The 10 Most Bizarre Movies of All Time

There comes a point in every cinephile’s journey where a steady diet of mainstream blockbusters and broad crowd-pleasers won’t quite cut it anymore. That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with rewatching “Terminator 2”, “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, or any rock-solid cinematic comfort food you know backwards and forwards for the gazillionth time instead of finally diving into that obscure cult film you found browsing the Criterion Channel and your friend won’t stop raving about. However, if, deep down, you think you’re ready to take the plunge and expose yourself to alt-viewing options that defy explanation and will turn your brain into mush, we’ve got you covered.

From gruesome martial arts splatterfests that crank the action up to 11 and Warhol-inspired counterculture slashers to completely off-the-wall sci-fi extravaganzas, today we’re rounding up a collection of puzzling cinematic oddities — films that were too wacky and weird to be embraced by mainstream audiences, but that later amassed devoted cult followings and continue to inspire deep obsession today. Listed in chronological order, the following oddball gems might be outside the norm and not for everyone, but give them a fair shot and you won’t be disappointed.

1. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)

If you’re in the mood for a sumptuously shot, sexually charged gothic folk tale about a young innocent woman being viciously preyed upon by vampires in medieval Europe, you could watch last year’s “Nosferatu”, I guess. Or you could be cool and check out this adaptation of Vítezslav Nezval’s 1935 novel instead.

The loss of innocence and awkward sexual awakening of a thirteen-year-old girl (Jaroslava Schallerová) supplies the thematic bedrock of this landmark of the Czech New Wave directed by Jaromil Jireš, a defiantly anti-authoritarian film that offers less of a unified narrative than a string of dreamlike vignettes and striking imagery and that bleed into each other and furiously dig into your consciousness.

The movie’s underlying exploration of repressed desire, guilt, and domestic abuse through the distorted lens of a girl transitioning into womanhood in a religiously oppressive milieu is straightforward and relatively easy to grasp even if the most fantastical and metaphorical elements might throw you for a loop every now and then. Think “Alice in Wonderland” meets “Wizard of Oz”, only this time Alice/Dorothy is a horny teen and instead of talking cats, ruby slippers, and flying monkeys, she encounters magic earrings, parasitic grandmothers, and bloodsucking priests. Definitely not one for the kids.

2. Eraserhead (1977)

Complete with post-industrial urban hellscapes, screeching mutant babies, fizzling light bulbs, bleeding man-made chickens, and a deformed singing lady who lives in a radiator, David Lynch’s years-in-the-making debut came out of left field in 1977, wormed its way into our subconscious, and became an overnight sensation as the defining midnight movie staple of its era.

The main thing you need to know about “Eraserhead” is that Lynch conceived it back when he was a newly married man, expecting father, and up-and-coming film school grad living in Philadelphia. He took some odd jobs, secured funding from the American Film Institute, brought in a handful of his pals, and channeled his own fears and anxieties of unintended parenthood into Henry Spencer (Jack Nance), a meek print worker whose life is turned upside down after her one-time fling (Charlotte Stewart) gives birth to a hideously deformed creature.

What you’re left with is an odd film that is deeply unnerving and morbidly funny in nearly equal measure, and perhaps the first full-blown surreal movie to fully break into the American mainstream. Half a century later, “Eraserhead” remains a subject of fervid obsession, with many a dedicated movie buff still racking their brains to unravel its ambiguous mysteries — what’s the deal with the man pulling the levers, how does Henry end up taking his own life, and most importantly, how the heck did they manage to come up with such a convincingly hideous baby puppet on a $100,000 budget? Your guess is as good as mine.

3. House (1977)

Sure, many films by Japanese director Nobuhiko Obayashi dabble in the surreal, but how many feature floating heads, evil spirits, bleeding clocks, possessed watermelons, dancing skeletons, a demonic cat, and a carnivorous piano? After all, there’s a reason why this absolute bonkers, near-indescribable haunted house acid trip — about a teenage schoolgirl and six of her classmates heading to the country to visit her aunt’s secluded country farmhouse — is one of the most frequently named titles when you ask film buffs to suggest movies that will mess with your head.

An 88-minute-long full-on assault to the senses inspired by the childhood nightmares of Obayashi’s 10-year-old daughter, “House” is light on plot but so unabashedly silly over-the-top that you might find yourself unsure whether to laugh, scream, or cry in despair at every given turn. A good rule of thumb for the movies on this list is not to fret too much about plot details and simply enjoy the rollercoaster ride. If this one’s right up your alley and you’re not faint of heart, be sure to follow it up with Takashi Miike’s horror-tinged musical extravaganza “The Happiness of the Katakuris”.

4. Liquid Sky (1982)

“Strange Aliens having bizarre orgasms!” The film’s official tagline says it all, really, but frankly it doesn’t even begin to cover the reasons why this offbeat time capsule of early-1980s punk subculture by Soviet exile Slava Tsukerman continues to be a seminal rite of passage among diehard sci-fi aficionados and gets screened in New York revival houses every once in a while.

Shot with a shoestring $500,000 budget with a Soviet crew and a bunch of unknown actors, “Liquid Sky” plunges you right smack into the downtown New Wave scene and into the shoes of androgynous fashion model and heroine junkie Margaret (Anne Carlisle). It just so happens that an alien creature that feeds off a human endorphin produced during climax suddenly lands on her apartment roof, with Margaret striking a deal to lure unsuspecting partners to her apartment before it kills them off on the spot right as they’re about to reach orgasm. Sure, it may not be the ideal way to kick off a first date, but that wild plot description alone should at least make you think about tracking it down.

Come to watch a bunch of Manhattan oddballs being ruthlessly vaporized by invisible aliens Repo Man-style, stay for the neon-soaked visuals, eye-popping production design, and synthy ’80s score.

5. The Boxer’s Omen (1983)

Prolific Hong Kong studio Shaw Brothers churned out such an absurd number of martial arts movies in their heyday that you’d need a full year just to get through their 1980s catalog. Endless praise has been lumped upon the likes of “The 36th Chamber of Shaolin” and “The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter”, and rightly so — both hold a firm place in action cinema history as bona fide classics in their own right and are solid entry points for newcomers.

Though rarely mentioned in the same breath as these two, very few genre films in cinema history come close to the batshit energy and gross-out, visceral thrills of this lesser-known gem directed by Kuei Chih-Hung, about a Thai boxer avenging his crippled brother and breaking an ancient Buddhist curse that’s been tormenting his family.

Reincarnated monks regurgitating food, chopping limbs off, fighting demonic bats, flying heads, and using crocodile skeletons as vessels for supernatural mummies… Even if you’ve already skimmed the plot synopsis and think you have a sense of what to expect, rest assured, nothing can prepare you for the gloriously unhinged mayhem that is “The Boxer’s Omen”. Like a bizarre cross between “Rocky” and “Temple of Doom”, this Eighties cult item is so chaotic and demented that watching it feels like stumbling upon a cursed artifact from another dimension that somehow slithered into our own.