10 Movies From the 1990s That Were Just Weird

The 1990s were a special time for creating some strange and downright bizarre films that pushed every limit imaginable. It was a decade that began to see a snowball effect in terms of advances in technology and special and visual effects techniques that helped give rise to the filmmaker’s wildest ideas. Before the days of big-budget franchises and endless sequels, studios were more likely to take risks both in terms of films with strange sources and in the way the films were shot, which produced some incredible and extremely strange films.

Many of these films took strangeness to new heights in almost every aspect of cinema to create intense, thought-provoking, and mind-bending cinematic experiences. Films like The Shocking Scaredwhich featured some grotesque characters and frightening sequences, and Harmony Korine’s Gumwhich provides a unique and gruesome portrait of small-town America and its inhabitants. Many films throughout the 1990s wanted to confuse and push boundaries with the publicand to this day they can be enjoyed for the incredible spectacles they are.

10

Arizona Dream (1993)

Starring Johnny Depp and Jerry Lewis

In a film where anything seems possible at any moment, It’s almost impossible to be comfortable and watch Emir Kusturica’s film Arizona Dream. Johnny Depp stars as the protagonist, Axel, in this surreal comedy that finds his character returning to his Arizona hometown to help his uncle with his Cadillac dealership. That’s where the normalcy ends, as he quickly becomes embroiled in a bizarre love triangle between a young woman (Lili Taylor) and an eccentric, elderly widow (Faye Dunaway).

The original cut of the film was approximately four hours long, which gives some indication that many scenes were cut or that the film was filled with multiple sequences to reach the new running time. Depp plays his own quirky, nuanced way, which helps hold the film’s plot together.. It features many hallucinations, a woman wanting to kill herself to be reincarnated as a turtle, and a friendly game of Russian Roulette, which produces a film that is a dazzling cocktail of the macabre and the bizarre.

9

Pi (1998)

Starring Sean Gullette and Mark Margolis

A cult, black-and-white film about a genius and brilliant mathematician obsessed with number theory and finding underlying numerical patterns in the real world, on the surface it doesn’t look like one of the strangest films of the 1990s. Darren Aronofsky Pi sees Sean Gullette star as Max the mathematicianwith a plot that perfectly combines paranoia and psychological horror to create an existential nightmare of a film.

The film was well received, winning several awards for both direction and screenplay.with Aronofsky putting his signature touches throughout the production. Pi has a number of disturbing visuals, and Gullette’s performance as an intelligent man who is driven into a paranoid, haunted state is truly moving to watch. The true strangeness of the film is shown through the unraveling of his mind as he falls further down the rabbit hole due to his mathematical obsession, with claustrophobic and frightening cinematography that places the audience firmly in his mindset.

8

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Starring Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro

Based on the novel by legendary ‘gonzo’ journalist Hunter S. Thompson Fear and Loathing in Las VegasThe film stars Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro as the eccentric duo of Raoul Duke and Dr. The duo takes a drink and drug-fueled trip through Las Vegas, encountering bizarre adventures. and crazy situations, abandoning his initial journalistic intentions to dive headfirst into an LSD-fueled journey through everything Vegas has to offer. In one of Depp’s most acclaimed and celebrated roles, he and del Toro share a palpable camaraderie that only embraces and exacerbates the madness shown on screen.

Fear is a double-edged sword, with some viewers following the duo headlong into insanity and depravity, while others hold back and look at it with sober eyes. Either way, the film’s strangeness is heightened and elevated by the protagonists’ brilliant, larger-than-life performances. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas has stood the test of timewith scenes like Duke, under the influence of ultrapurified acid, hallucinating that the hotel employee is a moray eel entering popular culture and making it one of the most iconic hallucinatory experiences in modern cinema.

7

Lost Highway (1997)

Starring Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette

In one of David Lynch’s most surreal and intriguing films, Lost Highway see Bill Pullman plays jazz musician Fred Madison, accused of brutally murdering his wife. In the usual ‘Lynchian’ style, the film’s signature use of a tense atmosphere and mysterious performances that leave the audience not knowing who or what to trust. The film is told in a non-linear fashion, which helps to heighten the tension and creates moments where the audience knows more than the characters, which creates many unique moments of strangeness and suspense.

The film’s plot is incredibly abstract, seeing Bill being convicted of murder before suddenly disappearing and being replaced by a young mechanic who now leads an entirely different life. It has many layers of complexity through changing characters, disjointed narrative and intertwining plots that make it a bizarre and mind-bending experience. Lost Highway is an explosion of sex, murder, and nightmarish fantasies that defy the viewer’s logical interpretation, which adds to the film’s overall madness.

6

Jacob’s Ladder (1990)

Starring Tim Robbins and Elizabeth Pena

In a film that is both scary and strange, Jacob’s Ladder follows the story of Vietnam veteran Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins), a modern-day postal worker who begins to have bizarre and terrifying visions of his former military days. The visions are so lucid and distorted that he begins to question the reality he lives in now, not knowing whether he should trust his life, his dreams or his memories. The film’s plot sees Jacob descend into a psychological breakdown of paranoia and confusion, while some of his former platoon comrades reveal that they are also dealing with the same problems.

Robbins’ performance as a man on the edge who is kidnapped, abused, and tortured is incredibly authentic, and he brings a horrific realism to the hellish sequences. Several scenes, such as when he is taken to the hospital, passed by deformed, nightmarish characters before being tied up and injected in the forehead, are incredibly graphic and disturbing. It’s a film that stays with you long after the credits roll, with the plot, pacing and acting creating a truly strange masterpiece.

5

Being John Malkovich (1999)

Starring John Cusack and John Malkovich

In potentially one of the most original and perfectly crafted films of the entire decade, Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich is almost the epitome of a bizarre theatrical premise. The film is about struggling puppeteer Craig (John Cusack), who discovers a hidden portal that leads to the mind of John Malkovich. (and body), giving him the chance to experience the life Malkovich lives as a successful movie star. Although the story is quite bizarre, the earnest performances from the entire cast provide a genuine layer of realism that makes it equal parts admirable and disturbing.

Being John Malkovich was nominated for three Oscarsincluding Best Director, Original Screenplay and Actress, making it one of the most successful bizarre films produced in the 90s. The critical acclaim it received is a testament to the incredibly unique and strange premise, full of twists, paradoxes and sinister overtones. Malkovich delivers a unique performance, forced to play himself as well as surreal variations on his own character in an expert depiction of self-parody and loss of identity.

4

Scared (1993)

Starring Alex Winter and Randy Quaid

Turning into a modern cult classic, Scared sees Alex Winter play former child star Ricky Coogin, who travels to South America to endorse and promote a fertilizer called ‘Zygote 24’. Strange from the first minute, things get even worse when Ricky and his friends Ernie and Julia attend a local freak show that sees a mad scientist transform the three into horrible, deformed oddities. ScaredThe cast of bizarre mutant characters and comical settings make it one of the strangest black comedies of the decade.

The freak show showcases a collection of characters such as Ortiz the Dog Boy, a giant arthropod worm, a literally anthropomorphic cow Cowboy, the Bearded Lady, and Sockhead, all of whom look as disturbing as they appear on screen. In a film that was considered too outlandish by previous studio executives, after a series of poorly reviewed screenings, the film failed to gain wide distribution. Only in recent years has there been a true appreciation for the film’s offbeat humor and grotesque cast of characters, which make it an underrated gem of weird ’90s cinema.

3

Bad Boy Bubby (1993)

Starring Nicholas Hope and Ralph Cotterill

While other weird 90s movies often had some comedic elements, like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegasor surreal sequences that still felt grounded in reality, like Arizona Dream, Bad Boy It’s a film that takes a different direction. Follow Bubby’s story a mentally challenged man who was held captive in his home by a cruel, vengeful and abusive mother. He goes on to reveal his journey after escaping home and his confusing and disturbing journey of self-discovery.

The film is deeply challenging and disturbing from start to finish, with few pauses for respite from the perversion. Bubby’s mother regularly forces the two to have incestuous sex, and there are several instances of animal abuse, with Bubby killing her pet cat by wrapping it in plastic wrap. The film’s bizarreness is grounded and amplified by its apparent authenticity, a brutal, unflinching look at the underbelly of a horrific world and one of the most original films to ever come out of Australian cinema.

2

Gum (1997)

Starring Linda Manz and Max Perlich

Similar in tone to Bad Boy, Korine Harmony Gum is a series of incredibly raw and strange vignettes that show the lives of the residents of a small Midwestern town that was decimated by a tornado. The narrative is loose and disjointed, filmed on a low budget in a documentary format.which makes it seem much more courageous and genuine. It mainly follows a boy named Solomon, who narrates much of the film, and other strange characters, such as a mute teenager known as Bunny Boy.

In addition to the pivotal scenes, which provide a raw and disturbing look at poverty-stricken American subculture, there are a number of more random scenes that are interspersed throughout the film. These sequences include a man offering sex to his disabled sisterSolomon eating dinner in a dirty bath and a drunk man making sexual advances towards a short man. While other films may focus on bizarre, paranormal visions and bizarre premises, Gum it takes the truly strange and reduces it to the essentials, creating a terrifyingly realistic film that is impossible to look away from.

1

Naked Lunch (1991)

Starring Peter Weller and Judy Davis

An incredibly strange film adapted from William S. Burroughs’ 1959 novelDavid Cronenberg Naked Lunch follows an exterminator, Lee (Peter Weller), whose wife begins taking his insecticides to use as a recreational drug. Lee is then arrested and begins hallucinating due to his own exposure to the chemicals, where he believes he is a secret agent and is tasked with killing his wife by his boss, a giant talking beetle. It’s an incredibly strange story, full of paranoia, drugs and sexual misadventures.

Weller plays his role with a masterstroke of understated charm and understated madness that helps contrast the more surreal and dreamy visuals. The entire plot is wonderfully absurd, with genuinely convincing acting and the perfect balance between nightmarish scenes and bizarre images that create a strange and frightening film that never lets up. Naked Lunch has strangeness running through its core and in every aspect of the filmmaking it not only one of the weirdest movies of the ’90s, but one of the weirdest movies of all time.