Obscure strange films that showed up on terrestrial TV back in the day

[Gregory Torso]

Matthew Bannister's Rhythm Thief. It turned up on Channel 4 one night/early morning in 1996 or 7, as I was tripping my tits off, after moving back into the box room in my parents house, the first time I failed excelled at life. I was quite obsessed with an actress in it, Eddie Daniels, and her character. I remember something about bootlegging punk rock tapes, and something about being a mad cunt who was trying to work out what the trees in the garden were saying in semaphore to me.
Anyway, never seen it since, not on Youtube, not on a torrent. If not for IMDB, I would think it a sad waking dream. Channel 4 used to do that: hit you in the feeling tubes with an obscurity indie flick that you would never find again.

[George White]

www.imdb.com/title/tt0358752/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_28 Star of one of several unfinished, unreleased 90s vampire movies.
And Harrison not Bannister

[Gregory Torso]

Shit I knew it was Harrison not Bannister. Blame the beer.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Beware My Bretheren is something I've caught on telly, and not really enjoyed several times.

[Gregory Torso]

www.imdb.com/title/tt0358752/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_28 Star of one of several unfinished, unreleased 90s vampire movies.
And Harrison not Bannister

She was also one of the girls in the car that Harvey Keitel has a wank over in Bad Lieutenant.

[George White]

US TV would show anything though, even the least horrific horror of all - the oddly compelling Dean Jagger vehicle So Sad About Gloria (end involves a Phantom Stranger-type dragging a coffin onto a railway platform) and its director's Pepsi cola ad-esque sci-fi non-weirdness The Day It Came to Earth.
The Evil - decent haunted house horror with Richard Crenna and Victor Buono as the Devil. Steals from the Sentinel and Legend of Hell House. The ending is great, the house erupts into a white void - Hell presided by Buono dressed as Ricardo Montalban.   Includs haunted quicksand.   
ITV showed 1974's Symptoms - Less a horror, but a psychodrama. Slow but good performances  and nice Sunday afternoon atmosphere.  Made by Spaniard Jose Larraz and Spirou publishers Dupuis. Mike "Barry!" Grady turns up. Peter Vaughan and Angela Pleasence the stars.

[Shit Good Nose]

ITV showed 1974's Symptoms - Less a horror, but a psychodrama. Slow but good performances  and nice Sunday afternoon atmosphere.  Made by Spaniard Jose Larraz and Spirou publishers Dupuis. Mike "Barry!" Grady turns up. Peter Vaughan and Angela Pleasence the stars.

Released a little while ago on blu ray by BFI.  Great film. 

[MoonDust]

I remember some time in the mid 2000s, I was watching Channel 4 late one weekday night and there was a black and white film that seemed to be made of just montage. I don't remember a lot but one thing I do remember was a bald man who looked like Combo off This Is England, topless but wearing trousers, looking into the camera shouting stuff. Except you couldn't hear his voice, as there was music/noise over it instead. Didn't watch it for long..

[Famous Mortimer]

Likewise. Also, God, Cousins was so fucking annoying.

He introduced me to "Dazed and Confused" on Moviedrome, and is a decent chap too. He, er, "sources close to the production" sent me a copy of the "taking Nazis to Auschwitz" documentary he did a while ago, because someone on here was looking for it.

Thanks to that Channel 4 themed Friday night (had a title like "Exotica", but not that, it was a little before '4 Later' I think), I remember seeing "Nude On The Moon", which is one of a series of nudist films made when that was the only way you could get boobs in your movie. The rest of them were apparently normal "hey, let's go to a nudist colony" efforts, but for some reason they decided to make this one set on the moon (in one scene, you can see some ducks hanging out on a pond in the background of these moon-nudists).

[Phil_A]

Thanks to that Channel 4 themed Friday night (had a title like "Exotica", but not that, it was a little before '4 Later' I think),

Exploitica?

[Famous Mortimer]

Exploitica?

You beaut!

[George White]

On RTE in the 80s.
The Sea Gypsies, Edison Twins, Zoom the white Dolphin
Shaker Run, some of Rock Demers' films, Frog Dreaming.

[Sebastian Cobb]

They need to do another late-night obscure film show I reckon. I'm sure they could get Nigel Buckland and Stef Gardiner to host it.

[mothman]

Apparently Danger Diabolik! is on Film4 this Friday.

[Blumf]

Ooo, 2320h Fri 23^rd

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/danger-diabolik

Will give it a punt, thanks.

[ieXush2i]

Stuff like Italian animated feature VIP, My Brother Superman (from the Mr Rossi fella) just turning up on Channel 4 in the afternoon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exir4XZK9Kw

[George White]

Ah yes, Bozetto.

C4 in its early days showed Moonchild, semi-amateurish hippie horror ( see also Werewolves on Wheels, Premonition, the Spectre of Edgar Allan Poe, etc) which was actually a student film that roped in John Carradine and Victor Buono. Featured cut-ins of a hunchback.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Is Happiness obscure? I'm sure it was Channel 4 I caught that on. Christ.

[greenman]

Little remembered now but CITV showed Andrei Tarkovsky's The Mirror in opposition to the last episode of WIllie Fog on the BBC.

[kaprisky]

C4 in its early days showed Moonchild, semi-amateurish hippie horror ( see also Werewolves on Wheels, Premonition, the Spectre of Edgar Allan Poe, etc) which was actually a student film that roped in John Carradine and Victor Buono. Featured cut-ins of a hunchback.

No they didn't. They showed a TV movie from 1983 called Moonchild, a "drama-documentary in which former Moonie Chris Carlson tells the alarming story of his encounter with the Unification Church".

Is Happiness obscure? I'm sure it was Channel 4 I caught that on. Christ.

The Todd Solondz film? Never been on free-to-air.

Little remembered now but CITV showed Andrei Tarkovsky's The Mirror in opposition to the last episode of WIllie Fog on the BBC.

Yes, I definitely remember this!!!

[Phil_A]

The Todd Solondz film? Never been on free-to-air.

Yes it has, it's been on BBC2 at least twice.

Proof!
http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/search/0/20?adv=0&q=happiness+todd+solondz&media=all&yf=1923&yt=2009&mf=1&mt=12&tf=00%3A00&tt=00%3A00#search

[Sebastian Cobb]

Yeah I was going to say it must have been as there's no other way I reckon I could've stumbled across it.

[kaprisky]

Argh! I stand corrected! But it definitely wasn't Channel 4.

[purlieu]

Remember when there would be those really weird and disturbing animations on BBC2 in seemingly randomly between other programmes?

Not feature films as such, but you used to get loads of weird animation on TV back in the day. Hardly ever see that stuff now.

There was a series of claymation stuff with red and blue blobs that fought each other. But that's for another thread.

I'm only familiar with the daytime schedule of Talking Pictures - my dad stumbled across is shortly after retiring and often has it on now - so I had no idea there was anything interesting in. If I ever get my own telly again I might have to have a browse of it in the evenings though. Late night BBC2 and Channel 4 in the '90s was one of the greatest things ever.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I quite like the Murun Buchstansangur cartoons Channel 4 used to fill the gaps. Such wonderful glimpses of oblique weltschmerz.

[George White]

No they didn't. They showed a TV movie from 1983 called Moonchild, a "drama-documentary in which former Moonie Chris Carlson tells the alarming story of his encounter with the Unification Church".
The Todd Solondz film? Never been on free-to-air.
Yes, I definitely remember this!!!

According to my Films and Filming - films to be on TV, the74 one would be shown. Maybe an error.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I caught Beware My Bretheren twice over the years as a late night screening. Really didn't enjoy it either time tbh.

One of my pals caught Gymkata, which is captivatingly shit.

[George White]

Hercules and the Princess of Troy, a peplum pilot got shown on RTE.

[Z]

TG4 used to pad out some weekends evenings with non English films that an 8 year old me would watch outta bafflement more than anything else. The only two I can remember well enough to know what they were is something or another with stellan skarsgard that seemed weird as fuck and Dreams by Akira Kurosawa, which baffled me with how it looked not that old but also fucking ancient in terms of its effects.

I'm not sure how Bela Tarr would feel about rte putting werckmeister harmonies on every six months or so after the champions league with adverts every twenty minutes. There must have been scenes that had commercial breaks in the middle of them... All I know is even at the time I could tell it was a poor fit for the slot

[George White]

BBC showed Umberto Lenzi's From Hell to Victory. Early Sky was full of Cannon and TWE nonsense, and Operation Kid Brother, and SA-shot stuff like Shaka Zulu, Prisoners of the Lost Universe and Hellgate, Terrorvision, Black Emanuelle, Never Too Young Die, PBS' Boy Who Loved Trolls on  Sky alongside Hey Dad, General Hospital, As the World Turns, the New Leave it to Beaver.

Sky Movies in 1994 were showing Dick Randall=produced Bruce Le-a-thon Bruce the Superhero and Sundown the Vampire in Retreat and cheapo family nonsense Whitewater Sam. US TV is full of stuff like this -Whitewater Sam, Super Seal, Argoman, Supersonic Man, UK less so.
RTE and UTV showed Whitewater Sam too.
ITV also showed Italian tearjerker Last Moments and Roger Vadim's Hot Touch.
The Chairman, Girl From Petrovka on RTE.
RTE Poor Cow, Oh God, Bloody Kids, Liberty The American Revolution, Ernest Goes to Africa No Way To Treat A Lady
Sky Moviemax - full of Olen Ray, PM and Wynorski.
Early Sky showed Starcrash. The likes of Vampire in Venice, Covert Action with David Janssen (also once on ITV), Class of 1999, Banzai Runner, Mystery Mansion with American National Enterprises turned up on Sky too.
Rebel Rousers showed up on ITV, as did Richard Harrison vehicles Revolt of the Pretorians by Alfonso Brescia, Acquasanta Joe and Vengeance. ITV showed Keoma, A Professional Gun, Texas, Adios, Deaf Smith and Johnny Ears - Sky showed Django Strikes Again
https://www.newspapers.com/search/#query=%22franco+nero%22&dr_year=1985-2000&offset=113&p_place=England
BBC showed Tony Zarindast's the Guns and the Fury.

BBC - The Treasure Seekers with Rod Taylor and Stuart Whitman. Cuba Crossing with Stuart Whitman and Robert Vaughn cropped up on HTV.  Another Whitman film, the obscure Corman-produced Oliver Reed thriller Ransom cropped up in ITV late night too.
C4 showed the Devil's Kiss from 1971.

ITV shoed Insaaf with Vinod Khanna, Vampire of Venice, Fred Williamson's Joshua the Black Rider and a Bowery Boys comedy and Ted Mikels' Missile-X, all on the same night, depending on the region. One Down, Two to Go was on Sky. BBC showed Mean Johnny Barrows.

Children's Channel showed DTV cartoons Broomstick Cottage.
Sky showed One Down, Two to Go and Williamson's own Big Score and BBC showed Johnny Barrows.