The Strangest Movies In Existence

Before Peter Jackson brought the Lord of the Rings to the big screen, he got his start with a low budget splatter movie about man-eating aliens called Bad Taste. Jackson and his friends shot Bad Taste over the course of four years and partially financed it with help from the New Zealand Film Commission. New Zealanders should truly be proud that their tax dollars went to funding such a gruesome spectacle.

The heroes of the movie — one of whom, the chainsaw-wielding Derek, is portrayed by Jackson himself — are a group of government agents from the Astro Investigation and Defence Service (yes, AIDS) sent to investigate the disappearance of villagers from a small New Zealand town. They soon discover that an alien named Lord Crumb and his minions are responsible for the missing townsfolk. Crumb's goal is to turn human beings into the latest delicacy for his fast-food chain, Crumb's Crunchy Delights. The movie's over-the-top, cartoonish gore and charming amateur feel make it a must-watch for aficionados of weird cinema. It also contains the most random, unnecessary scene of violence against a sheep in film history.

The late wrestler "Rowdy" Roddy Piper starred in two low-budget science fiction movies in 1988. Many people remember the cult classic They Live, directed by John Carpenter, in which Piper plays a wisecracking, blue collar action hero who makes it his personal mission to rid the world of incognito alien invaders. Piper's second cinematic outing of 1988, Hell Comes to Frogtown, is arguably an even stranger movie.

The title literally tells the tale of this flick. Sam Hell (Piper) is one of the world's last fertile men following a nuclear war. A female paramilitary force representing the vestiges of the U.S. government captures Hell to use his potent DNA to repopulate humankind. First, they force Hell to rescue a group of fertile women being held captive in Frogtown. Why is it called Frogtown? Because it's populated by mutant, humanoid frogs! Apparently frogs that are attracted to human beings. Go figure, it's the apocalypse.

Oh yeah, and Sam Hell is forced to wear a codpiece that shocks his fertile "equipment" if he doesn't do what he's told. The movie is like Children of Men meets Mad Max meets Escape from New York, but with mutant frog people. Such an odd combination creates a movie that must be seen to be believed.

John Dies at the End is a mixture of the science fiction, horror, and fantasy movie genres. It's an adaptation of an even stranger book by author David Wong. The story begins with Wong (Chase Williamson) meeting a journalist named Arnie Blondestone (Paul Giamatti) at a restaurant. Wong then recounts to Arnie how he became a low-rent exorcist, along with his friend John. The story Wong tells is so strange it's almost impossible to summarize, but suffice it to say that the plot begins after John and David take a drug called Soy Sauce that gives them mystical powers. They must use these powers to defeat an inter-dimensional, organic supercomputer named Korrok that has plans to destroy Earth — or at least the duo's version of it — through the use of small white insects that possess their victims and ultimately cause them to explode. Did you get all of that?

Oh, and John Dies at the End also features a vicious slug with teeth, man-eating spiders, a psychic dog, and inter-dimensional travel. The plot of doesn't make a lick of sense, but it's somehow self-aware of this fact and revels in it. The end result is probably the closest approximation of a LSD trip you can achieve without failing your employer's drug screening test.

Like the fable of the tortoise and the hare, the 1964 so-bad-it's-good classic, The Creeping Terror, goes to show you that slow and steady can win the race ... at least when it comes to eating witless townsfolk. The titular Creeping Terror is a slug-like alien monster the size of a truck that moves as slow as molasses, but somehow manages to eat several people during the course of the film. Bravo, sir.

He/she/it most infamously turns a dance hall into a veritable buffet. We're not usually apt to blame victims, but if you get eaten by a such a plodding monstrosity, then it's your own fault. The monster's appearance adds further hilarity to this ludicrous concept. It's basically a collection of rugs with a head attached. Observant viewers will see the puppeteers' feet in some scenes. Also, the creature is so inarticulate that its victims must literally climb their way inside its mouth to get eaten.

If all of this wasn't bad enough, director Vic Savage either shot the movie without sound or damaged the soundtrack because 90% of the movie's dialogue is one narrator telling the audience what is going on. The Creeping Terror came to prominence in the 1990s after being featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Watching Mike and the Bots riff on this stinker is truly the best way to view The Creeping Terror.

Like David Cronenberg, it's hard to pick which of director David Lynch's movies is his weirdest, but Mulholland Drive is definitely high on the list. The movie was originally a pilot to a television show. After the major television networks passed on the series, Lynch shot more footage and released the movie theatrically.

Mulholland Drive starts out simple enough. It seems to be the story of a young actress named Betty Elms (Naomi Watts in her breakout role) trying to make it in Hollywood. Her world is thrown into disarray shortly after meeting and befriending a woman with amnesia who calls herself Rita (Laura Elena Harring). The movie is ostensibly about their relationship and unlocking the mystery of Rita's lost memories, but interspersed with this story are bizarre scenes like a hitman botching an assassination. In another, one man meets a friend at a diner called Winkie's and recounts a dream he had where he saw a creepy bum that lives behind the diner. Later they go to investigate and encounter the terrifying bum that he dreamed about. Presumably these random segments were subplots that Lynch would have expanded upon in the planned television show.

Later, the movie switches focus to a different character name Diane (also Watts) who looks exactly like Betty and is in love with an successful actress named Camilla (also Harring), who looks just like Rita. Are you confused yet? If so, then that's the point. Mulholland Drive functions less as a straightforward narrative and more of an allegory about the loss of identity caused by Hollywood. At least that's one explanation. Did Lynch make a modern day, surrealist masterpiece with Mulholland Drive or is it just a pretentious mess that he cobbled together using existing footage? Was the whole experiment just to make something for people to analyze and talk about with their friends over dinner? The speculation is half of the fun.