Something Weird

I would consider myself a fan of Two Thousand Maniacs, I enjoyed The Gore Gore Girls and thought Blood Feast was OK; but in general, I don't consider myself a fan of Herschell Gordon Lewis and, in fact, every time I see another of his films; I generally become less of a fan. I'm not a cinema snob by any means and while I prefer to watch 'serious' horror films than trashy inept ones; I can appreciate this sort of stuff some of the time. However, Lewis' films are so inept that they often bypass the 'so bad it's good' mark and go all the way back to simply being bad; and that is certainly the case here. The plot moulds together several different ideas, all of them ridiculous. We focus on Cronin Mitchell; a good looking guy who becomes disfigured after an accident with a power line. There is some good news, however, as he also gets extra sensory powers. It's not long before an ugly witch comes to him for a psychic reading and offers him the chance to regain his good looks if he becomes her lover. He does, and then pair gets involved with a murder case.

The film features the usual Herschell Gordon Lewis level of class; obviously, none. The film is another excellent example of how not to make a movie, as the direction, acting, editing etc are all terrible. Perhaps the most horrible thing about the film is the old witch's make-up, and certainly not for the right reasons as it looks extremely cheap and obvious, and this is not helped by the performance from Mudite Arums, who gives it far too much and just comes off looking silly. The plot seems like it was written by a three year old and the way it flows makes absolutely no sense at all and the whole murder plot feels like it was thrown on the end as an afterthought (and it probably was). This film might appeal to those whole enjoy campy pieces of crap; but if you're not one of those people, I really can't think of much to recommend this for. Aside from being rubbish, I also found this film to be an insult to my intelligence and it almost feels like it was made for children. Overall, this is bad even for 'The Godfather of Gore' and everyone but his hardcore fans would do well to miss it!

Crackpot, frequently amusing combination of parapsychology and psychedelia in this typically twisted Herschell Gordon Lewis schlock production. It's not quite as much fun as his celebrated splatter movies, but it's still pretty entertaining.

Tony McCabe plays Cronin "Mitch" Mitchell, a young engineer who is facially scarred by a severe electrical accident. This also gives him strong psychic abilities, so he hangs out a shingle as a medium. In this capacity, he meets a hideous old crone (Mudite Arums) who promises to restore his face to its handsome glory IF he will be her lover. So she becomes his entourage as he becomes a celebrity of sorts. Soon he is hired by a police force in Wisconsin to help catch a serial killer.

When you watch something by the late, great Mr. Lewis, you know you won't get something very slick technically, and you certainly won't get something very well acted. But that NEVER means that the "acting" in these epics doesn't entertain in its own fumbling way. McCabe is a hilariously obnoxious, insufferable prick, and Elizabeth Lee is delightful as the *other* incarnation of the old crone, the young hottie whom the rest of the world sees. William Brooker is a hoot as a karate student / playboy / doctor who's sent to possibly debunk Mitchs' abilities, and recruit him for the government should he turn out to be the real deal. Jeffrey Allen of "Two Thousand Maniacs!" pops up in a small role as a doctor, but what is truly a gas is seeing Lawrence J. Aberwood as the police chief (he's the infamous "All you kids make me sick..." guy from HGLs' roughie "Scum of the Earth").

Highlighted by a nicely strange L.S.D. trip sequence, and the "attack by blanket" scene, "Something Weird" is given a jazzy score by Edward J. Petan. Written and produced by James F. Hurley, it gets down to business quickly (with a murder playing out behind the opening credits) and offers up a delicious resolution and comeuppance.

Seven out of 10.

Something Weird (1967)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

This Herschell Gordon Lewis film certainly lives up to its title. Cronin Mitchell (Tony McCabe) gets electrocuted, which badly burns his face but the upside is that it gives him ESP. Soon afterwards a witch offers to fix his face if he becomes her lover. Then, a FBI agent learns of his skills so he wants to team up with Mitchell to track down killers.

SOMETHING WEIRD is exactly what this movie is and I'd argue that it's one of the director's better non-horror films. Technically speaking this is a bit better than what you normally see from Gordon as it appears he was really wanting to make a "good" movie and the screenplay itself has enough weird stuff going on to where you can't help but be entertained. This here is one of those movies where a little bit of everything is thrown in with hopes that something works.

I think the best moments happen early on and deals with the witch trying to put her moves on the young man. The scenes with the witch are mocking the Margaret Hamilton/THE WIZARD OF OZ and it doesn't even try to hide it. This here adds some fun as does the early scenes dealing with the ESP stuff. The later stuff with the FBI agent has the film lose some steam but there's still enough here that makes SOMETHING WEIRD worth watching.

I definitely won't question the accuracy of this movie's title. It's weird, all right. I daresay extremely weird even for the usual standards of director Herschell Gordon Lewis, but it's also an unbelievably incoherent film that jumps from one incompetently plotted storyline onto the other and blends themes that simply don't belong together, like witches and serial killers…or E.S.P, karate-fighting and virulently attacking blankets (that's right!). As weird as it may sound, some of the basic story ideas featuring in "Something Weird" definitely have some potential, they're just elaborated poorly and unimaginatively. The main character is Cronin Mitchell. Since he got electrocuted at his job, he developed an impressive sixth sense, the so-called Extra Sensory Perception. His face also was severely mutilated in the accident and he hides it behind a veil whilst he receives customers to predict their futures. One day he's visited by an old witch who offers to restore his handsome manly face in exchange for unconditional love. Mitchell accepts, mainly because the witch takes on the face and body of a ravishing blond goddess most of the time. Meanwhile, the police are hunting a relentless serial killer who already murdered seven women and they call for Mitchell's psychic powers to help. Karate-fighting, womanizing and LSD-using doctor Alex Jordan has to test how powerful Mitchell's E.S.P is, but he quickly falls in love with the ravishing blond goddess … who actually is a hideous witch. Anyone still paying attention to the plot? Didn't think so… The idea of processing aspects like E.S.P into his film is very ambitious for a H.G. Lewis exploit-production, but he simply lacks the talent to use it properly. Personally, I'm a huge admirer of Lewis' repertoire, but that's mainly because his most famous titles are the pioneers of splatter and gore flicks! Films like "Two Thousand Maniacs" and "Blood Feast" didn't necessarily require solid screenplays, because the copious amounts of gore and bloodshed were always able to distract you. "Something Weird" doesn't feature any gore and therefore it's so much easier to point out the weaknesses and – without the delicious gore – it's also much harder to overlook them. The acting performances are atrocious, the editing seems to be done by a 5-year-old and the use of monotonous jazzy sounds rapidly gets very upsetting. The make-up on Mudite Arums (the hag) is hilariously unconvincing, particularly because only her face looks old whilst the legs are still quite foxy. The aforementioned blanket-attack and the infamous LSD-trip scene are two prime examples of why this movie is called "Something Weird". However, the title was inventive enough to become the name and logo of one of the coolest video distributing companies ever, so at least Lewis minor misfire spawned at least something positive as well.

An accident victim (Tony McCabe) makes a deal with a particularly hideous witch (Elizabeth Lee), in which he receives extraordinary ESP powers. He uses these powers to help the police solve crimes.

Just to be clear, the film features a paranormal plot involving LSD drug use, a psychic, a hideous witch who morphs into a sexy young woman, a séance, a kung-fu chopping socialite, ghosts, psychopaths and federal agents. If you can imagine all of this mixed together and fit into 80 minutes, you might have a vague idea of what sort of nonsense is going on here.

One thing that appealed to be was the focus on a maniac who is committing murders in the small town of Jefferson, Wisconsin. I suspect Lewis neither knew nor cared, but Jefferson is very much a real small town. And any shout-out to Wisconsin makes me happy.