From: wheelan@cs.mcgill.ca (Bill HEELAN)
Subject: Re: The Weird List
Organization: SOCS, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 04:37:27 GMT

From article <3987@creatures.cs.vt.edu>, by sahle@csgrad.cs.vt.edu (Eskinder Sahle):
[...]
> The list of weird, eccentric and original movies (more or less) has
> swelled to more than a hundred.  If you know of any that belong there,
> please post.  And also, if you have seen any of the movies in the list,
> it would help if you could post a rating you think the picture
> deserves (0-5).  I'll average things out and resend the list.... 
> 
> bye
> Ahmed

  I can't really give a numerical rating to a film.  There are too many
  independent variables.  I'll let others who have seen the following
  films rate them.

  (The only exception is "Mom and Dad Save the World": Zeeeeeeerrrrooooo!
  Can I give negative numbers? :-)

                                                     - Bill


P.S.

  Your news reader is broken, if it generated a distribution of "rec".
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Cat Women of the Moon

  1953 - don't remember the director, offhand

  Cigarettes burning on the moon; spaceship control room from an old
  submarine set; giant moon spiders; moon city from a previous film about
  Marco Polo and Las Vegas showgirls in black body suits!  Who could ask
  for more?

  (I think the cat women's names were Alpha, Beta, Gamma and... you
  guessed it!  Lambda (?!))



Dial M for Murder

  195? - directed by Alfred Hitchcock

  I that if you liked "Read Window" you'll like this one.  It also stars
  Grace Kelly and takes place almost entirely on one set.  The chief
  inspector is quietly funny and the plot is clever.

  And did I mention it stars Grace Kelly? :-)



Earth vs. the Flying Saucers

  1956 - don't remember the director, offhand

  The film is adequately described by its title.  The most "impressive"
  thing (and I use the word loosely) was a supposed computer to translate
  the aliens' speech into english.  It was about five feet wide, fifteen feet
  long and used gears, rods and cams to do its calculations -- it looked
  rather like a giant metallic table-soccer game!  If that weren't enough,
  the output device was a pen attached to two metal rods that produced
  longhand writing!  Sigh.

  (Ray Harryhausen did the flying saucer and general destruction effects.)



Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and
    Became Mixed-up Zombies, The

  1963 - directed by Ray Dennis Steckler

  Despite its title TISCWSLABMZ is something of a disappointment.  There
  aren't really any incredibly strange creatures, nor mixed-up zombies,
  although it does have an impressively weird dance dream sequence and
  other, strange pseudo-Las Vegas dance numbers.



Lair of the White Worm

  198? - directed by Ken Russel (who directed Gothic, already on the list)

  Funny, sexy and weird.  See this movie and you will easily be able to
  charm a Scottish snake person!



Lord Love a Duck

  1966 - directed by George Axelrod

  "Lord Love a Duck" is a comedy about society's attitudes and morals in
  the mid-sixties, especially in California.  It's just plain weird!  (But
  very good.)

  (Stars Roddy McDowell, Ruth Gordon and Tuesday Weld.)



Maniac

  1934 - directed by Dwaine (sp?) Esper

  "Maniac" was an "expoitation" movie (albeit an early one -- 1934).  Among
  other things (such as a cat eating a human heart, a mad scientist eating a
  cat's eye, and a man who raises cats and rats so they can eat one another)
  it features a number of women running around topless, in skimpy underware
  or see-through negligees.

  (There were a few ways you could try to get such movies shown back then:
  try to pass them off as "educational" films, give them a biblical theme or
  have a "square-up" reel at the end.  The preceding reels would have all
  the sex and fun stuff, while the final reel would show the people being
  punished (i.e. getting what they deserved).)

  In this case "Maniac" chose to go the educational route; every so often
  the action is interupted by a screen of text explaining some psychological
  ailment (e.g. paranoia), accompanied by 30's style elevator music.  Then
  -- WHAM! -- back to the action!  It is really quite fascinating.
  (Occasionally, what appeared to be devils would appear over the
  protagonist's (?!) head, perhaps egging him on.  I heard that they were
  ripped off from an early (silent) version of the Faust story.)



Plan 9 From Outer Space

   1956 - directed by Edward Wood, Jr.

   Plan 9, of course, is a classic.  It just keeps getting better with
   repeated viewing.  This is, arguably, the worst film ever made.  It
   features home movie footage of an aging, drug addicted Bela Lugosi,
   ostensibly as an old man who is turned into a zombie by aliens out to
   destroy the world.  Unfortunately for the director, Lugosi died during
   the shooting, so Wood replaced him with his chiropracter, who happened to
   look nothing like Lugosi, besides being a foot taller.  The simple
   solution was that he played all his scenes with his arm holding a cape in
   front of his face, like Dracula!  I could spend pages describing the
   inept acting, terrible diaglogue and laughable special effects, but...
   If you ever get the chance, you _must_ see this film!

   (Also features Criswell, the psychic; Vampira (a 50's Elvira) and Tor
   Johnson (can't recall his real name), a Swedish ex-wrestler with a heavy
   accent in the role of an American small town sheriff.)

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