6 Weird New Movies You Should Be Way More Excited About

6

Hardcore: A Movie Shot Entirely Like a First-Person Shooter

Doom blew. If someone videotaped Karl Urban getting a CT scan for two hours, wrote the word "Doom" on the VHS, and then walked around New York violently throwing copies at people, it would have been better received than the actual film. That is, with the exception of that pretty sweet first-person POV scene way late in the movie. Wouldn't it be great if someone just did that for two hours?

Ilya Naishuller
Ilya Naishuller
Film fan tip: tiny GIFs don't do awesome footage justice.

Yeeeees. Currently raising funds on Indiegogo, Hardcore features samurai alien Matt-Damon-puncher Sharlto Copley as the sidekick to a cyborg trying to save his creator/spouse from an evil telekinetic leader of mercenaries -- so basically the slam dunk of film plots to shoot with a camera rig that looks like a robot gimp mask:

Ilya Naishuller
They shot it in first-person because third-person would be torture porn.

If you think that first-person gunfighting and parkour can't possibly last a few hours, go ahead and watch the trailer and see how long it takes you to look away. We're guessing it will be the exact length of watching it ten times on a loop. Or better yet, check out the short music video the director already did in this style and see if you don't come out of it wanting to mail him all your money, limbs, and kids, in case he needs child extras and body parts to finish his masterpiece. Speaking of child sacrifice ...

5

Kids vs Monsters: A Creature Effects Film Right Out of the '80s (Starring Malcolm McDowell)

The mid-1980s was chock-full of stories about gremlins, critters, ghoulies, boogens, Goonies, spookies, or some other variation of havoc-wreaking turd munchkins. It was indeed a special time for practical monster effects. And while there's no going back to such camp glory, there's nothing wrong with revisiting it every now and then. Extra points if you cast Malcolm McDowell as a monster hitman whom rich parents hire to kill their kids.

Dark Dunes Productions
With a straight razor, while humming "Singing in the Rain."

Yeah, that's totally the plot of Kids vs Monsters, a film by the studio and effects artists behind another monster film we told you about called Harbinger Down. Only instead of tentacles and homages to The Thing, this one has Lumberjack Bigfoot, Terror Grimace and Yoda Satan in it. At least that's what we're calling them:

Dark Dunes Productions
And Daisy, the purple lagomorph scout.

Oh right. We can't forget Crazy Turniphead: Child Strangler.

Dark Dunes Productions
If we do, it's cause he cut off oxygen from our brain..

With any luck, it will be a big, confusing hit and we'll get a cinematic universe where entire films are dedicated to this guy choking out teenagers while beaming his swollen purple face like he's Yellow Bastard's big brother.

4

Robot Overlords: A B-Movie Starring Ben Kingsley and Gillian Anderson About ... You Know ... Robot Overlords

Pacific Rim was a rocket-punching blast because it featured robot-on-monster action with such brazen disregard for science that Stephen Hawking gets a headache every time someone in the world watches it. It also helped that there were some randomly stellar actors shoved in the mix. Considering this combo, we're kind of scratching our heads as to why a film called Robot Overlords only has a thousand Twitter followers, despite starring Agent Scully and Gandhi as agitators and/or slaves to a dawning and/or end of a robot apocalypse. We're honestly not sure what's going on in the trailer, besides the promise of a robot Neo boy and Ben Kingsley looking shifty as fuck.

Pinewood Studios
Clearly, a major stretch for Sir Ben.

There's also Gillian Anderson ... who we're guessing will remain skeptical about the robots' existence despite overwhelming evidence, right until the end. Plus, there are giant spaceships that look like the Borg got bought out by Apple, so maybe there's some aliens in the mix as well. We have no clue, but we're excited to find out, considering that this is being directed by the dude behind Grabbers, a film about bloodsucking aliens whose only weakness is drunk people. One thing is for sure -- these robots will be lording over us, you can bank on that shit.

3

Dark Star: An H.R. Giger Documentary as Creepy as Giger Himself

The late H.R. Giger was the Walt Disney of spider mouth-rape, the man to thank whenever anyone instinctively covers their genitals while watching an Alien film. It was on the set of those films that he gained the nickname "Count Dracula," and so it only makes sense that such a lurching brain maniac would get an equally macabre movie made about him. That's Dark Star, a documentary following the final years of the artist's life as he stalked about his woodsy estate riding mini ghoul trains though baby-face forests. We're not being hyperbolic. That's actually in this film. Like ... we're actually not sure how else to describe it ...

Belinda Sallin
Belinda Sallin
He was a child in an adult's body. Either because he was whimsical, or because he ate children.

See? H.R. Giger owned a tiny, baby-faced forest and a train that he occasionally rode through it like an evil Muppet lord. And now we get to see it firsthand, along with the artist regaling us with his childhood memories, such as the time his father gave him a skull when he was six, which he tied to a string and dragged around the neighborhood for fun. Again, we're not being cute -- that's actually a thing that happened in this guy's life. So while we're sad to see him go ... unless someone drove a stake through his heart, we're not quite ready to grieve, either.

Belinda Sallin
That would explain who's been leaving ichor in Ridley Scott's socks.

2

A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence: Like a Twisted Monty Python Sketch Show

Much like the difference between "quirky" and "poop-eating insane," there's a precariously fine line between Monty-Python-style humor and bizarre European arthouse cinema. Let's see if you can peg the following images (hint: we're not sure either):

Roy Andersson Filmproduktion
"Well, the monkey is Man, and the rider is History, and the museum is Confusion, and the dancers are ARAGVRRTZ."

Hm. Released as part three of a "Living Trilogy" of vignette films, the film peels crazy layers like a jabbering onion, starting with its long yet non-descriptive title. From there, we have the trailer, which raises even more questions than it answers and appears to star a series of suicide hotline regulars haunting rooms so numbingly drab that they would make Cormac McCarthy weep. Also ... why is there a freaking horse in that one shot? Peel the next daffy layer, and suddenly we get a synopsis about two door-to-door salesmen pushing something called "laughter bags" and serving as the throughlines to the various bizarre stories. Their travels lead them to a cafe that sits on the front lines of the 18th-century war between Charles XII and the surging Russian troops (hence the horse).

Roy Andersson Filmproduktion
And a Trent Reznor video, judging by the monkey scene.

So yeah -- pretty much none of that answers the question as to whether or not this film is intentionally fucking with us like Flying Circus or Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, but at least we can assume that getting wicked high on cough syrup and popping this in will take you places way less predictable than any Marvel film. If you're into that sort of thing.

1

The Other Side of the Wind: A 2015 Found Footage Film By Orson Welles, About Orson Welles

Orson Welles was last seen as a planet-eating monster fueled with the rage of centuries. Also, he was in the '80s Transformers movie. But if the Wellster was known best for anything, it was making movies that were totally about a real person while totally pretending not to be. And it just so happens that we might have missed his final opus ... at least, until now.

Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Rest in Peas.

The film is called The Other Side of the Wind, and it follows an old-school aging director (hint) struggling to make a comeback amongst the swell of "New Hollywood" (hey, hint) while dealing with a series of hanger-ons and annoying journalists that in no way (but totally do) resemble Orson Welles's own surroundings at that time. Starring John Huston, Susan Strasberg, and Dennis Hopper, the director only managed to work out a 45-minute work print of the film before shuffling off. And so it remained a shelved prospect, until a company called Royal Road Entertainment bought the rights to it with the hope of completing the film using Welles' notes and the magic of technology.

British Film Institute
John Huston's beard will be played wholly by Andy Serkis.

We know, you insufferable film pricks: taking an Orson Welles film and rejiggering it digitally sounds about as offensive as turning it into a found footage film -- which just so happens to already be the case, as the film was originally made to appear as if it was compiled of "footage shot by the TV and documentary filmmakers -- and also the students, critics and young directors who happened to bring sixteen and eight millimeter cameras." Yep. Turns out that all the way back in the 1970s, Orson Welles knew that shaky found footage was the next big thing. Were he alive today, he'd probably be helming a War of the Worlds cinematic universe in 60 fps or some shit.

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While we're on the topic, check out 5 Weird New Movies That Deserve Way More Hype and 6 Obscure New Movies People Should Be More Excited About.