Recommend me some surreal mind screwing film/novels/anime ect.

EVOL

So guys, I'm in the mood for some mindfuckery that will, well, fuck with my mind for a few days. Here's some examples that I've watched/read/played that I feel is what I want more of:

Serial Experiments Lain
Killer7
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Gravity's Rainbow
Eraserhead

I was a bit apprehensive of including the last two, since Gravity's Rainbow was a bit hard to read through in more ways than one, and Eraserhead had the side-effect of not only fucking with my mind, but also fucking with my bowel control. Still, the list should give you the idea. Can anybody recommend me some good stuff?

Mike Danger

I really liked Mulholland Drive, which is another David Lynch flick.

Lachrymite

Primer is a very low budget but amazing film that is the best time travel story I've ever watched. It gets very, very confusing to follow, and it's really tough to truly understand what's going on without a few viewings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_(film)

Descendant X

Go read The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks.

Mulletude

Mike Danger wrote:

I really liked Mulholland Drive, which is another David Lynch flick.

This. Or maybe even Lost Highway (another by Lynch).

Demerdar

Memento will throw you for a loop.

Donovan Puppyfucker

H.

P.

Lovecraft.

Donovan Puppyfucker

Or, you know, just trying to understand the plot of any Final Fantasy game from VII onwards.

Officer 1BDI

Ghost Trick has a ridiculous amount of twists embedded into it. It's a simple enough puzzle game, but the ending was a series of "WTF?!" revelations (at least for me).

UrQuanLord88

Puella Magi Madoka Magica? idk

lol Inception

Esh

Jacob's Ladder and Angelheart are two of my favorites in that genre.

Elin

Perfect Blue. Described as "If Hitchcock teamed up with Disney for a film." Same guy that did Millennium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers, also great movies.

Xagarath

David Lynch's work is really hard to top in the field, but for the strangest things you'll ever see? Go look up the films of Jodorowsky.
Start with Santa Sangre - it's much easier to get into than, say, El Topo

BlindZenDriver

Being John Malkovich

Also +1 to Memento

Gigazombie Cybermage

Paranoia Agent, it quickly became a favorite anime of mine.
The Akira movie.
Into the Mouth of Madness, the best Lovecraftian movie that isn't technically a Lovecraftian movie.
Jacob's Ladder.
The Colour Out of Space by H. P. Lovecraft
The Haunter in the Dark, H. P. Lovecraft
Basically a lot of H. P. Lovecraft short stories, though I suppose it veers off into straight cosmic horror instead of surrealism.

I highly recomment Paranoia Agent though.


Man, Satoshi Kon was taken away from all of us way too fucking soon.

Ego

waking life isn't bad.

zepherin

Oh wow I've seen so many of the movies and anime listed here. Love craft is always a good choice. In the mouth of madness and Jacobs Ladder also good choices, and so is Black Swan which hasn't been mentioned.

However for fucked up surreal movies I would go with Suicide Club, but be aware this movie is pretty twisted.

Demerdar

I would also suggest reading A Scanner Darkly.

rocketshipready

Demerdar wrote:

I would also suggest reading A Scanner Darkly.

I'd switch that with VALIS if we're going for all-out crazy, but you really can't go wrong with any PKD novel

Nylonathetep

Battle Royle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Royale

Donnie Darko

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donnie_Darko

Pi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_(film)

Landwehr

I suggest Videodrome. It is a very creepy and intelligent surreal science fiction directed by David Cronenberg.

GR_Zombie

House of Leaves is a pretty surreal novel about a house that's bigger on the inside. It's incredibly polarizing though, just as a warning.

Zeguna

Mindgame
Akira
Perfect Blue
Paprika

zepherin

GR_Zombie wrote:

House of Leaves is a pretty surreal novel about a house that's bigger on the inside. It's incredibly polarizing though, just as a warning.

after reading about that, I am intrigued. I may have to give it a whirl on my next plane ride.

Fantasma

I watched the Japanese anime series Code Geass ( Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, or Giasu: Hangyaku no Rurūshu ), it is a quite bloody and crazy. Avoid the edited version, it consists of a total of 23+24 episodes.

Cherry

"All You Zombies" by Robert A. Heinlein. It's considered a Sci Fi novella. Also about time travel. If you haven't read it do so. Some weird stuff.

http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Robert-A.-Heinlein-All-You-Zombies.pdf

DrAllecon

Excellent choices already listed. I'll just toss my 2 cents in for "Brazil" if you haven't seen it yet. Maybe "John Dies at the End" for a book that hasn't been listed yet.

zepherin

DrAllecon wrote:

Excellent choices already listed. I'll just toss my 2 cents in for "Brazil" if you haven't seen it yet. Maybe "John Dies at the End" for a book that hasn't been listed yet.

Brazil qualifies as a surreal mind screwing movie, but I didn't like it at all. Of course then again, I might not have liked it because it was a bit too bizarre.

Naked Lunch (film). I think it's even more unusual, and surreal.

Riale

They've been mentioned before, but I'll give another vote to Perfect Blue/Paprika.

Shadowfire

I'll throw House of Leaves in there because it does fuck with your head a little...

Klein

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick.

Great movie, great book, worth looking into.

Iruka

Mind Game is a completely surreal and ridiculous anime, and The Tatami Galaxy from what i've seen has some interesting parts. The animatrix is also pretty fun, if you've never seen it.

Mind Game, though. You get crazy as shit animation, like this
(totally NSFW and might give you a seizure)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7ktmD1pgE4&feature=related

Im more of an animation consumer than a mindfuck seeker, so these might be slightly off the mood as they are less kill-y bloody scary and more "what the fuck am I even seeing right now" but I thought i'd throw them out there.

UrQuanLord88

For some shorts, watch some
https://www.youtube.com/user/cyriak
https://www.youtube.com/user/grickle

-SPI-

Tetsuo the Iron Man
The Fantastic Planet

dispatch.o

Pretty much anything by Hunter S. Thompson. Gonzo journalism is pretty awesome in general for things that really make you ponder.

The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved by Hunter S. Thompson

Nappuccino

rocketshipready wrote:

Demerdar wrote:

I would also suggest reading A Scanner Darkly.

I'd switch that with VALIS if we're going for all-out crazy, but you really can't go wrong with any PKD novel

I love PKD, but found VALIS hard to get into. For first timers I think Flow My Tears the Policeman Said and A Scanner Darkly are great starting points.

for some other weird stuff, Maybe check out Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs. Fair warning, it is disturbing and fucked up but... it is also surreal, bizarre and darkly entertaining.

Local H Jay

The Cube
Four Rooms
After.Life
Live Freaky! Die Freaky!

Xagarath

Oh, also the Czech puppet version of Alice in Wonderland, directed by Svankmejer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd03-wm6DDM

y2jake215

Seconds, the Frankenheimer movie

milath

Gigazombie Cybermage wrote:

Paranoia Agent, it quickly became a favorite anime of mine.
The Akira movie.
Into the Mouth of Madness, the best Lovecraftian movie that isn't technically a Lovecraftian movie.
Jacob's Ladder.
The Colour Out of Space by H. P. Lovecraft
The Haunter in the Dark, H. P. Lovecraft
Basically a lot of H. P. Lovecraft short stories, though I suppose it veers off into straight cosmic horror instead of surrealism.

I highly recomment Paranoia Agent though.

Man, Satoshi Kon was taken away from all of us way too fucking soon.

I'll second Paranoia Agent. It's one of the few anime I can watch multiple times and enjoy.

As for others...

I won't call this a 'good' movie by any stretch, but From Beyond is an 80s horror flick, based on a Lovecraft short story. It's not particularly scary, but it's definitely odd.

Also, Soderbergh's Schizopolis.
Declarative sentence of generic praise. Nose army. Beef diaper? (<--- actual quotes from the movie. Yeah... it's... it's very weird.)

Not sure if either of those fall into the correct category, but most of the good ones that I know of have already been mentioned.

Edit: OH.. thought of another good one. Triangle. Excellent mind-bending.

EVOL

Thanks, guys. Lots and lotsa good looking stuff here. I'm seriously terrified of watching some of the stuff you guys recommended, but I'll be sure to watch them all. I guess I should have said that I'm a really huge wuss lol. Keep the recommendations rolling in, please.