There’s a Tea’s Weird Week Facebook group that is a clearinghouse for weird news that we often get our Tea’s Weird Week podcast news from. With the Oscars approaching this weekend, I wondered who would take the Oscar for best weird movie of all time. I decided to set up a poll in the Facebook group and as of this writing, there’s over 60 nominated films.

The frontrunners in the poll as of this writing:

1) Eraserhead, David Lynch’s 1977 weird masterpiece, his first film. I haven’t seen this one in many years, but I do remember seeing the trippy, dream-like black and white film. I also nominated my favorite Lynch movie, 1990’s Wild at Heart. But every Lynch movie could be on this list.

2) Tatsuo the Iron Man. I haven’t seen this one– Billy (who also nominated Eraserhead) says this 1988 movie, by Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto, is like “Eraserhead crossed with Terminator and Akira in the body horror style of David Cronenberg.” Yikes! Akira also made it to the 10 spot of this poll.

3) Howard the Duck. Long before the Marvel Universe became a million jillion dollar juggernaut, there was this incredibly strange 1986 adaptation of a Marvel property. Andrew, our podcast sound engineer, nominated this one, which was directed by Willard Huyck (and executive produced by George Lucas). It was a commercial and critical bomb, but has been quickly rising in out poll.

4) Swiss Army Man. Stephen nominated this 2016 film directed by Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan. I haven’t seen it and only know that it stars Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe, the latter of whom plays a corpse.

5) a tie between Terry Gilliam’s beautifully weird 1985 film Brazil, nominated by Alicia and Todd Browning’s taboo 1932 movie Freaks, which starred actual sideshow performers, nominated by Christina.

So there’s the top noms if want a weird movie night. I’ll be announcing the poll winners in the Facebook group when red carpet coverage starts for the Oscars on Sunday.

Please Clap Dept.: Thanks Bubbler Talk for tapping into my expertise on extraterrestrial parking structures/ It’s a fun and interesting short piece: Art? Landing site for aliens? The story behind the giant metal circle at Milwaukee’s Cupertino Park | WUWM 89.7 FM – Milwaukee’s NPR

SEE ALSO: More weird film related writing on the wild life of Werner Herzog: TWW: High on the Herzog.

Tea’s Weird Week, S4 ep08: Quest for the Weirdest Movies: I set up a Zoom with the people who nominated the top weird movies in the poll, me and Heidi discussed more weird film and other news, a Psycho trivia question from Miss Information, and a closing track by Xposed 4heads, “Suggestion Box.”
Listen here: Tea’s Weird Week, S4 ep08: Quest for the Weirdest Movies (podbean.com)
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My latest books are:
Brady Street Pharmacy: Stories and Sketches (2021, Vegetarian Alcoholic Press)
American Madness: The Story of the Phantom Patriot and How Conspiracy Theories Hijacked American Consciousness (2020, Feral House)