Greatest Cult Film That No One Has Ever Seen?

[Raffine]

Here's where I got my uncut (except that biker! ) copy of NIGHT OF THE DEMON:

I was a bit unclear with that, I actually meant 'uncut' in a different way. 

For clarification sake: the copy of NIGHT OF THE DEMON I got from Shocking Videos! does include the biker scene in all it's tellywacker-rippin' glory. 

[Trevor]

  This is a strange film.........................

The only real cult South African film in my opinion is an eerie (and sometimes very funny) item entitled Jannie Totsiens (Johnny Farewell) which was released in 1970. People back then didn't quite know what to make of it, really, all that mattered was that this film was really quite different to anything they had ever seen before. A catatonic, mother-fixated mathematics professor is sent for observation to a really weird asylum which seems to be an old house. There he runs into members of my family  all with their own problems:

Magda: a jilted bride whose wedding portrait has her holding the hand of someone minus a face;

Koos: an ex soldier who has delusions of grandeur and "friends in the Government";

The Judge: he went mad after his daughter's killer was freed;

Linda: a neurotic killer with parents who continually tell her that she is shaming God: she also has a wonderful habit of carving people up who try to get it on with her;

Liz: a nymphomaniac who constantly writes unsent letters to her dead daughter;

Beppie: a nurse who always is away partying when her patients need her most;

The Director: the guy who runs the asylum: he is almost as bonkers as his patients and has a substance abuse problem;

James: the cook and waiter who endures all the racial abuse he can stand

Frans: the disabled (but 100% sane!) artist whose family put him away because they were ashamed of him

Jannie: the catatonic whose life is changed when the inmates accept him and then try something else with him at the film's conclusion.

Genuinely different, irreverent and shocking ~ a marvelous film indeed.

[AnubisVonMojo]

Oooooh, that one sounds just crazy enough to hunt down Trev! Kudos old bean, you've peaked my bad movie curiosity.



Errrrr, upon initial inspection it seems it would be best of me to ask you this before I go any further Trevor: has this movie ever received any kind of release to a home viewing format?

[Trevor]

  Hi tomb, hope you had a good birthday the other day. 

OK, many of the films we have here at the NFA have been digitized (film to digital tape) ~ that cost us plenty money and Jannie Totsiens is one of them.

I can PM you the contact person's address at the company that holds the digital tapes and they can make a copy for you for a small fee.

Snag: the film is 99% in Afrikaans, but I translated the whole of the film (the Afrikaans parts) into English last year and I can email you a copy of that.

[Javakoala]

I would offer up two (yeah, I just can't decide--sorry):

The Assassination Bureau  Oliver Reed and Diana Rigg in a bizarre 1969 film in which...well, just go find the film and watch it.  Any description tends to dull the effect. I loved this when I was a kid, and have watched it a number of times as an adult and still love it.  No one I talk to has ever heard of it.

And prepare to cringe, as most people have heard of this, but I swear, history will prove me right and it will become a cult film:

Spice World  Let the laughing begin. But if you can sit through this, there are so many throwaway jokes and jabs that it is worth a couple of viewings.  Sadly, there will never be an ultimate double-disk DVD of this, so one scene that existed only in the trailer (not on the DVD) will be lost forever.  The Spice Girls are sitting at a table in their bus, and they are all sweaty and uncomfortable. Ginger says, "I could really use a fan right about now."  The others nod. Suddenly, a panel in the wall opens and a preteen girl runs out, screams something like "Omigod! I love the Spice Girls!" and goes into hysterics before running back into the hole in the wall. Ginger perks up and says, "Oh, that's much better."  Pure cheese.

Now you can go about shredding what little credibility I may have had.

[BTB]

The greatest film no one ever has seen would be Nothing Lasts Forever (1984 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087817/) which I had the chance to see in a special screening, this is a film between Metropolis and Brazil. Beautiful and haunting in good way.  I watched for the cameo of Bill murray and enjoyed it for it's unque approach to love and art.

[RCMerchant]

The greatest film no one ever has seen would be Nothing Lasts Forever (1984 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087817/) which I had the chance to see in a special screening, this is a film between Metropolis and Brazil. Beautiful and haunting in good way.  I watched for the cameo of Bill murray and enjoyed it for it's unque approach to love and art.

    OK...c'mon...the gigs up...you ARE Bill Murray,right? 

[peter johnson]

Great Thread!!
I'm learning lots -- Some comments on different postings here --
Re.  Lost Films --
"London After Midnight" may, indeed, still turn up somewhere.  For decades, the Thomas Edison "Frankenstein"(1910)was thought gone for good, and it turned up suddenly in an ignored/unopened film can in some collector's trunk.
Forrest J. Ackerman still claims to have seen the missing "insect attack" footage from the original "King Kong" on the big screen in The Phillippines.
Editing is a curse, especially on older, unprotected films, for pretty soon it occurs that the chopped-up version is the only one available & the missing scenes are gone for good, as it costs money to properly store prints and negatives, even segments of said.
Gone for good:
The seven (7!!!) hours of footage cut from Erich Von Stroheim's "Greed!", which, at a measley 2 & 1/2 hours is still a good film, but you cry to think of what's gone --
The 2 additional hours of Frank Zappa's "200 Motels".  MGM sold the used videotape at cost, as their number-crunchers had no clue what they possessed.
Some little seen films that should be more CULT than they are:
"Something for Everyone", with Michael York, Angela Lansbury, and a host of character actors.  Gigolo York finds and murders old society ladies, and younger ones as well, for their fortunes.  He gets an odd comeuppance.  To show you how screwy this picture is, it pretends that the (today) well-known tourist attraction of Neurschwanstein Castle is actually Angela Lansbury's character's private home.
"Tunnelvison", with a huge array of early '70's comedians.  Phil Proctor gets shot like Oswald at a Senate hearing on outrageous private TV broadcasts.  Talking penises.  Gratuitous nudity.  Some genuinely funny skits -- topless Betty Thomas (Hill St. Blues, etc.) plays a contestant on a game show where people humiliate themselves.
If you liked "Groove Tube" or "Kentucky Fried Movie", then this is of a piece with those.
peter johnson/denny crane

[Yaddo 42]

Javakoala, The Assassination Bureau used to turn up quite often on our local independent station back in the late 80s/early 90s. Excellent film, I actually wish someone would attempt a steampunk-style remake. But Steampunk doesn't seem to do well in live action films. There was a DVD release a few years ago, I was going to pick up a copy at my local Best Buy, but they began their vicious and ridiculous turnover rate about that time. Guess I can order it, I'd rather have it than some other stuff I bought there. I'd still like to read the incomplete Jack London story that was the source material. I found a novelization or reprint of the story in a used bookstore in Arlington, VA once. Picked up a Master of the World tie-in book of the two Robur novels by Jules Verne instead.

Peter, I saw a program on AMC or PBS a few years ago where very old people were interviewed about their memories of attending movies, with details about mostly silent movies. Interesting show, I'd like to see it again, but I wonder how reliable their memories of things are, just look at our own "What is this Movie?" topics.London After Midnight was mentioned by a few of the people interviewed for the show, probably due its "lost" status. The funny thing was most of the people who said they actually saw it, said it was pretty mediocre.

The superhero comedy The Specials seems to have a cult following, and yet is considered hard to find (DVD copies once went for a pretty penny online) and rarely seen, certainly overshadowed by Mystery Men. Fans of TS seem to actively hate MM, from what I've seen online. Yet, I've seen TS on TV at least once, and have seen DVD copies for sale (one used about a year ago) and a new unopened one at a Family Dollar store the other day. I need to see if people are still paying inflated prices for it, might be worth picking up to make a few bucks if so.

[nycalling]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068451/
The Day the clown cried
only known version apparently exists in Jerry Lewis' vault......
Supposedly Harry Shearer of 'The Simpsons' and 'Spinal Tap' fame saw it and said it was the funniest thing
he'd ever seen (unintentionally funny)
I would also add Blood Freak, Heartbeat in the Brain, The Asphyx and The Great Hollywood Rape Slaughter

[Dr. Whom]

Wow! Somebody else liked Spice World. I'm not alone!

[dean]

Don't laugh, Spice World isn't actually that horrible.  I had the pleasure of playing a clip from that movie, as well as Glitter and Crossroads as part of my "Musicals" subject tutorial presentation.  So bad yet so good, they are a B-movie genre onto themselves [pop starlet gone into film]

I especially recommend Glitter: It's so awful you just cannot help but enjoy every 'fade to white' moment in it...

[nycalling]

Speaking of horrendous affronts to mankind....

[RCMerchant]

 CAN"T STOP the MUSIC: Isn't that the terrifying movie with the Village People and Bruce Jenner? Or was it Mark Spitz? All I know is,I woke up in the middle of the night half drunk...and it was in the middle of the Village People running around like flaming idiots...!Truly bizzare! Not cool.

[BTB]

ARegarding the Village People I have to refer to this great gem about a small australian Village, where a sailor, an Indianand a biker are found murdered and the sole policeman has to fear for his life.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303251/

You can't stop the murders

and honestly if you would trust an anonym person with the face of Bill Murray in his Avatar you should watch this movie. One of my eternal favorites.