to put on in the early hours. Still, I can think of few flicks that would better suit the 'weirder sci-fi' tag.

Another suggestion is Accion Mutante by nutso Spanish director Alex De La Iglesia. Much more energetic, it's about a terror cell of cripples and the deformed waging war against the rich and beautiful in a fascistic future. There's a very Gilliamesque sense of the grotesque to it, but with an added hard edge. Fopp are selling copies for about three quid.

The director is a bit of a pet topic of mine. He's made a couple of English language films (bloody 90s road movie Perdita Durango and a poxy adaptation of The Oxford Murders) but his Spanish language output is marvelous, ranging from satires to black comedies, westerns and horror. His films have a real verve to them, and the kind of molasses humour that often seems to go hand in hand with the Spanish Catholic mentality. Day of the Beast, a horror comedy about a priest who uncovers the imminent birth of the antichrist and tries to get in with the guilty parties by committing a range of terrible crimes, is frankly a mini-masterpiece.

Perhaps a topic for another time.

[billtheburger]

Day of the Beast gave me the worst nightmare of my life.

[mothman]

I feel a great deal of love for The Thirteenth Floor. I know it's not that good but it just ticks my boxes.

Two SF movies from the 70s with a requisite degree of "the fuck?"-ness: Boorman's Zardoz, and Altman's Quintet. Plus of course Roeg's The Man Who Fell To Earth.

[BlodwynPig]

Has anyone mentioned

The Quiet Earth yet?

Another of my late night teen treats that still lingers with me to this day and I was blown away with a rewatch on DVD recently. One of the best.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

Has anyone mentioned

The Quiet Earth yet?

Another of my late night teen treats that still lingers with me to this day and I was blown away with a rewatch on DVD recently. One of the best.

Yes, bloody brilliant WTF ending.

[billtheburger]

I feel a great deal of love for The Thirteenth Floor. I know it's not that good but it just ticks my boxes.

Two SF movies from the 70s with a requisite degree of "the fuck?"-ness: Boorman's Zardoz, and Altman's Quintet. Plus of course Roeg's The Man Who Fell To Earth.

As I love Zardoz & The Man Who Fell to Earth, I will now check out Quintet.