Something Weird (1967)

 

Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis

Screenplay: James F. Hurley

Cast: Tony McCabe as Cronin 'Mitch' Mitchell; Elizabeth Lee as Ellen Parker; William Brooker as Dr. Alex Jordan; Mudite Arums as The Hag; Ted Heil as Det. Maddox; Lawrence J. Aberwood as Chief Vinton; Larry Wellington as Rev. Ammond

An Abstract Candidate

Including a bonus review of A Hot Night at the Go Go Lounge (1966)

 

Levitation may occur.

This is where, reviewing the films of Herschell Gordon Lewis, I rub my hands together with glee. This film, a tangent in a career usually known for the splatter films, is famously where the company Something Weird Video got their name from, founded by the late Mike Vraney who (with his wife and widow Lisa Petruccirunning the company after him) decided to preserve weird American productions like this alongside the rest of Lewis' filmography. This was also one of the only original Something Weird Video release I did own, rather than distributed by a different company, importing the DVD which was worthy to preserve even after Arrow Video released a Blu Ray restoration because of the extras. The company's reputation was as much to make their releases a trick or treat bag of curiosities and delights, making others blush in shame by offering short films and odd content more interesting for someone myself to watch than even behind the scenes documents. Even a clip of Psyched by the 4D Witch (1973) appeared on this film's disc, another of these bizarre American exploitation films from the era which hopped onto the LSD and New Age cultural trends.

Something Weird lives up to the title, its origins coming from a period where Lewis deviated from his gore films in the later sixties. Some of this was the censors snapping at his heels, but I suspect as much of this was that, as an exploitation/independent filmmaker, he hoped onto new trends or wanted to expand his forte. I will use this as an excuse to cram a tiny little review here of a short film supposedly directed by him from the time, A Hot Night at the Go Go Lounge (1966), suiting the film originally talked about by having even its own review go on a tangent.  Starting with dancing, cutting to feet dancing and shimmering women, the short however is mostly about female erotic dancing, two female topless dancers the central focus, one in a red skirt with tassels and black stockings, the other in white jeans. This is a foot back into older exploitation films, the burlesque productions like Varietease (1954) from the late fifties, but this short is worth mentioned in a Something Weird review as you see the eventual transition to weird films of the late sixties. Of the psychedelic era, the proto psychedelic garage rock and the attempt at matching the era, be it red and purple backgrounds to jump cuts to make the dancers appear and disappear. It is a mere curiosity, but you see Lewis, if he directed this, both able to show style and moving along with trends, be they relevant or out of touch. It almost feels apt the last shot is a jukebox, a fifties piece of iconography before Lewis made a film like Something Weird a year later.

Adding to the strange film is knowing that its screenwriter James F. Hurley was obsessed with ESP, writing a film that would pass on his beliefs on the subject only for this film to be created, hating the final result so much he directed his own film called The Psychic (1968) with Lewis himself as the cinematographer. From the get-go the score by Edward J. Petan is trippy for an introduction to the film, jazz with synth and even an xylophone later on, apt for a film where the opening credits has a random murder of a woman by a psychopath, a random scene in a dojo linking to the growing interest in the West of martial arts, and an abrupt cut to a man falling off a roof, electrocuted, and the real lead Mitch (Tony McCabe) getting his face burnt by the severed cable that falls down too trying to help that man. He gains psychic powers as a result of the electrocution, but also a permanently scared face, psychologically distorting him to the point of being initially very unlikable, berating a female nurse in hospital, not helped by what has happened to him psychologically what has transpired. Then a witch enters his life, and the film lives up to the title and tenfold.

Wandering off in pure randomness, there is a point here, completely accurate with his gift and getting by as a veiled psychic, Mitch is offered a tempting deal. That if he becomes her lover, the witch will restore his face; said witch, who is your typical exaggerated crone, does however disguise herself as a beautiful woman when the deal is sealed, which tempts him further. Dialogue heavy, Something Weird is yet a curious beast, one which juggles so many unexpected plot jaunts. There is, as mentioned, someone killing women which evokes Lewis' splatter films, even one murder with a blow torch being used. This plot, which becomes one of the main two, looks like it will turn into a prototype of The Dead Zone, be it the Stephen King novel and the 1983 David Cronenberg film, where in the location of Jefferson in Wisconsin (where the film was also shot for authenticity) Mitch is asked to be involved with using his powers to find the killer. Not before however a random ghost exorcism in a church, a séance with superimposition, and psychosexual tension where the main crime investigator sent to Jefferson falls in love with the Witch in her disguised form, being attacked by his own bed sheets in the process.

Then the LSD is brought in the room, literally from a pocket, at a time when it was still considered a curiosity, and leading to a trip scene entirely in red hue and pushing Lewis in expressing such content in idiosyncratic ways.  As a filmmaker as well, in mind to such examples, Lewis took a step on this film in terms of his more creative side showing itself, another example the electrocution scene, causing Mitch's disfigurement, which is cut to in a quick edit from a scene before of a couple romantically entangled which pitches an ironic piece of dialogue before the accident. Whilst this still follows his habit of calmly paced and long scenes of dialogue, the moments of his having to show unconventionality and flourish to make this film stand out are enticing. This also undercuts the notion that he did not take his work with any interest beyond financial success at all, as he was starting to include these types of flourishes among these films onwards, and did not need have to as many genre and exploitation films before and afterwards in the seventies could far more crudely minimalistic. Here particularly, in its glory living up to the title tenfold, you see this, the film I had grown the fondest of from Lewis, and still gleefully bonkers to witness.

Abstract Spectrum: Psychedelic/Psychotronic/Weird

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Low