23. Videodrome

(David Cronenberg, 1983)

What’s The Story? Max Renn (James Woods) is a jaded cable TV honcho who finds a new buzz in ‘Videodrome’, a mind and body-altering S&M channel.

Soon after schtupping Blondie Debbie Harry, his stomach slowly transforms into a video socket and his hand a gun...

What’s It About? It's a conspiracy-themed sci-fi satire on the notion that we are what we watch.

“I wanted to see what it would be like,” Cronenberg ponders, “if what the censors said would happen, did happen.”

Videodrome also pre-empts virtual reality and reality TV by asking, what if TV became as ‘real’ as real? Try running that one past the Big Brother housemates.

Weird Fact: In an early draft, Renn’s gun-hand grew into a grenade...

22. Picnic At Hanging Rock

(Peter Weir, 1975)

What’s The Story? On St Valentine’s Day, 1900, a group of boarding-school girls and their teacher vanish during a day-trip to the titular landmark.

What’s It About? It’s vaguely implied that the lasses have been abducted by aborigines for trespassing on sacred ground, suggesting the perils of (European) civilisation tampering with nature.

There’s also a theme of sexual blossoming, the girls’ disappearance representing a ‘crossing over’ into womanhood.

Ultimately, though, it’s a mystery about mystery - elusiveness is the whole point.

“I did everything in my power to hypnotise the audience away from the possibility of solutions,” says Weir.

Weird Fact: The cast and crew’s watches played up on the Rock – just as the girls’ watches do in the story.

21. Un Chien Andalou

(Luis Bunuel, 1929)

What’s The Story? A woman’s eye is slit open, a hand swarms with ants, a mouth turns into armpit hair, a transvestite ignores the traffic and a couple break up and make up. It’s a love story, see?

What’s It About? Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel’s Surrealist soup turns Freudian thinking into film by twiddling riffs of deferred desire in parallel with disconnected, dreamlike images that deny any satisfaction for sense.

Follow? You’re not supposed to. “This film has no intention of attracting, or pleasing, the spectator,” said Buñuel. “Indeed, on the contrary, it attacks him.”

Weird Fact: The Pixies’ squalling classic ‘Dolittle’ album-opener ‘Debaser’ homaged Buñuel but changed “Andalou” to “Andalusia”. Because it sounded better.

Next: Sick, El Topo, Freaks...

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