Every now and then, you come across a movie that exists outside of the traditional ideas
of “good” and “bad.”
These are the weird ones: forgotten sequels, offbeat ideas, and the obscure but secretly
awesome cult classics that you just can’t believe are real.
Trust us, though: these movies actually exist, and they're every bit as bizarre as they sound.
Karate Bearfighter
If movies were judged by the quality of their titles, 1975's Karate Bearfighter would be
considered one of the greatest films of all time.
Unfortunately, it’ll just have to settle for being the greatest Man vs. Animal martial
arts spectacular that most people have never heard of.
The story follows the great Sonny Chiba as Masutatsu Oyama, a karate master forced to
fist-fight a bear to the death in order to raise money to pay for a child’s medical
bills.
Admittedly, the actual bear fight isn't that great and pretty clearly involves Chiba slugging
it out with a man in an ill-fitting costume, but it’s still fun to watch.
And the best part?
It's based on a true story.
No, really: Oyama was a very real person whose strength in Karate and tendency to fight bulls
earned him the nickname "Godhand."
Chiba was actually one of his students, and starred in an entire trilogy of movies that
were very loosely based on Oyama's life.
Karate Bearfighter is the second, sandwiched between Karate Bullfighter and Karate For
Life.
Pottersville
To say that Pottersville is a bad movie is sort of like saying outer space is cold.
It is, but it’s far more accurate to talk about it in terms of its boundless mysteries
and the improbable presence of so many stars.
Based on the title and the otherwise irrelevant Christmastime setting, Pottersville seems
like a weird sort of sequel to It's a Wonderful Life, except that it takes place in the bad
timeline where George Bailey was never born.
There's even a scene at the end that mirrors the heartwarming ending of the original…
“To my big brother George, the richest man in town.”
...except that the version in Pottersville involves one of the characters calling a town
meeting to browbeat everyone into not sucking as humans.
Even that comes after 80 minutes of a plot based around a man getting blackout drunk
dressed up as a sasquatch because he finds out his wife is a furry who’s been cheating
on him with the local sheriff.
The weirdest thing about it is how much star power it has.
Academy Award-winner Michael Shannon stars with Christina Hendricks, Thomas Lennon, Ian
McShane, and Ron Perlman.
Since it definitely seems like they're getting their scenes done in as few takes as humanly
possible, it's hard to shake the feeling that someone was actually trying to pull off the
scheme from The Producers.
“Under the right circumstances, a producer could make more money with a flop than he
could with a hit.”
Rubber
Despite the title, 2010's Rubber is not a horror film about an evil prophylactic, although
if that’s what you’re into, you may want to check out 1996’s Killer Condom.
Instead, this one’s an 82-minute French movie about a tire named Robert that comes
to life, gains psychokinetic powers, and then goes on a killing spree.
Because really, what else is a tire going to do?
It’s a weird idea but, Rubber seems to draw its inspiration from some pretty weird places.
At one point, there's a scene where a sheriff tries to blow Robert up by dressing up a mannequin
and then loading it up with dynamite, in the style of Wile E. Coyote.
According to director Quentin Dupieux, though, his biggest inspiration was Pixar’s Wall-E.
Sure.
Why not?
The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T
TV specials like How the Grinch Stole Christmas! are among the most well-known and beloved
television programs of all time, but here's one piece of the Dr. Seuss canon that's rarely
discussed: The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, a mind-boggling look from 1953 at the horrors of piano lessons.
Of course, it might be so obscure because it was such a dismal failure that Seuss made
no mention of it in his autobiography.
There was even a moment on set when one child actor got sick and led to a chain reaction
of 150 boys all vomiting at once, which Seuss compared to the film's critical reception.
So of course, it’s absolutely worth watching.
Set in a fantasy world that recreates Dr. Seuss’s signature look on a live-action
sound stage, the story follows 10-year-old Billy as he's menaced by a nightmare version
of his piano teacher, Dr. Terwilliker.
In the dream world, Terwilliker's strict music lessons are twisted into a mad plot to enslave
500 children to play a single gigantic piano, which will somehow help him brainwash and
marry Billy’s mom.
It's a truly strange film and the dizzying set designs are as disorienting as you'd expect,
but after a recent home video release, Dr. T has managed to become a cult classic.
Going Bananas
The Cannon Group could fill an entire list of unbelievable movies all by themselves,
thanks to flicks like Ninja III: The Domination, Hard Rock Zombies, and American Cyborg: Steel
Warrior.
Even compared to those, though, Going Bananas is one of the weirdest movies of all time.
In terms of plot, it's actually pretty basic.
A shockingly intelligent orangutan named Bonzo befriends a young American boy named Ben during
a safari in Africa, which is referred to as "the darkest and cruelest" of all continents
because movies were still pretty racist in 1987.
Hijinks ensue, including Bonzo being kidnapped by a circus, flying an airplane, and straight
up speaking English.
And yes, in case you were, Bonzo's screeching, falsetto voice is among the worst pieces of
audio ever committed to film.
“Bonzo love Ben."
According to a documentary about Cannon Films, the original plan was for the film to feature
Clyde, the orangutan co-star of Every Which Way But Loose.
Execs began pitching the movie to Clyde, who, and we cannot stress this enough, was an orangutan.
"They see you and he looked at the monkey.
And from now on he kept talking to the monkey.”
In the end, Clyde dropped out, probably because the role would've required him to speak English
and fly an airplane, and the part went to Dee p Roy and a truly terrible ape costume
instead.
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