8 WTF New Movies No One Is Talking About (February 2017)

I'm not sure why this one lady is taking a pair of scissors to another lady's privates -- and frankly I'm not sure I want to find out. Same goes for the film's apparent abundances of zombie-like famine, some gnarly-ass skin rash, and a fucking horse on a treadmill.

Focus World

Focus World

Focus World

The trailer explains none of these things to us. What we do know is that the film is about a vegetarian college freshman who undergoes a bloody hazing ritual forcing her to eat raw liver ...

Focus World

... igniting a dormant lust for the pulpy flesh of the uncooked ...

Focus World

... which inevitably leads down a path of sexual depravity, addiction, and savagery resulting in a barrage of heinous and bloody acts. In other words -- pretty much your basic first-year college experience.

Focus World

So if there were anyone who could get away with making an animated Anne Frank movie, it sure sounds like it would be this guy. Especially when you see what it looks like ...

Forward.com

Yes, that appears to be the aftermath of a worm battlefield. And while I can't give you the full context of that batdick image -- it appears that this is less a straightforward biopic as something that would blow your stoned mind at 3 a.m. on Cartoon Network. According to the synopsis, the film follows Kitty (the imaginary friend to which Anne dedicated her diary) as she wakes up in modern day Amsterdam in search of her missing friend. As it dawns upon her that decades have passed, we watch as this whimsical character takes the full brunt of learning just what the hell happened to her human pal.

Yes, that's the plot. Told in both animation and steampunk stop motion.

Forward.com

Forward.com

But before you guffaw in outrage over such a Burton-esque retelling, keep in mind that this fever dream is actually the first film supported by the Anne Frank Fonds Basel -- giving Ari full access to the family archives in order to complete the film. That means you can learn about Anne Frank's life AND synch it with Pink Floyd's The Wall at the same time, totally guilt free.

Yes that's absolutely the BMX Bandits star Nicole Kidman as "Queen Boadicea" -- the host of a 1970s punk rock party that goes toes-up when a group of boys discover an uninvited extraterrestrial presence in the form of "foreign" exchange students. To protect the scene, Kidman ends up leading the charge like a Siouxsie Sioux Lt. Ripley as our adolescent heroes follow suit. We don't know much more than that besides the few production photos taken nearly three years ago.

While the extended production points to all kinds of problematic possibilities (especially when the shoot itself was only 30 days), the fact that this is all based on a Neil Gaiman short story is super-promising. As is director John Cameron Mitchell -- best known for the Hedwig And The Angry Inch movie.

In a time of world leaders that couldn't look more like V For Vendetta villains, frankly it's nice to see liberty-spiked hooligans go hog wild on just about anything with a pulse.

Anyhoo ... if you enjoyed that film, there's a very real chance you also enjoyed such gloomy sci-fi as Sunshine, Never Let Me Go, 28 Days Later, and Dredd. Why? Because director Alex Garland wrote all of those films -- as well as the original novel for The Beach. He is the person to thank for every niche sci-fi hit and then some, and now he's back with Annihilation -- an adapted film about lady biologists bushwhacking otherworldly lands defiant of physics.

Without spoiling it for myself or others, the original novel follows a team of unnamed scientists crossing over into a mysterious and possibly alien "Area X" after the last expedition returned with zero memory and a cancer diagnosis. There they find an ever-changing ecosystem packed with enough grotesque wildlife to overcrowd hell's menagerie -- including a human-eyed dolphin species and Predator-like invisible animals. That's all I'm willing to learn about this film beyond the fact that it stars Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and the aforementioned fuck-lord Oscar Isaac. And thanks to the cast and crew's Instagram accounts, we're getting a real-time tour of what this Area X is going to look like ...

Paramount Pictures

While the book is part of a trilogy, the adaptation was actually written before the last two books existed and the director has aimed to make it a singular, stand-alone film. That doesn't discount the idea of a series, but it's kind of welcoming to see a filmmaker focus on telling a single complete story which, when you think about it, is a super depressing thing to find refreshing.

Oh wait, sorry. That's an artist's rendering of Apple's new campus that's totally unrelated to this film. Here's the fictional "Circle" featured in the movie's trailer:

STX Entertainment

Once hired, she meets the company's casually dressed, keynote-speaking bosses played by Tom Hanks and Patton Oswalt who in no way represent Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs.

STX Entertainment

I'm not entirely sure why -- but seeing Tom Hanks and Patton Oswalt sit sinisterly in the same room together feels contrary to everything I base my reality on. It's an image I don't think humans were ever meant to witness, like the center of the sun or someone mowing a lawn at night. From there, her life goes from new-hire, to hotshot employee, to tech celebrity, to "oh my god I'm being chased by a drone."

STX Entertainment

If you can't tell -- the film promises to be a commentary on the ever-growing surveillance and power that tech companies exert on their customers. And while the subject might prove fruitless in a world where your XBox knows which hand you masturbate with, the film seems well worth the ticket price if only to watch Forrest Gump villain it up with Ratatouille.

As outlined in the trailer -- the film is about South L.A. boy genius/street magician who is forced into a life of crime in order to make a better life for his little sister. But when she gets kidnapped by an evil drug dealer, it's up to him to use a combination of sweet magic skills and odd body modifications to get her back.

Universal Pictures

Universal Pictures

By all accounts it appears to be a combination of Iron Man, Chronicle, and a dash of Menace II Society with what sure as shit looks like genuine magic. And with any luck it'll will end with Wolverine fighting Unbreakable's David Dunn over who gets the new kid for their gritty franchise.

Universal Pictures

Enjoy it now, folks -- because in five years he'll probably be directing a gritty Fantastic Four sequel.

... a trailer park couple dealing with some kind of deranged possession ...

Magnet Releasing

... a suspiciously upbeat birthday party ...

Magnet Releasing

... and whatever the goddamn hell this kid is doing ...

Magnet Releasing

Magnet Releasing

And since I'm writing this from the past (whoa, you guys), the movie is actually available right damn now. Go on iTunes or Amazon and rent that shit, you fucking time-wizard.

And speaking of the terrifying ladies ...

As the trailer will explain -- the movie follows Elaine, a love-obsessed witch driven mad by the patriarchy. Using a combination of "love magic" and a butt-ton of drugs, we spend the next few hours watching as she indifferently burns through lovers like they were classroom hamsters.

Oscilloscope Laboratories

While looking like a bad sexploitation film, the film is actually sitting in the high-90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and has been hailed as a feminist masterpiece by many critics. The reason is clear when you watch it, and suddenly realize that what you thought was going to be some shallow Tarantino-esque Grindhouse tribute is actually about the cultural stigmas and expectations that come with a woman's sexuality. For while the face-value victims appear to just be her male companions, the more we learn about Elaine's past the more we realize that she's a victim as well, of the patriarchal society that made her a monster.

At least I'm pretty sure that's what it's about. Not to sound sexist, but as a man there were times where it felt like the message simply went over my head. And that's totally fine, because there was still a lot of nudity and pretty colors to keep me entertained between screaming "don't drink that, bro" at the TV.

Oscilloscope Laboratories

Do you know of an amazing upcoming film that no one seems to be talking about? Don't be shy! Tweet to Dave about it!

Also check out 7 Awesome New Movies Nobody Told You About and 6 Crazy New Movies That Slipped Under Audiences' Radars.

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