Film
Otto; or, Up with Dead People
- Fantasy
- Science fiction
- Strange
A zombie wanders into Berlin and becomes the subject of an underground filmmaker's mockumentary-within-a-film project. Bruce LaBruce's deadpan provocation mixes art-world satire, queer politics, and genuine pathos with deliberately cheap gore and an anarchic sense of humour. It's a film that wants to provoke and amuse you in equal measure—and somehow succeeds at both.
If you liked this
A Fantastic Woman2017
A trans woman navigates grief and a hostile world after her older lover's death. It's formally inventive, emotionally devastating, and treats its protagonist with dignity. A masterpiece about erasure and survival.
But The tone is contemplative rather than propulsive; if you want plot momentum over atmosphere and visual language, this moves too deliberately.

The Death of Dick Long2019
Three working-class friends' night spirals into horror with a dark, absurdist edge. It's blackly funny, genuinely suspenseful, and takes its characters seriously even as everything goes sideways. Criminally underseen.
But The premise involves sexual violence, and the film handles it without exploitation but also without softening. That particular gravity may put some viewers off.

It Comes at Night2017
A family isolated in a cabin during an unspecified crisis becomes increasingly paranoid and fractured. Dread builds through suggestion and behaviour rather than jump scares. Tense, claustrophobic, and genuinely unsettling.
But Horror via mood and implication rather than resolution; the ending offers no answers or catharsis, only more dread.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Otto; or, Up with Dead People
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Happiness of the Katakuris2002
Both films weaponise comedy and gore to make a point about vulnerability and desire. Both directors believe you can laugh at horror while taking it seriously.
A Japanese family inherits a rural inn; their guests keep dying. Takashi Miike's film moves from tragedy through horror into stop-motion musical sequences without a blink. Genuinely bizarre, deeply sad, and impossible to predict.
But The tonal whiplash is deliberate and relentless. Stop-motion interludes sit next to family grief without transition or apology. It's not for viewers who need tonal consistency.

More like this (8)
Under the Skin2014
An alien woman seduces men in Scotland in ways both mundane and disturbing. Slow-burn science fiction that trusts you to sit with strangeness and unease. Hypnotic, bleak, and unforgettable.
But Little dialogue, no conventional plot, and a commitment to abstraction over explanation. It's as much mood piece as narrative.

Fanny and Alexander1982
Bergman's baroque, generous late masterpiece follows two siblings through a transformative year of theatre, cruelty, magic, and family. A film about theatre-as-survival that embraces artifice without apology.
But At over three hours, it demands time and attention. The theatrical register may feel mannered if you're after naturalism.

The Ballad of Little Jo1993
A woman escapes her past by passing as a man in the Old West. Maggie Greenwald's film is radical in its refusal to sentimentalise queerness or settlement. Quietly devastating about the cost of reinvention.
But The pacing is deliberate and the emotional landscape sparse. If you want westward momentum or emotional catharsis, you won't find it.

Come and See1985
A Soviet boy becomes a soldier during WWII and descends into the hell of combat. One of cinema's greatest depictions of war's annihilation of innocence. Brutal, necessary, unforgettable—but utterly unsparing.
But The suffering depicted is graphic and relentless. This is not entertainment; it is ordeal. Watch only if you are prepared.

The Fountain2006
Darren Aronofsky's three-timeline meditation on death, obsession, and love spans centuries and registers. Visually ravishing, emotionally vast, and genuinely weird. A film that swings for the fences.
But Its ambitious scope and abstract storytelling frustrate many viewers. The tonal shifts may feel overwrought if you're not already on its wavelength.

Beau Travail2000
Denis Cottaz adapts *Billy Budd* into a meditation on jealousy and masculine surveillance in the French Foreign Legion. Formally inventive, strikingly composed, and queer in all the right ways. A small film with a massive presence.
But Plot is incidental to atmosphere and visual language. Long stretches with little dialogue or incident. It operates entirely by mood and accumulation.

Let the Right One In2008
Both films centre on outsiders discovering each other in cities; both treat the monstrous with tenderness rather than judgment. Both know that the real horror isn't death but loneliness.
A lonely boy befriends a vampire child in 1980s Sweden. Tomas Alfredson's film is patient, atmospheric, and genuinely strange—more interested in connection than action. One of the decade's finest films, vampire or otherwise.
But The pacing is glacial and the tone consistently mournful. There's no action, no catharsis, just two people recognising each other across an impossible gulf.

Synecdoche, New York2008
Both are films-about-filmmaking where the act of creation and the collapse of identity become indistinguishable. Both ask whether art can save us or only document our dissolution.
Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut follows a theatre director obsessed with staging a life-sized replica of New York inside a warehouse. Dense, self-reflexive, and genuinely moving about art as a means of processing grief and failure. You'll find something new in it every time.
But It's recursive, arch, and sometimes feels deliberately inaccessible. If you want clarity over ambiguity, this will frustrate you.

People
Cast
Jey CrisfarOtto
Katharina KlewinghausMedea Yarn / Lascivious Ballet Dancer #1
Susanne SachßeHella Bent / Lascivious Ballet Dancer #2
Marcel SchluttFritz Fritze
Gio Black PeterRudolf- Guido SommerAdolf
Christophe CheminMaximilian- Max Di CostanzoAmusement Park Zombie #1
- Nicholas Fox RicciardiYoung Man in Hooded Sweatshirt
- Keith BöhmMan in a Suit and Hat
- Olivia BarthWoman in a Black Burqa / Woman on Subway #1
Stephanie HeinrichOld Woman
Directing
- Bruce LaBruceDirector
Writing
- Bruce LaBruceWriter
Production
- Bruce LaBruceProducer
- Jürgen BrüningProducer