Something Weird

In some ways, this is H.G. Lewis's "Citizen Kane." He let himself truly express himself in this one, unrestrained by conventions of logic or continuity. It actually has more special effects than most of his movies – and less of them are gore than in most of the non-adult movies as well. The levitation scene is amazing – low budget filmmakers had been levitating people more effectively than that since Melies – but then he tops everything with the "blanket attack" sequence. Lewis must have been reading Leary, because he allows that LSD could be used for a peaceful purpose, although of course he also gives us a typical 60s "freakout" on top of it (acid can be used for good, but it has to hurt, I guess). This is a movie for a very special audience, which thankfully has found it.

Lewis's direction is as drab as usual here (cue long scenes of people executing actions from go to woe, free of editing in slow master shots) and there's no gore so don't expect any, yet I actually think that this appropriately named weird tale of ESP, a witch's pact and the mystery of a serial murderer is the best Lewis film I've seen by the standards of conventional film-making. The story has enough developments, payoffs and odd surprises that you may find yourself beguiled even without the typically sensational Lewis content in evidence. Fear not, though; the schlock quota is more than met by the ugly witch's bizarrely crap performance and by many classy moments of stilted dialogue and acting. The pushy jazz score is completely Wild and Crazy, and there's also a prolonged and silly chase on foot ala Blood Feast. The threads of this film don't logically feed each other at all, yet I think that the whole thing makes for a pretty good story, and as usual, the cheapness of budget means you can see and hear all the details of life in the year in which the film was shot.

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.