So in the delightful nighttime scroll-not-watch, we reminded ourselves of both simpler times, where we wouldn’t just watch trailers all night and then go to bed. Sometimes, we look at rectangular tiles for 2 hours and then jump off our balcony.
But, Nic Cage amirite? Mandy… Color Out of Space… I means seriously, this guy’s career. Right now, something incredible is happening, because he’s joined the post-modernist nostalgia porn psycho WTF horror realm of weirdness. No, I’m not talking near genius level psychological and cosmic body horror like Possessor from Brandon Cronenberg, I am talking these WTF concepts that are finally getting greenlit.
Essentially, this post is about finding more and identifying what the hell this genre is.
Here’s Nic Cage fighting animatronics in Willy’s Wonderland:
Speaking of Psycho…. PG, Psycho Gorman is one of the most bizarre things I’ve seen greenlit in YEARS:
KILLER SOFA, even… reminds me of the charm of Jack Frost, but even weirder. How can something be weirder?
And they even re-woke Banana Splits to make a horror film:
And the Chucky like madness crossed with Puppetmaster type love of little anthropomorphized tiny things that jam an evil soul in there… but I think this guy is just angry his kid grew up and threw him away. But you know… BENNY LOVES YOU!
Some older entries…. Zombeavers. You liked Zombie Strippers… what about a play on the colloquialism for vagina?
I think the seminal watershed moment was what is truly one of the most high concept post-modernist horror comedy films in history:
RUBBER, a telekinetic rubber tire that explodes people:
Wut? Abducted by Aliens and takes a mental backseat while the Alien careens through Cape Town?
It’s probably best to look at stuff like Dark Star for the rise of real absurdity, and I also look at Jodorowsky, but with respect not bemusement. In that, there were some “Return of the Living Dead again” jokes, and Romero’s pie fight in Dawn of the Dead, but Peter Jackson really knocked it out of the park with Brain Dead / Dead Alive, Bad Taste, and this profound freakshow, Meet the Feebles:
Also, got to give love to Troma, & Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: