THE BAT WHISPERS
A silly mystery/comedy from 1930 that’s an absolute stunner from a photographic standpoint, with bold expressionistic visuals and wildly innovative camerawork. It was also the alleged inspiration for Batman
BAD TASTE
Peter Jackson’s premiere film was this rude, crude and hilariously gross no-budget splatfest. It’s puerile, exploitive, stupid as shit, and (in my eyes at least) irresistible.
EXECUTIVE KOALA
Japanese director Minoru Kawasaki’s follow-up to his cult hit THE CALAMARI WRESTLER was this goofy 2005 psycho thriller about a businessman koala bear who may or may not be a murderer
EVIL DEAD 2
A film as influential to the horror genre as any of the biggies (DRACULA, THE EXORCIST, etc.), Sam Raimi’s EVIL DEAD II: DEAD BY DAWN introduced a near-revolutionary mix of slapstick and horror
EVENINGS ON A FARM NEAR DIKANKA
A comedic and fantastic Russian adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s 1831 novella THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS that, despite its “classic” status in some quarters, is too antic and overwrought by far
EATING RAOUL
This is the most famous movie directed by the late Paul Bartel, a highly successful indie black comedy about sex, murder and cannibalism
SURRENDER DOROTHY
A dark, twisted no-budgeter about a disturbed young man who attempts to turn his hetero-male roommate into Dorothy, the perfect woman
STUCK
Based on a real-life incident in which a man was hit by a woman with her car and ended up stuck in the windshield for the next two days, STUCK is darkly funny, gory and horrific
STREET TRASH
Another eighties-era gorefest that adds up to very little conceptually but excels in manic inspiration. It’s about bums who get a hold of flesh-melting hooch—plenty of grue ensues!
STRANGLER VERSUS STRANGLER
There’s no other movie quite like this loony comedy-chiller from Serbia, which never takes an expected turn and has a cheesy yet curiously elegant style that’s very much its own