Sicko Mode: Weird Weekend returns to Glasgow
Weird Weekend, Matchbox Cine's celebration of strange and wonderful cinema, is back – we take a look at the 2024 programme
OK, sickos! This is the festival for you. A celebration of cinema’s 'outcasts, orphans and outliers', Weird Weekend has become a regular fixture on the Scottish film scene. Its monthly cult film screenings at OFFLINE in Glasgow have brought some wonderfully strange and obscure titles to this Southside cinema over the past year, and their first weekend festival at their new home looks to be a doozy.
There’s a pleasing playfulness to the programming, with some fun being had exploring the relationship between the films and the audience. Take the opening event Make Good Choices: An Evening of Interactive Cinema, hosted by Glasgow-based self-proclaimed drag abomination Puke. “We'll be joining the audience to make our way collectively through several 'choose your own adventure' films,” explains Weird Weekend programmer Sean Welsh. “I say several, because it's quite possible we'll make some bum choices and end each film prematurely.” There’s a similarly interactive ending to the festival titled Overchoice: The 5-to-1 Game, in which the audience is shown the first five minutes of five gonzo movies, then invited to pick which one they’d like to watch in full.
Weird isn’t the only criteria a film needs to appear in the lineup. Being extremely rarely seen is another requirement. “We've purposely focused on a programme of films or versions of films that can't be seen otherwise,” says Welsh. One highlight looks to be Scott King’s Treasure Island, which won the Sundance Jury Award in 1999. It’s much spikier than your typical Sundance darling, however – probably why it disappeared without a trace. It follows two counterspies (one played by a baby-faced Nick Offerman) in 40s San Francisco, and is reportedly spilling over with dream logic, film references and much psychosexual shenanigans. Offerman recently described Treasure Island as an "ambitiously strange film that I’m still staunchly proud of." King will be in Glasgow for the screening to take part in a Q&A.
The most 'Weird Weekend' sounding film in the lineup is Rufus Butler's 1984 film Screamplay – it stars DIY cinema legend George Kuchar and was put out by Troma Entertainment. Welsh calls it “an ingenious monochrome DIY masterpiece hiding in plain sight.” Other highlights look to be Andrew Horn’s 1987 noir The Big Blue; cult musical Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers from 1972, starring Warhol superstar Holly Woodlawn with a supporting cast that includes Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin; and Robinson Devor’s The Woman Chaser, which features Patrick Warburton (aka Elaine’s boyfriend David Puddy from Seinfeld in his only lead movie role) as a car salesman turned Hollywood auteur.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Weird Weekend is its No-Film Programme, a sidebar exploring films that can't be screened for various reasons. It features an exhibition of marketing material for planned films that never got to production, co-curated with Screen Slate's Jon Dieringer, and a looping shorts programme, which includes two new video essays from Glasgow-based Canadian filmmaker Daniel Cockburn. One explores Goncharov, the 1973 mafia film imagined up for a lark by a community of Tumblr users, and Batgirl, the Glasgow-shot superhero movie that became a tax write-off.
Film festivals can often be too in thrall to shiny new world premieres. How exciting to see one that delves into the dusty vaults of cinema history, finding weirdo movies we didn’t even know existed and giving them a second chance to find an audience.
Weird Weekend, 25-27 Oct, OFFLINE, Glasgow
Full programme at makeitweird.co.uk