SOMETHING WEIRD

An unbelievable journey into the awesome worlds of E.S.P. and witchcraft!

A young man, Cronin Mitchell gets into an accident where his face is badly burned and disfigured from an electrical cord. When he awakens in the hospital he finds out that his life has changed considerably after the accident. He has gained weird psychic powers, and is now able to read minds. Broken down because of the disfigurement of his face, he covers it with a scarf and sunglasses and begins to work as a fortune teller. One day he gets visited by an old woman, who claims she can give the thing he desires most; his good looks. The only catch is if she helps him with his face, he has to become her lover forever. He laughs at the old woman but when he turns around to look at himself in the mirror he notices that his face is now back to normal. Now he will have to keep up his end of the bargain and stay with the old woman forever as her lover. Together they tour the country, performing on TV with Mitchell’s psychic powers, and soon he is a national celebrity. The word quickly gets around and he is discovered by the government who wants Mitchell to Washington to help them solve crimes. So they send out a doctor, Alex Jordan, to test Mitchell’s ESP powers and help out with an investigation on a ruthless serial killer. Dr. Jordan meets up with Mitchell and the old woman, who has assumed the shape of a beautiful young woman named Ellen in front of people, and Jordan is quickly convinced of Mitchell’s enormous psychic powers. Through several displays of his ESP powers, such as expelling a ghost from a church and invoking the spirits of the dead, they are ready to take on the task of finding the cruel serial killer that is loose in the small Illinois town. But it is a harder task than they thought, and a wild ride through a world of murder, witchcraft, ESP and LSD…

Something Weird is another strange gem from director Herschell Gordon Lewis, and it is an exciting and exotic journey into a bizarre world of drugs, hallucinations and witchery. The film pretty much lives up to its title and you’ll get exactly what’s promised… Something weird…It is filled with weird and wonderful psychedelic scenes accompanied with weird and a deliciously funky jazz score. I got a strange feeling when I watched the film, as the atmosphere sucks you right into the movie. Several scenes in the film have an almost nightmarish quality over them, the murder scenes for example is filmed with quirky camera angles and leaves you fumbling in the dark on the identity of the serial killer. One of the most memorable scenes in the film is when Dr. Jordan is violently attacked in his sleep by his own blanket (!) and has to struggle with the light blue piece of cloth before ripping it to shreds. The long LSD induced dream sequence of Mitchell is also one of the highlights in the film, where Mitchell gets clues to the murder case while running through a desert. All of it filmed with a mind boggling orange filter. Indeed the film lives up to its name and provides the viewer with an equally strange experience as those in the film just by watching it. Required viewing for fans of H.G.Lewis and fans of strange and weird films!