EIGHT WILD MINDS! THIRTY-TWO WILD FLICKS! (PLUS TEN FOR EXTRA CREDIT!)
Yes, BIZARROCON IS BACK!!! The almost-annual (we missed a year) celebration of creative weirdness is happening this weekend in Portland, Oregon. Although time-honored tradition had us hanging with the magnificent McMenamin’s Edgefield in Troutdale for the last couple decades, we’re trying a new thing this year with the fabulous Jupiter Hotel, which is actually in Portland proper. And hoping it brings more awesome local freaks to the affair.
Now, BizarroCon has always been a primarily literary event, brought about and sustained by Rose O’Keefe of Eraserhead Press, the flagship publisher of Bizarro fiction. But it has also been a haven for musicians, visual artists, performance artists, and (of course) filmmakers. Of which I am one!
So this year, as we invite the local community in as never before, it made total sense to approach Movie Madness – Portland’s world-class Cathedral of Cinema – by saying, “What if we got a bunch of world-class Bizarros to each recommend four of their favorite, most representative Bizarro films? Thereby alerting MM’s awesome movie-loving clientele that they might really have a great time at BizarroCon?”
I’m thrilled to report that Movie Madness gave us a big thumbs-up! As a result, here are the eight Bizarros in residence, and their picks! (Mine included!) Now watch ALL OF THESE FILMS!
For over 20 years, CARLTON MELLICK III has been writing some of the strangest and most compelling novels the bizarro fiction genre has to offer. Described as one of the top 40 genre fiction writers under the age of 40 by The Guardian and “one of the most original novelists working today” by extreme horror legend Edward Lee. His work has been translated into Italian, German, Russian, Czech, Spanish, Polish, French and Japanese.
TETSUO: THE IRON MAN (Shinya Tsukamoto, 1988)
The definitive Japanese erotic industrial body-horror cult classic. A businessman runs over a metal fetishist and begins to transform into a walking junkyard of rusted pipes, wires, and power drills. Shot in grainy black and white with a soundtrack that sounds like the gears of a factory grinding in your ears.
NOTHING (Vincenzo Natali, 2003)
Two losers discover that they can literally manifest “nothingness” until the entire world outside their front door is a featureless white void. It’s the ultimate minimalist Bizarro high-concept. What do you do when the rest of the universe finally stops bothering you?
SYMBOL (Hitoshi Matsumoto, 2009)
A man in polka-dot pajamas wakes up in a giant white room filled with invisible wall-penises that dispense everything from sushi to toothbrushes when pressed. No, really. Symbol is one of those rare movies that keeps topping itself, while somehow becoming smarter and stranger as it goes.
DELICATESSEN (Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1991)
This Bizarro French masterpiece turns a crumbling apartment building into a steampunk clockwork of lust, hunger, and accordion music. It’s a gorgeous, sepia-toned nightmare where the landlord is a butcher and the tenants are the menu. A masterclass in world-building.
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ROSE O’KEEFE is the publisher of Eraserhead Press, the award-winning independent press that helped define the bizarro fiction movement. She believes the best art turns you on, makes you laugh, and leaves a scar.
ERASERHEAD (David Lynch, 1977)
The G.O.A.T. of midnight movies. A black-and-white fever dream of parenthood, industrial decay, and the single most upsetting infant in film history. This is Lynch at his purest. The world needs more art this mysterious and alive.
FANTASTIC PLANET (Rene Laloux, 1973)
An unsettling animated masterpiece where giant blue aliens keep humans as pets. Surreal, political, beautiful.
CONSPIRATORS OF PLEASURE (Jan Svankmajer, 1996)
No dialogue, plenty of obsession. This film is a pageant of secret compulsions, handcrafted fetishes, and the beautiful absurdity of private lives. Svankmajer understands that people are weird and loves them for it.
DESPERATE LIVING (John Waters, 1977)
John Waters at his most gloriously unhinged. After murdering her husband, a neurotic housewife and her maid go on the run and land in Mortville, a shantytown outlaw kingdom ruled by a fascist Queen. Mean, filthy, hilarious, and wildly imaginative, this is peak camp Bizarro.
JOHN SKIPP is a New York Times bestselling author-turned-filmmaker, horror legend, and Bizarro elder statesman. His latest book is the instructional short story collection THIS IS SPLATTERPUNK. His new novel, THE CHANGE, is currently being serialized on Substack. And his debut feature as writer/director/producer/composer/editor – the class warfare comedy THE GREAT DIVIDE – will soon be streaming for free on Skipp’s YouTube channel.
SORRY TO BOTHER YOU (Boots Riley, 2018)
This ruthless satire on our impending technocratic hellscape (already in progress!) is so hilariously, jaw-droppingly alive that it pulls off the miraculous trick of being intensely cautionary AND insanely fun! 21st century Bizarro agitprop at its finest.
Honorable Mentions:
REPO MAN
HOW TO GET AHEAD IN ADVERTISING
ROBOT MONSTER (Phil Tucker, 1953)
It’s a guy in a gorilla suit with a deep sea diving helmet on his head, His name is “Ro-Man” (cuz he’s a “robot man”, get it?). And he talks to his alien overlords about the “Hu-Mans” via a cute little bubble machine set up in L.A.’s Bronson Caves. In other words, Bizarro no-brow perfection.
Honorable Mentions:
BRIDE OF THE MONSTER
ZONTAR, THE THING FROM VENUS
SANTA SANGRE (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1989)
There isn’t enough truly great metaphysical horror. But this staggeringly surreal and profoundly symbolic masterpiece is Bizarro at the cellular level. And also the only serial killer movie I can think of that cares enough to put every gorgeous nightmare aspect of the madness in context. Unbelievably powerful brain-melting genius.
Honorable Mentions:
MEN
MOTHER
JACOB’S LADDER
THE EMPTY MAN
HAROLD AND MAUDE (Hal Ashby, 1971)
One of Bizarro’s finest qualities is its ability to inflect haunting weirdness with even more haunting sweetness. And in this – my favorite love story – one young man’s deathwish wound is brought to transcendence by the one bright yellow umbrella in a sea of funereal black. There are no words for how wonderful this movie is. Just try it and see. (To me, MAUDE IS GOD!!!)
Honorable Mentions:
AMELIE
WILD AT HEART
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LAURA LEE BAHR is the Wonderland and Libros Prohibidos award-winning author of HAUNT, LONG-FORM RELIGIOUS PORN, ANGEL MEAT, and most recently WHO IS THE LIARr; director of the movie BONED (Best Micro-budget Film, Toronto International Film Fest),and the experimental short film STRANGE BIRD. She thinks big old trees are super sexy.
EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (The Daniels, 2022)
From the Hollywood Academy to that guy on the plane next to me watching it on a 6 hour flight LHFAO, everyone knows this move is THE BEST. It’s also Bizarro AF. And has a cameo with my friend Biff Wiff (RIP, my friend! Love you!)
KNIFE + HEART (Yann Gonzalez, 2018)
The blood-lust of Italian Giallo plus eye-candy colored gay porn, a wicked sense of humor and a Bizarro-art imitates love imitates art imitates a murder mystery and sex with a typewriter.
THE SUBSTANCE (Coralie Fargeat, 2024)
Following in the tradition of All about Eve and LaLa Land in Oscar-nominating tales about the trials of being an actress in Hollywood, it took a French director to actually get it right. Bizarro body horror is the norm not only in this movie, but in the faces of our favorite stars of the silver screen. Watch and learn how to get ahead as a woman in the film industry!
GET OUT (Jordan Peele, 2017)
While this may seem Bizarro to liberal white people, this is actually a true story of race relations in America.
DANGER SLATER is the author of I WILL ROT WITHOUT YOU, MOONFELLOWS, PUPPET SKIN, STARLET, and other books of bizarro horror. He lives and writes in Portland.
HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS (Takashi Miike, 2001)
The zombie/comedy/musical/family drama you never knew you needed!
THE DARK BACKWARD (Adam Rifkin, 1991)
An odd little fairy tale about a reeeeeeeeeeeeeally unfunny comedian named Marty Malt who grows a third arm out of his back. With the help of his accordion-playing sidekick, and his sleazy agent (played by Wayne Newton of all people) Marty learns he might just have what it takes to make it in showbiz after all.
BRAZIL (Terry Gilliam, 1985)
1984 but make it funny and really really weird. Nobody shoots a close-up quite like Terry Gilliam.
SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK (Charlie Kaufman, 2008)
Ever want to watch a film that’s about EVERYTHING? Well, here you go. All of life is distilled into one bizarre sprawling narrative in this painfully truthful (and painfully subversive) human comedy tragedy.
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GARRETT COOK is the Wonderland Award Winning Author of TIME PIMP, A GOD OF HUNGRY WALLS, and CHARCOAL. He resides in Portland with his partner of ten years.
SURVIVE STYLE 5+ (Gen Sekiguchi, 2004)
There is really no way to prepare you for the existential joy you are about to experience with this film. Five weird stories intertwine here in something so aggressively unique that it will leave you in awe at the raw transformative power of human ingenuity.
GODZILLA VS. HEDORAH (Yoshimitsu Banno, 1971)
The height of late stage Showa Godzilla weirdness takes us on an Aquarian trip through cosmic horror and the price of our lack of accountability. It’s like two Kaiju stomped into the French New Wave.
NEKROMANTIK (Jorg Buttgereit, 1988)
No, really, it’s a comedy.
TITANE (Julia Ducournau, 2021)
You may think you/re watching a hipster take on vintage Cronenberg but you’re actually at something Queer, heartbreaking, transgressive and altogether other. To describe it, to define it, does this engine of unbridled surprise a disservice.
MICHAEL ALLEN ROSE is an author, musician, and performer based in Chicagoland. His novel JURRASICHRIST and illustrated horror primer LAST 5 MINUTES OF THE HUMAN RACE both won the Wonderland Award for best bizarro fiction. His newest anthology as editor is STORIES FROM THE MOTEL SICK. He also makes industrial music under the name Flood Damage, and is president of the Bizarro Writers Association. He loves tea and cats.
DAVE MADE A MAZE (Bill Watterson, 2017)
Every artist of my generation (or any generation, perhaps) has experienced the feeling of spinning your wheels and getting nowhere, of being unable to finish anything, so why bother starting? When unemployed, frustrated artist Dave feels that way, he builds a maze out of cardboard boxes in his apartment that turns out to be much larger on the inside than the outside. His imagination, much like a bizarro creator’s, spirals way out of his control and soon his friends (and a documentary team) are trying to rescue him amidst cardboard death traps and crafted minotaurs. Hilarious, poignant, and full of amazing practical effects via papercraft.
HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS (Mike Cheslik, 2022)
The bizarro baby of a Tex Avery cartoon and a Buster Keaton farce, set in the northern climes of Canada. A drunk applejack salesman is on his way to becoming the greatest fur trapper of all time, but in his way stand literally hundreds of beavers, willing to do whatever it takes to stop him. Extremely stylised, with tons of clever gags, weird slapstick, and contemporary pop cultural references, there’s simply no film like this one. The jarring tonal shifts (like our hero’s journey being tracked via video game maps) become part of the roller coaster ride.
DECODER (Muscha, 1984)
Strange doesn’t begin to cover this film about subliminal messages controlling people and manipulating their emotions through elevator music. Starring legendary industrial musician F.M. Einheit and a pantheon of weird 70s and 80s underground icons such as William S. Burroughs and Genesis P-Orridge, and numerous frogs, it’s an anti-consumerist, revolutionary treatise on noise being better than mass-produced slop. As an industrial musician myself, the message that music can inspire riots and revolution against a controlling government really hits.
MONKEYBONE (Henry Selick, 2001)
When cartoonist Stu ends up in a coma, he awakens in a bizarro, twisted version of the afterlife, with cat women, human-faced roaches, and other bizarre creatures, including a fully sentient version of his own cartoon creation, Monkeybone. Unfortunately, the zany, hedonistic monkey follows Stu back to the real world, inhabiting his body and wreaking havoc. As silly and wild as this film is, at its heart it serves as a great allegory for when a creation takes over its creator’s life, and is an excellent example of a mainstream comedy release with heavy bizarro elements.
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BRIDGET D. BRAVE is from the dead center of the US of A. Her work has most recently appeared in Nadir Magazine, STORIES FROM THE MOTEL SICK, and GabaGhoul..
TIME BANDITS (Terry Gilliam, 1981)
A fantastical romp through the traumatization of a British child.
NAKED LUNCH (David Cronenberg, 1991)
Cronenberg takes on Burroughs, the results are incomprehensibly weird.
THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE 8TH DIMENSION (W.D. Richter, 1984)
“This is cinema. Five stars.” – John Bigboote
BARTON FINK (Joel Coen, 1991)
Perfect for 2 am, when your reality starts to bleed around the edges.
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BizarroCon 2026 takes place from May 14th-17th at the Jupiter Hotel, 800 E. Burnside St., Portland, OR. HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!!!
Yer Pal Skipp
@yerpalskipp
New York Times bestselling author turned filmmaker/ musician/ former splatterpunk/ cheerful Bizarro satirist/ all-around instigator and Renaissance mutant.
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