5 ‘Must Watch’ Weird Films

 

Hollywood has more than its share of movies which are weird in nature, stretching the imagination to a point of no control.

Some click, some don’t. Yet such films can get you to think, the storyline heightened by absurdity and dark humour.

Here are five films which are certainly weird:

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Cast: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee
Director: Stanley Kubrick

A dystopian crime thriller, it is about a young boy, Alex, and his gang going on a violent sexual rampage. However, Alex gets caught and a new method to cure him of this behaviour is tried on him.

The aversion therapy is applied on Alex to make him acceptable to society. But things go wrong.

Kubrick makes Alex narrate his own story, highlighting his real life and fantasises through his images. The impact of the film was adverse and Britain banned it for years.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Cast: Johnny Depp, Benecio del Toro, Tobey Macguire, Cameron Diaz, Ellen Barkin
Director: Terry Gilliam

Two drug induced men go wild during a trip to Las Vegas. They use the drug mescaline and don’t realise what is real and what isn’t. Everything seems coloured and bizarre.

On the way, they pick up a hitch-hiker and terrify him with their behaviour. They lose control of themselves and their hallucinations get the better of them.

Depp and Del Toro are in fine nick in this film which achieved cult status. It’s sure to be cult status as well considering it also creeps into top lists from gambling fanatics, see the likes of this top 21 list as rated by Newcasinosites.me.uk as an example.

Being John Malkovich (1991)

Cast: John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, John Malkovich, Catherine Keener
Director: Spike Jonze

An unemployed puppeteer finds a portal which enters the mind of actor Malkovich with unusual results. Upon realising this, he lets others into it for $200 a turn.

The puppeteer, who is married, is in love with another woman. His wife has already got obsessed by the portal and keeps drifting in and out of it to satisfy her desires.

However, Malkovich himself discovers the portal and wants it shut down. But things don’t work that way.

Death Becomes Her (1992)

Cast: Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, Bruce Willis, Isabella Rosselini
Director: Robert Zemeckis

A jealous old woman discovers a magic potion which makes her ageless and puts her on par with her rival for the hand of a plastic surgeon.

The woman and her rival try every form of trickery to gain the surgeon’s affection. But the ageless potion has a time frame and both women need to be careful about that.

The surgeon, however, gets fed up with their antics and finally drops the magic potion while escaping. The ageless wonders are now haggard and lonely, having lost their chance. With Streep, Hawk and Willis together, the film was a commercial hit.

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

Cast: Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, Diane Wiest, Alan Arkin, Kathy Baker, Vincent Price, Anthony Michael Hall
Director: Tim Burton

An artificial man, who has scissors instead of hands, is brought out of isolation of a Gothic castle into society. The harmless man is taken into a home where he falls in love with the daughter of the house.

However jealously in the form of a rival puts the spanner in the works. The rival makes it tough for Edward and accuses him of crime.The unfulfilled love story ends in tragedy as the rival gets killed. This makes Edward retreat and he finally disappears.

~~

#Originally curated by Babu Kalyanpur in 2017. Reproduced in reader interest.