A Deep Dive into Weirdo Cinema [11] Quiz

Answer: The Country Bears

It is a weird but not altogether rare instance when Disney does the ride before they do the film, after all, we've seen the creation of "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl", "Haunted Mansion", and "Jungle Cruise". The real catch is that no one really asked for "The Country Bears", a live-action 2002 film based on the Country Bear Jamboree ride in Magic Kingdom. Combining faux documentary 'behind-the-music' footage about the Country Bears band and the live story of the band in real life as they struggled to save their music hall from...Christopher Walken... the movie had all the stars but failed to make any memorable mark in the Disney canon, bombing at the box office.

Is it worth seeing? Kind of. Besides having solid music, it features several massive creations from the Jim Henson Creature Shop. Oh yeah, and it features a young Haley Joel Osment as one of those puppets named-- get this-- Beary Bearington. BEARY. Who can resist?

Answer: Ghost Shark

What do you get when you kill a great white and it happens to sink into the bottom of a resurrection cave on the Florida coast? WELL, you'd better believe that you get a ghost shark-- a shark you can't stop via normal means. A small town in the U.S. south suffers the consequences and only a small handful of people can put the shark's soul to rest...but not before discovering that the shark can appear in literally any water source. Sometimes it means a bucket of water at a car wash. Sometimes it means a water cooler. Sometimes it's a sprinkler system. Ghosts are like that!

And honestly, if you like SyFy camp horror, "Ghost Shark" kind of works as a mindless watch. Airing, originally, in 2013, is was followed a couple of years later by a non-affiliated New Zealand movie, "Ghost Shark 2: Urban Jaws", which kind of has nothing to do with the SyFy original. But who can stop the true unrest of a dead shark, right?

Answer: The Red Turtle

Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature (but losing to "Zootopia", of all things), "The Red Turtle", directed by Dutch animator Michaël Dudok de Wit, won a number of other awards in the film festival circuit for its beautiful visuals and its restrained storytelling. Told without virtually any dialogue across its eighty minute runtime, "The Red Turtle" followed a man, marooned on a deserted island, who appeared to encounter a magical red turtle in a meeting that would spell out the rest of his life in near-solitude.

Co-produced with Studio Ghibli, "The Red Turtle" is absolutely worth the watch. Critically renowned, it's a fantastical film that works for virtually any audience, and it's just the right amount of unknown to be a worthwhile back-pocket recommendation.

Answer: Canada

It's hard to pin this absurd movie down, really, but it's fascinating in every regard. Regarded as a 'thriller' and a 'comedy' online, this 2000 Canadian-made movie followed Ryan and his effort to cross the country (and into the U.S.) to escape his girlfriend's dad after her melodramatic suicide attempt. Although online reviews have likened the film to both Homer's "Odyssey" and James Joyce's "Ulysses", that would be giving a lot of credit to something that does not seem altogether sane.

Although the film vanished into the ether shortly after its release, it was picked up in the late 2010s by Red Letter Media, giving it a bit of renewed life as part of their 'Best of the Worst' review collection. It's the type of movie where, if you like bad films and you can get your hands on it, you'd be a fool not to take this road trip to...nowhere.

Answer: Wright

There's little to discuss in regards to the plot of this film in which Bigfoot terrifies a small, small town in the United States. Where it gets the most interesting is in its creation because it's one in a series of films from Wright Family Films, a family committed to creating Christian films together and releasing them for sale online without formal release.

The entire film is written by, crewed by, and acted out by members of the Wright Family with Ashley Hays Wright in the director's seat. With these small-scale productions and the freedom to self-release, "The Badge, the Bible, and Bigfoot" is one of more than fifty movies under her family's label. One weird caveat, Ashley, who features in the movie as the mayor, can't appear in scenes with her husband, David, who plays the chief of police who sets out to battle Bigfoot because one of them needs to be holding the camera.

Interestingly, it's not the only Christian Bigfoot film the family made; they released "Bigfoot: Grip of the Monster" in 2024.

Answer: True

Directed by Christian Rivers, one of the visual effects workers responsible for the "Lord of the Rings" films, "Mortal Engines" was a grand idea based on the 2001 teen book "Mortal Engines" though it deviated in a number of ways. Set in a post-apocalyptic future in which massive cities move around the planet on constructed machines, it follows two characters as they navigate a plot around the futuristic, steampunk, mobile city of London and the building of a cataclysmic superweapon called MEDUSA.

An ambitious film, "Mortal Engines" failed to recoup its costs in the box office and didn't pass muster with critics despite a script cowritten by Peter Jackson. What it does feature, from a worthwhile standpoint, is marvellous effects. On the scale it attempts to present, it may not be a compelling story, but it is a visual treat and it was celebrated, at least, for that.

Answer: Busan

Featured for the first time at Cannes, this South Korean action-horror film revitalized the zombie genre if not seemingly set a new benchmark. The first live-action film from director Yeon Sang-ho, the movie is headed by an ensemble cast, most of whom portray commuters headed along the busy rail corridor from Seoul to Busan, South Korea. The catch is that their ride occurs during a zombie outbreak on the Korean Peninsula.

Becoming the highest-grossing South Korean film in 2016, "Train to Busan" became an worldwide hit in the horror community. In addition to its critical renown, it kick-started the international career of Ma Dong-seok (who would go on to appear in Marvel's "Eternals") and resulted in a larger cinematic universe. The film was followed, directly, by a sequel, "Peninsula", in 2020.

Answer: Tank Girl

While newcomer director Rachel Talalay was on the hook to make "Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare" in 1991, it was a chance reading of the "Tank Girl" comic books that inspired her to fight for the rights to the property, allowing her to develop the film with new screenwriter Tedi Sarafian. Though the film, about an antihero in a dystopian wasteland version Australia (not an unfamiliar setting), ended up flopping in the box office upon its release in 1995, it managed to find success in later years due to its featuring of Lori Petty in the role of Tank Girl, depicting her as a feminist figure.

The film fits into the weird niche of comic adaptations that missed the mark throughout the 1990s (along with films like "Darkman" and "The Phantom"). Also starring Naomi Watts, Malcolm McDowell, and Ice-T, it's a unique product of its time and, interestingly, was cast at a unique time in the decade in several international cities. In fact, the London auditions led several famous women to meet for the first time; Victoria Beckham and Geri Halliwell allegedly met during the auditions, and the Spice Girls responded to auditions for the band in 1994.

Answer: New Moon

When "Twilight" released in 2008 it almost seemed a given that the entire 'saga' (as it would come to be marketed) would be a colossal success. Stephenie Meyer's series had already found its way to international bestseller status, and despite considerable flaws (from the points of view of critics), the original film would go on to be hugely profitable. "New Moon", released only a year later, continued the streak, sending Bella Swan into a tailspin by splitting her and Edward Cullen for a film, leaving her to commit risky and daring feats in an effort to get him back (and not to mention spending more time with werewolf Jacob Black).

But is it worth the watch? Perhaps for the trip to Italy to see Robert Pattinson's 'sparkling in the sun' moment before he plans on dying to the hands of the Volturi. Perhaps to see Bella get really sad in cloudy, rural Washington. Perhaps to see the lack of affect in Kristen Stewart's emotions when she's proposed to in the last seconds of the two hour film. More than anything, "New Moon" has a solid official soundtrack, though maybe not as good as "Eclipse's"; it came out the year after.

Answer: An alien

You want cult classic, low-budget camp horror? "Nightbeast" is a fascinating example of exactly that. Directed by B-movie creator Don Dohler, this 1982 movie involves an alien who, knocked off-course, crash lands his UFO in the small town of Perry Hall, Maryland and wreaks havoc, shooting people with a disintegrating raygun and, otherwise, mutilating anyone else in its way. The Nightbeast itself, an ugly creature in a spacesuit, seems to be capable of walking around fine on Earth; it just struggles to do anything but kill.

More than that, locals discover that the only way to defeat the Nightbeast is by zapping it with a spool of electrified wiring. What follows (after the carnage) is a risky attempt to get it trapped and killed once and for all.

But is it worth it? If you like B-movies, absolutely. It's weird, silly, and fun. After releasing to VHS in the early 1980s, it was picked up, upscaled, and redistributed by both Troma and Vinegar Syndrome in later decades. Additionally, the movie was the first film industry job for "LOST" creator J. J. Abrams, who was commissioned to score the movie when he was 16 years old. He would go on to make his own alien film, "Super 8", in 2011.