The Ten Strangest Cult Movies

They can be strange, baffling or just plain weird. With the recent death of director David Lynch, people are once again seeking out movies that push the boundaries of what we consider normal. But while we all sat and watched Eraserhead, and maybe even claimed to understand it, there are dozens if not hundreds of films that will fall through the cracks and into that hard to define arena of ‘cult’.

These are films that never really got the acclaim of other, sometimes stranger films that were released. This can be due to a very limited release, the film market may not have been interested during that period or something as simple as just bad distribution. But whatever the reason, these ten movies are worth sitting down to watch if you can manage to track them down. And, of course, if you can bring yourself to watch them.

10) Liquid Sky

The trope of aliens visiting Earth is one of the oldest out there. But here, we have aliens visiting the club scene in New York, 1982. We follow the seedy life of a group of artists all seeking their latest high. At that time ‘liquid sky’ was a slang term for heroin. An alien lands on the roof of Margaret, played by Anne Carlile. She also plays the role of Jimmy, the male antagonist. Across the street, German scientist Johann, played by Otto von Wernherr, observes the alien all the while trying to fend off the advances of his increasingly sex-starved boarder.  

The plot is filled with fashion shoots and performance art as the alien, which looks strangely like a retina, prays on men that engage in rather forced sex, feeding on the sick creeps at the point of orgasm.

This is a one-of-a-kind film that could only have been made independently and for a budget of around $500,000. It features a transgressive female protagonist and performances that push the envelope, giving us a look at a culture that was flourishing in New York in the early 80’s.

It is difficult to find, with a small number of DVD releases in the mid-noughties. But it remains an odd, under-seen sci-fi movie.

9) Xtro

In his review of this one, Roger Ebert strongly hinted that the filmmakers were incompetent and that “movies like this give movies a bad name”. But, like many other movies, this benefitted from a reappraisal long after its release. It found its audience on video and has been thought of as a solid cult film ever since.

This is an alien abduction movie that seems as if it was written by Sigmund Freud. The movie centres around a family of three, beginning with the father, Philip Sayer, being abducted. Three years later he is…returned, by being birthed, fully formed, by a woman who was abducted at the same time as him.

After waking from a nightmare, his son, played by Simon Nash finds himself covered in blood that isn’t his. The father finds his way back home and works his way back into the family, against the wishes of the mother’s new boyfriend. He comforts his son, then bites and drinks his blood. After this, the son finds he has strange new powers and can bring his toys to life. What follows this is an acid trip where the son sends his toys out to kill people who he feels have wronged him in some way. His babysitter is impregnated with alien eggs, and father and son have quite a warm reunion.

The film is deeply strange and dark, which no doubt accounts for its initial bad reception. Audiences in 1982 did not take well to a child who becomes a vessel for evil alien forces. It does have a cult following, however, and DVDs are available if you can manage to track them down.

8) Society

In the horror genre, there are films that frighten you, and films that horrify you. Society is definitely one of those. Ostensibly a satire on the decadence of the high society class, and the various groups that run the country clubs and other white-collar jobs, this 1989 body horror classic shows us that the people who hold these positions are a race of Lovecraftian nightmares that plot and merge with each other in order to hold their power over the human race.

We follow Bill, played by Billy Warlock, the son of two of these high society members. He tells his psychiatrist that he feels as though there is something hidden, not quite right with his family.  He accidently sees his sister in the shower and is horrified to see the top half of her body on backwards. Later, he gets a recording of a conversation that has his sister talking about having sex with both their mother and father, and all the other members of their society. Bill is disgusted, vowing to find out what is happening.

His investigation into this society leads to his walking in on a fleshy-fused orgy in his parents’ house which contains some of the best, and most horrifying practical effects ever committed to celluloid.

To describe it any more would ruin the shock and commentary of high society the film provides. But any horror fan should seek this one out. The impressive, disturbing practical effects alone are reason enough to see it.

7) Schizopolis

Steven Soderbergh? He who directed Oceans Eleven and Erin Brockovich? Yep, before he was considered as both a mainstream and independent director, he made a strange little film that can only be described as looking into a man’s mental breakdown.

You would be hard pressed to describe this as a movie. Rather it is almost an audio/visual experience. We follow the lives of Fletcher Munson, an employee of Eventualism, a Scientology-like group, and Dr. Jeffery Korchek a dentist and Munson’s doppelganger. Both are played by Soderbergh. Fletchers wife, Mrs. Munson played by Betsy Brantley, is having an affair with Dr. Korchek, and eventually Fletcher falls in love with Attractive Woman #2. Who is also played by Brantley. Got all that?

Even this meta description is only a small part of the hall of mirrors that Schizopolis lives in. It is a rabbit hole inside Soderbergh’s mind that unfold as the film progresses. Instead of actual conversation, Soderbergh presents us with snippets like “Generic greeting.” And “Overly dramatic statement regarding upcoming meal”. He also gives us nonsensical dialogue that we must interpret through its delivery.

The plot is non-linear, jumping back and forth through time and the character’s perspectives. And by the end, we are unsure of what any of it really meant. Soderbergh both wrote and shot the movie over nine months, coming across like a broken collection of thoughts that is hard to watch. Like looking at a headache on-screen. But it is a totally unique film.

Soderbergh was well regarded as a filmmaker, so this got its own release in the Criterion collection. It can also be found on various streaming services if you are in the mood for this odd little number.

6) Eating Raoul

1982 again, with writer, director and actor Paul Bartel. He appeared in over 90 movies and TV shows, often playing unintelligent authority figures and dad characters. He had an edge of satire but never really achieved the heights of a mainstream actor or movie maker.

This black comedy, which he directed, follows the ridiculous couple, Paul and Mary Bland, played by Bartel and Mary Woronov. They are a poor couple who dream of one day opening their own restaurant. They hate the swingers who live in their building and the sexualised society at large, so they come up with a plan to raise funds. Mary will pose as a swinger to try and seduce men while Paul will then kill and rob them. The titular Raoul, a burglar played by Robert Beltrahn, causes problems when he finds their latest victim in their apartment. He makes a deal with them to dispose of the bodies by selling them to a dog food company. He and Mary begin an affair and they plan to kill Paul. However, the film is called Eating Raoul for a reason.

A satire that mixes underground movie edginess with more mainstream comedy, it is a funny movie with great performances from the morally dubious couple. It was released in the Criterion collection in 2010.

5) Titus

It is universally agreed upon at this point that William Shakespeare wrote some of the finest plays in history. Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, he deals beautifully with the nature of love, life and mortality. However, early in his career he was like most other writers, copying the earlier popular and successful tragedies. These were filled with bloody violence, strange revenge and were loved by the masses.

This play dates back to 1592, featuring a cycle of escalating revenge between the titular general and Tamora, Queen of the Goths. It covers rape, dismemberment, people baked into pies, and cannibalism. It was hugely popular, but later evaluation ranks it as perhaps Shakespeare’s worst.

Fresh off directing The Lion King on Broadway, Julie Taymor chose this adaption as her directorial debut. Starring Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange, it was a huge box office bomb. However, it is a really interesting movie, filled with incredible set pieces and visuals. It also follows the plot as written, with its violent, bloody revenge all reproduced faithfully. It is not hard to find, but it is a strange and brutal film. Bonus points for its use of one of the first “yo momma” jokes when Chiron asks Aaron about his mother and Aaron responds with “Villain, I have done thy mother.”

4) Meet The Hollowheads

This bizarre film is like a post-apocalyptic version of The Flintstones. We have an underground society that live with a series of tubes that provide everything needed, from food to sex jelly. Yes, really, and no, no answers are provided. Mutated creatures are kept in kitchen cabinets and can be eaten and used for healing properties. All this is still not everything this demented film covers.

The plot, such as it is, follows a happy housewife and her hardworking husband as they prepare for dinner with his boss. Add to this two teenage children preparing to go to a party and the little scamp of a young son getting up to all sorts or larks and you have every cliché of a 50s sitcom. And that is where the similarities end.

It is a satire, but it’s very broad as every convention we would class as normal, family, work and home life, even society is twisted up in itself in the usually unexplained world presented here.

This is the only film directed by Thomas R. Burman, who worked as a make-up artist on films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Planet of the Apes. It is truly one of a kind, somewhere between a David Cronenberg horror and a full, black comedy.

3) eXistenZ

Speaking of Cronenberg, the godfather of body horror, with films such as Scanners, The Fly and Crash, he brings us this one. Released in 1999, it tells the story of Allegra Geller, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, a video game designer whose work, the titular eXistenZ is subjected to a hostile takeover. Straightforward, you may think. But this is David Cronenberg.

To play the game, a ‘bio port’ is drilled into the base of the players spine. Into this, a ‘game pod’ is inserted. This is a tentacled creature who transports the player into the game. Pikel, played by Jude Law, is new to the gaming system and works for the corporation.

It is as much a statement on how technology affects human psychology as anything. He shows us a world where living creatures are used for biotechnology, and the virtual reality systems blur the lines between the real world and the artificial one. The film is filled with strange depictions of body manipulation and the mutated creatures that affect both the real and virtual world. Cronenberg explores the nature of free will and what reality is, and we are left questioning what is real or part of the game.

It didn’t do well at the box office but grew in cult circles. It may have been too far ahead of its time, with its depictions of gaming and virtual reality that now, seem more realistic than ever. This is, I think, Cronenberg’s weirdest movie, and that is saying a lot. But it is easy to find on DVD or streaming services.

2) The Saddest Music in The World

Guy Maddin is well known in cult cinema circles. This Canadian filmmaker is perhaps the most similar director to David Lynch on this list. He hasn’t reached the heights of Lynch though, and his films remain pretty much unseen outside Canada. The Saddest Music in The World is his most bizarre film, also serving as a good introduction to his work.

Issabella Rossellini plays a legless beer baroness holding a contest in 1930s Winnipeg looking for “The Saddest Music in The World”.  A dysfunctional family of a father and two sons decide to enter. Although they are all Canadian, they represent different countries. Canada, America and Serbia. Add to this the sons forming a love triangle with a nymphomaniac who has amnesia and glass legs filled with beer for the baroness made by the father who is her long-lost love and you have a movie. One son was married to the amnesiac, who lost her mind when their child died and married the other son. The bereaved son carries the child’s heart about in a glass jar. Got all that?

It was released in 2003, but it looks so much older. It is artistic and strange yet quite sentimental. It had a limited release outside Canada but didn’t quite catch on. It is available on DVD though. Maddin has made smaller films, produced pieces for art galleries and written a few books, but has not come close to making something like this again.

1) O Lucky Man!

While he only made 9 movies in his lifetime, Lindsay Anderson is still a well-regarded director. He made such classics as This Sporting Life in 1963 and If… in 1968. However, a lot of his work has now been forgotten. This 3-hour epic is regarded as his masterpiece and follows a coffee salesman played by Malcolm McDowell, who reprises his role as Mick Travis from If… as he navigates capitalist society.

The movie is dream-like, with Travis going from one strange episode to the next. We see him being seduced by a lonely woman and given a gold suit to wear in his sales meetings, only to be kidnapped by a mad scientist to be experimented upon. Then, with the lucky happenstance of a man falling out of a window, he is promoted to assistant of a high-powered businessman. Before the end, he is cast as the star of…O Lucky Man!, the very film we are watching.

Acting as a Greek chorus to all this is Alan Price of The Animals fame. His lyrics do their best to explain just what is happening. Travis gets a lift with Price and the band at one point, because why not?

It plays as comedy, drama, fantasy and musical. It is an allegory for life in a capitalistic society and there simply isn’t another film like this. Anderson’s vision is incredible. The soundtrack is fantastic, and the catchy songs explaining why people are poor, good business practices and justice will worm their way into your head. It is the middle film of the Mick Travis trilogy, starting with If…and ending with 1982s (again) Britannia Hospital. It is available on DVD and some streaming services, and if you can sit for its 3-hour run time, you will be rewarded with a bizarre, wholly unique cult classic.