Film

The Greasy Strangler

A deranged comedy-horror about a father and son running a disco walking tour in San Francisco, competing for a woman's affection while a greasy serial killer stalks the neon-lit streets. Aggressively weird, genuinely funny, deeply uncomfortable—Jim Hosking's debut is a fever dream that doesn't apologize for being exactly as strange as it sounds.

TMDb rating2.8

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like comedy that goes so far into grotesque, deadpan absurdity that it becomes a kind of hypnotic endurance test, the sort of film where a sticky, ridiculous awkwardness is the whole point.

Skip it if you need jokes to land on a schedule or want a horror film that plays its scares straight, since the gore, bodily grossness and stilted dialogue can feel punishing rather than playful for long stretches.

What it asks of you: Ninety-odd minutes of patience with flat rhythms and repeated, unhurried bits; it rewards you for sitting still rather than leaning in for quick payoffs.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Eating Raoul1982

A suburban couple discovers murder as a solution to financial problems in this twisted dark comedy. Outrageously inventive, mordant, and weirdly endearing—cult cinema at its most confident and fun.

But The pacing is deliberately slack, and the humor sits in very specific grotesque territory that won't land for everyone.

Eating Raoul poster

Phantom of the Paradise1974

Brian De Palma's glorious rock opera about obsession, ambition, and revenge in a nightclub underworld. Visually stunning, funny, and genuinely moving—a one-of-a-kind experience that rewards every frame of attention.

But It's operatic to its core; if you're not ready to meet that register, it'll feel absurd rather than brilliant.

Phantom of the Paradise poster

Nightcrawler2014

Jake Gyllenhaal as a sociopathic freelance videographer hunting LA's night streets for crime footage. Electrifying thriller with pitch-black comedy, neon aesthetic, and a protagonist so magnetic you forget to hate him.

But It's bleak and airless—there's no moral comfort here, and it knows exactly what it's doing by denying it to you.

Nightcrawler poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Greasy Strangler

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Mulholland Drive2001

Both films are hallucinatory nightmares about obsessive men pursuing women through stylized, hostile urban landscapes where logic dissolves. Both treat their strangeness as absolute truth rather than twist.

Lynch's L.A. nightmare about actresses and delusion is formally perfect—a dream that rewrites itself and reveals its geometry only on rewatching. Devastating, gorgeous, one of the greatest films ever made.

But It's not a puzzle to solve; insisting on plot clarity will destroy it. You have to surrender to mood and image, and not everyone wants to.

Mulholland Drive poster
More like this (8)

After Hours1985

Martin Scorsese's wild comic nightmare follows a man through a single Manhattan night where everything goes wrong in increasingly surreal ways. Hysterically funny, visually gorgeous, and utterly unhinged in the best way.

But It's relentless and chaotic; some people find that exhausting rather than exhilarating.

After Hours poster

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 21986

Tobe Hooper's sequel leans hard into grotesque comedy and baroque horror, creating something that shouldn't work but absolutely does. Dennis Hopper is magnificent, and the film is genuinely unhinged.

But It's not a proper sequel to the original, and the tonal shift will feel jarring if you wanted more of that first film's naturalistic dread.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 poster

Cruising1980

William Friedkin's hallucinogenic thriller follows an undercover cop into NYC's leather bar underworld. Genuinely unsettling, formally brilliant, and fascinatingly perverse—cinema as provocative experience.

But It's obscure, deliberately obtuse, and the sexual content is graphic and uncomfortable in ways that feel unsafe rather than transgressive to many viewers.

Cruising poster

Videodrome1983

David Cronenberg's body-horror masterpiece about a sleazy TV executive descending into hallucinatory madness. Visually grotesque, intellectually sharp, and genuinely disturbing—existential horror from a master.

But It's deliberately hard to parse, and the visceral special effects are designed to repel rather than entertain.

Videodrome poster

Enter the Void2010

Gaspar Noé's hypnotic first-person descent through Tokyo's neon underbelly and then the afterlife. Visually extraordinary and genuinely meditative despite its transgressive content.

But It's a two-hour visual essay with minimal dialogue; the plot barely exists and the sensory assault gets old long before it ends.

Enter the Void poster

Men in Black1997

Alex Garland's slow-burn folk horror about a woman alone in the English countryside stalked by men who feel all connected somehow. Atmospheric, genuinely creepy, and formally inventive in ways that reveal themselves slowly.

But The allegory can feel sledgehammer-blunt, and the pacing will test patience in viewers craving clearer narrative momentum.

Men in Black poster

Combat Girls2011

Both feature grotesque male archetypes (Nazis, the Greasy Strangler) treated with surreal dark humor rather than moral judgment. Both find comedy in extreme body horror and pathology. Both refuse conventional audience guidance.

A German neo-Nazi girl is deprogrammed in a treatment facility run by former skinheads. It's unflinching, darkly funny, morally complex, and formally strange—a comedy-thriller about radicalization that feels completely original.

But The tonal shifts are jarring and the violence is sudden; it can feel like watching a film that doesn't know what it is, because it deliberately doesn't.

Combat Girls poster

Possession1981

Both are fever dreams about bodies in states of degradation and humiliation. Both treat disgusting physicality as a core language rather than a shocking punctuation. Both are made by filmmakers committed to discomfort as an artistic principle.

Andrzej Żuławski's hallucinogenic breakdown film about a divorcing couple's psychological warfare spiraling into cosmic horror. Isabelle Adjani gives one of cinema's most unhinged performances. Genuinely destabilizing and unforgettable.

But It's exhausting—deliberately paced to exhaust you, with screaming and sexual grotesquerie used as pure emotional language. It feels longer than its 124 minutes.

Possession poster

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