Incredibly Strange Video

It's one of the strangest films ever made, a delirious slice of incomprehensible Christmas cinema. In the beginning of the episode a new motto is proposed: "The podcast that tests the theory, there is no such thing as a bad movie." That sentiment is immediately put through the ringer as we analyze Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny.

Shot at the now defunct Pirates World amusement park in Dania, Florida, this film tells the tale of Santa Claus stuck in the sand, crash-landed on the beach with no reindeer around to help him out. Using telepathy, Santa summons some neighborhood children, as well as Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, who proceed to produce barnyard animals mysteriously on the beach to pull Santa's sleigh. When this doesn't work, Santa takes an unexpected detour: he sits them all down and tells them the story of Thumbelina, at which point an entire second feature film begins to play inside of this film. Finally, when that film concludes (yes, the entire film), the Ice Cream Bunny arrives on a firetruck and drives Santa off into the sunset.

What does it all mean? Well, it's easy to write this one off as just incoherent and "bad", but that's boring. So we're picking this one apart from every possible angle. Ryan connects the film to Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad and Chantal Akerman's Hotel Monterey and identifies shared narrative and visual techniques that could help unlock the deeper meaning in Santa's plight. Is it possible that Thumbelia and, by extension, Santa's rescue by the Ice Cream Bunny stands as a metaphor for Marxism winning out over classic yellow socialism in pre-WWI France? The ISV crew thinks so, but there's more to it than that. Cassie takes a critical eye to Santa's complaint that the beach is so hot and uses that plot point to identify the moment in the film when Santa experiences ego death.

And furthermore, no discussion of Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny is complete without a historical review of Pirates World's bizarre history, including how the amusement park and this film tie into the Grateful Dead song "Truckin'".

Turns out this thing isn't bad at all. Turns out it's a surprising deconstruction of narrative cinema and - if you allow it - a vehicle for exploring your subconscious via its Lynchian dream state. It's a film unlike any other and perhaps one of the finest and richest Christmas films ever made. Let's dive in!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny
Directed by Richard Winer
1972, United States

Additional Music:
"Christmas Spirit" by Silverman Sound Studios
Creative Commons (BY 4.0) license
Music powered by BreakingCopyright

Incredibly Strange Video is produced and edited by Ryan Quinn and Cassie Kay. Follow us on Bluesky @isvpodcast.bsky.social for updates on the newest episodes!

Theme music:
The End by EVA
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0

All excerpts from the films discussed are used for educational and critical purposes only.

No generative AI is used in the production of this show. Keep the world human.

Did John Hughes and Christopher Columbus rip off this film when they made Home Alone? That's the million dollar question we seek to answer on this episode!

Because one year before Home Alone, France released its own home invasion Christmas film, complete with a boy genius fending off the intruder with makeshift traps and gadgets. Director René Manzor is absolutely convinced that Home Alone's filmmakers got the idea for their holiday hit after his film screened at Cannes in 1989...but we're not so sure. We're breaking down our reasoning over the course of our study of this incredibly fun and - until recently - nearly lost holiday horror flick.

Thanks to Shudder, Dial Code Santa Claus has been given new life and a new audience! It's streaming exclusively on Shudder, and if you're building a list of darker Christmas films to enjoy over the holidays, this one is a must-see. It's part of our current series of Incredibly Strange Christmas Films here on Incredibly Strange Video, and we've got a full house here to analyze it, including cinematographer Ryan Kroboth and, for the first time ever on ISV, his wife Connie Chen!

Will young Thomas defeat the sinister Père Noël? Will Papy awaken from his diabetic coma? And what does it all have to say about the loss of childhood innocence? Find out by pressing play now!

Dial Code Santa Claus
Directed by René Manzor
1989, France

Additional Music:
"Christmas Spirit" by Silverman Sound Studios
Creative Commons (BY 4.0) license
Music powered by BreakingCopyright

Incredibly Strange Video is produced and edited by Ryan Quinn and Cassie Kay. Follow us on Bluesky @isvpodcast.bsky.social for updates on the newest episodes!

Theme music:
The End by EVA
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0

All excerpts from the films discussed are used for educational and critical purposes only.

No generative AI is used in the production of this show. Keep the world human.

O' come let us adore...the original slasher! And right now you can adore it on the big screen! Black Christmas is returning to theaters for its 50th Anniversary from December 7-22 in a wonderful new 4K restoration.

So as a primer for its return to theaters, we're here to celebrate the season by celebrating the film that started it all, the film woefully overshadowed by Halloween as the slasher progenitor. And that said, we're examining it with a very specific restriction: we won't be comparing it to Halloween at all. Because there's a thousand articles that already do that, and we feel it's a bit of disservice to Black Christmas to only look at it with respect to a completely different film. We're here to talk Black Christmas and Black Christmas only.

Because it's one of the best of the best. Maybe THE best slasher ever produced. It's genuinely scary, innovatively shot, and very feminist for a horror film produced in 1974. With a cast of unforgettable characters and chilling screenplay, Black Christmas is an essential film for any horror fan, not just because of its iconic status as an innovator, but simply because it's a masterfully crafted suspense film, period.

We also talk about the final girl trope (since this film, of course, has the first ever slasher final girl, Olivia Hussey's perfectly realized Jess) and whether or not the trope even really exists, plus we take a look at the Christmas-horror genre itself and try to figure out why there's so many of these movies! In the cheeriest time of the year, why do we still crave the grotesque?

As we mentioned in the episode, here's a list of all the places you can catch the film this month:

-Olympia Film Society in Olympia, WA
-Grand Illusion Cinema in Seattle, WA
-New Beverly Cinema and Vista Theater in Los Angeles, CA
-Brattle Theater in Boston, MA
-Rivoli Theatre in La Cross, WI
-AFS Cinema in Austin, TX
-Denver Film in Denver, CO
-Rubber Glove Studio in Denton, TX
-Cinema Moderne in Montreal, Quebec
-Hollywood Theatre in Portland, OR
-Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA
-Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, MA
-Metro Cinema in Edmonton, Alberta

Black Christmas
Directed by Bob Clark
1974, Canada

Additional Music:
"Christmas Spirit" by Silverman Sound Studios
Creative Commons (BY 4.0) license
Music powered by BreakingCopyright

Incredibly Strange Video is produced and edited by Ryan Quinn and Cassie Kay. Follow us on Bluesky @isvpodcast.bsky.social for updates on the newest episodes!

Theme music:
The End by EVA
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0

All excerpts from the films discussed are used for educational and critical purposes only.

No generative AI is used in the production of this show. Keep the world human.

Join us as Ryan presents one of his favorite movies of all time, Deep Rising! This movie holds a very special place in his heart, and he'll explain why on this first-ever 4-person episode!

We're joined by regular guest, cinematographer Ryan Kroboth, who walks us through the challenges of shooting an action film almost entirely around and underwater! And we're super excited to welcome new guest, director Brad Grimm! Brad has tons of industry experience, and lends his expertise to conversations about how difficult this movie would be to pitch and finance today, as well as how technically challenging the most infamous gross-out gore shot in this film truly was (it took ten painstaking weeks to finish just three shots!)

Deep Rising is a rare throwback to a brief period in the 90's when action/horror hybrids were getting pretty handsome budgets to play with. Deep Rising, unfortunately, bombed - it had stiff competition from another cruise-in-peril film named, uh, Titanic. But we're here to tell you this one is more than worth a revisit, as it's an incredibly fun ride from an up and coming director would soon deliver a smash hit with The Mummy.

Treat Williams and Famke Janssen battling a Kraken with Duke Nukem guns and like 1000 gallons of gore? C'mon, you know this movie is amazing...

Deep Rising
Directed by Stephen Sommers
1998, USA

Incredibly Strange Video is produced and edited by Ryan Quinn and Cassie Kay. Follow us on Bluesky @isvpodcast.bsky.social for updates on the newest episodes!

Theme music:
The End by EVA
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0

All excerpts from the films discussed are used for educational and critical purposes only.

No generative AI is used in the production of this show. Keep the world human.

"Is this giallo, or is this porn?" That's the critical question we seek to answer by the end of this new episode about a late-80's scissor-killing sleazefest!

Arabella is a nymphomaniac. Which is going just fine for her until every single guy she sleeps with starts to wind up dead, mutilated by a pair of scissors. All of this is captured in cinematography typical of the giallo genre, which is to say nearly every gorgeous shot could be framed a hung in a gallery. But in this one's case, a real kinky gallery for someone who might want to really analyze the lighting in locations like "the sex dungeon" and "The Freaky Boy's Town".

Which, of course, is precisely what we do! Ryan aims his analytical sights on the literary context of the film, likening its paradoxical plot to the Slothropian logic presented in Gravity's Rainbow, Cassie raises the question of whether or not the scissors themselves might be symbolic (they are!), and special guest, cinematographer Ryan Kroboth, takes us through the dazzling camerawork on display, in a film that thrives on dolly moves, zoom lenses, and enormous lights. And we'll even break down what giallo is for the uninitiated!

This is a film that's actually difficult to pick out more than a handful of scenes that don't contain either 1. Murder or 2. Full frontal nudity, so trust us, you're in for a wild and wacky time with this one. About 50 minutes in we make the stunning realization that, "We didn't even talk about the flaming penis yet!" So, yeah.

Stream it on Shudder or Tubi first if you want to avoid spoilers!

Arabella Black Angel
Directed by Stelvio Massi
Italy, 1989

Incredibly Strange Video is produced and edited by Ryan Quinn and Cassie Kay. Follow us on Bluesky @isvpodcast.bsky.social for updates on the newest episodes!

Theme music:
The End by EVA
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0

All excerpts from the films discussed are used for educational and critical purposes only.

No generative AI is used in the production of this show. Keep the world human.

Famously torpedoed as one of the worst films of all time, we're here to tell you...we kind of liked it! Consider this a redemption episode, as we submit ourselves to a film that critics have called "a film of monumental dreadfulness" as well as "excruciatingly, painfully, horribly, terribly awful" and come out the other side the better for it, with lots of soul searching to do, asking a wealth of questions about feminism, body image, mental health, maternal abuse, and farts.

Ryan's mantra throughout this show so far has been that "there are no bad movies, only bad audiences", implying that it's often necessary to adjust your expectations and open yourself up to new and unusual ideas to appreciate films that are wrongfully labeled "bad". That idea is truly put to the test with The Hottie & The Nottie, but alongside our special guests - visiting friends Evan and Rachel from San Francisco - we find a lot to love about this film. Not to mention Cassie makes a startling discovery that flips the entire narrative on its head and warrants a complete re-analysis of the film as a psychological horror.

If this film had been released under the Troma flag it would have surely found its people. Its only mistake was presenting itself as a mainstream comedy. But if you're willing to let this movie get really, really weird with you, through our exploration on this episode, hey, you just might change your tune on it, too!

The Hottie & The Nottie
Directed by Tom Putnam
2008, United States

Incredibly Strange Video is produced and edited by Ryan Quinn and Cassie Kay. Follow us on Bluesky @isvpodcast.bsky.social for updates on the newest episodes!

Theme music:
The End by EVA
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0

All excerpts from the films discussed are used for educational and critical purposes only.

No generative AI is used in the production of this show. Keep the world human.

During a solar eclipse that obscures Saturn, three children are born, cursed without empathy, fated to be murderous psychopaths when their tenth birthdays arrive! This very early slasher swaps out monstrous masked killers with the villains you'd least suspect - three cute little kids with a craving for carnage.

Listen, this movie is absolutely insane and we're taking it on from all angles, from the emotional aspect of having to root against children (and just how effectively CREEPY those kids are), to placing it in a literary context by comparing its imagery to The Illiad and Dante's Divine Comedy. We also focus in on the core color-coded imagery signifying characters trapped by their fates, while chatting about our own personal views on fate (and also ghosts and aliens).

We also introduce a new segment called The Horror Is the Decor, in which we focus in on the hideous design choices of the 70's and 80's homes featured in so many of these classic films.

Finally, in the most rousing Thoughts From Letterboxd segment yet, we go deep down the rabbit hole to unravel the mystery of a rock song that plays during a strip tease sequence in this film. The big question: Just what is that song and who recorded it?

It's a good one! So let's go!

Bloody Birthday
Directed by Ed Hunt
1981, United States

Incredibly Strange Video is produced and edited by Ryan Quinn and Cassie Kay. Follow us on Bluesky @isvpodcast.bsky.social for updates on the newest episodes!

Theme music:
The End by EVA
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0

All excerpts from the films discussed are used for educational and critical purposes only.

No generative AI is used in the production of this show. Keep the world human.

You've likely seen slashers in many different settings, but have you ever seen one in the snowy wilderness of northern Wisconsin? Featuring multiple snowmobile action sequences? Well, if not, then boy are you in for a treat! Because The Chill Factor is an incredibly unique piece of regional horror that's a ton of fun to watch and dissect!

We'll fill you in on what regional horror even is (as it's...a whole thing) and then jump into a contentious analysis of the film's final minutes, which ends up necessitating a live rewatch and shot-by-shot breakdown to decipher what it all might mean. (Hint: it's probably all about incest and it's probably super gross.)

Plus, did we mention snowmobile action sequences?

The Chill Factor
Directed by Christopher Webster
1993, USA

Incredibly Strange Video is produced and edited by Ryan Quinn and Cassie Kay. Follow us on Bluesky @isvpodcast.bsky.social for updates on the newest episodes!

Theme music:
The End by EVA
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0

All excerpts from the films discussed are used for educational and critical purposes only.

No generative AI is used in the production of this show. Keep the world human.

On this episode we're trying our best to stomach a film that frequently appears on lists of the most disgusting films ever made! What happens in this movie that made Cassie leave the room at one point? Start streaming our discussion to find out!

Once again we're back at it with cinematographer Ryan Kroboth to analyze the visuals of this film - beyond just the incredibly, ridiculously graphic body mutilation and gore. Because Mermaid In a Manhole is a film with a surprising amount of important things to say about humanity and suffering and tackles those issues in a way that we can guarantee you've never seen them filmed before. It's a singularly unique cinematic vision with a lot to chew on...if you can push through it. No easy task!

This film is part of the notorious Guinea Pig video series from the 1980's, which Charlie Sheen infamously reported to the FBI, thinking they were real. There's probably no chance anyone would think this particular entry is real, but the emotions it speaks to are very real, and we invite you to reconsider this one beyond just its surface gorefest reputation and take it in as a thoughtful meditation on human nature.

Mermaid In a Manhole
Directed by Hideshi Hino
1988, Japan

Incredibly Strange Video is produced and edited by Ryan Quinn and Cassie Kay. Follow us on Bluesky @isvpodcast.bsky.social for updates on the newest episodes!

Theme music:
The End by EVA
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0

All excerpts from the films discussed are used for educational and critical purposes only.

No generative AI is used in the production of this show. Keep the world human.

It's Halloween week so there's no better time to enjoy a "slashic" - and in our opinion, the more obscure the better! And this one certainly is! Criminally underseen when it was first released and only recently resurrected by Arrow Video, this forgotten gem features a surprisingly loveable cast of characters and one of the creepiest killers in slasher history!

We're picking this one apart from every angle. We propose a theory using Jungian psychology to better understand the symbolic meaning of the killer bear mascot, discuss how the radio DJ provides a clever (and banging) soundtrack of diagetic music that ties all the film's many spaces together, and of course fawn over the absolutely genius reveal at the end. (Don't worry, no spoilers!)

Before Freddy Fazbear, before Cocaine Bear, before the bear that ate Leo in The Revenant, there was BENSON, the killer bear with deadly claws that pre-date Freddie Kreuger's! Ryan likens this one to Dazed and Confused...but with a murder bear. So if that presses the right buttons for you, give this one a watch and dive in with us!

Girls Nite Out
Directed by Robert Deubel
1982, USA

Incredibly Strange Video is produced and edited by Ryan Quinn and Cassie Kay. Follow us on Bluesky @isvpodcast.bsky.social for updates on the newest episodes!

Theme music:
The End by EVA
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0

All excerpts from the films discussed are used for educational and critical purposes only.

No generative AI is used in the production of this show. Keep the world human.