The Most Watchable Cult Classic Mindfuck Movies

Obscure movies that will blow your mind and don’t suck

The idea for this list seemed so simple. Cult classic mindfuck movies that aren’t terrible. This wound up being the most difficult list I’ve ever compiled.

What exactly is a cult classic? Its definition can vary from anything weird or outside the norm to a movie that has a literal cult following. Which only a handful of movies do. I’m defining cult classics as small budget, limited release movies playing on less than 600 screens opening weekend.

What’s a mindfuck? A mindfuck movie is one where you’re not quite sure what’s going on till the end. Maybe after the end you’re still not sure. Great example of a mindfuck is Netflix’s series Black Mirror. There’s at least one mind-blowing occurrence each episode.

Film makers producing a cult classic mindfuck should also make something people want to watch and enjoy. When I thought of mindfuck cult classics I thought of movies like Holy Mountain and 200 Rooms. I don’t want to watch either of those movies again. Nor recommend them. They’re unwatchable.

Again, every one of these films has elements that aren’t typical of mindfuck movies so you can debate if they belong on my list in the comments.

The Bad Batch

If you like dystopian stories with hot amputee women and Jason Momoa riding a Honda scooter through the desert like a shirtless King Bowser from Mario Kart, then have I got the movie for you.

You’ll need to have the stomach to make it through the first 10 minutes. The protagonist is captured and gets half her limbs chopped off. Then the dismembered limbs are eaten by her cannibal captors. I had to turn away.

The Bad Batch refers to people exiled inside the desert prison. Cannibals, scavengers, and drifters provide fun ways to die. The normal people like Stumpy Hopalong wind up in a Fallout-esq outpost city called Comfort, which is run by Keanu Reaves playing a horny Timothy Leary with a harem of pregnant women.

I don’t want to give away too much as this movie was full of surprises. There’s not a lot of talking but it works. It’s different.

Donnie Darko

On Halloween in 2001 the US was still reeling from the 9/11 attacks. My friend Keith and I went to West Hollywood to see a scary movie. We were one of few to see the original cinematic version of Donnie Darko.

***SPOILER ALERT BUT NOT REALLY***

At the end of DD, Donnie dies when a plane engine lands on top of him. However in the theatrical release probably due to 9/11 being so fresh it was left ambiguous.

Everything was ambiguous in the theater version. The end of the movie made even less sense. He was just dead. The DVD release had the footage re-added. The original cut is available on the Blu-Ray edition.

Bad Boy Bubby

Just a story about a man who has sex with his mother, who convinced Bubby that he’ll die if he leaves the apartment as the air outside is poison. His father comes home for the first time in 20 years and Bubby kills him.

His Mom gets mad so Bubby kills her too. And then he goes outside and begins Bubbies Big Adventure in Australia. He has sex with people who aren’t his mom and gets drunk and starts singing in a band.

It’s nuts, it’s great, and it’s very Australian. It’s one of those movies you’ll never forget. More of a mind blower than a mind fuck, but worth a watch.

Halloween 3: Season of The Witch

I have a friend who’s not a movie guy at all who insisted that I watch Haloween III. Horror isn’t my thing but since it was the first and only movie he’d ever recommended I checked it out.

Halloween III has nothing to do with the first two. The story goes that when the producers (John Carpenter and Debra Hill) agreed to make the movie, the stipulation was there was no Michael Myers. They felt the original story had run its course.

Advertising for the Haloween III didn’t relay that to audiences. People expected a slasher film but this is more like a Black Mirror episode. As a result, it bombed.

If you go into the movie forgetting the franchise, it’s great. The masks and the mystery behind the company producing something as innocuous as Halloween masks is interesting. More cult classic than mindfuck, though it is a mindfuck.

Lost Highway

I will now attempt one of the most difficult things possible. Explaining Lost Highway.

Think of Lost Highway not as having a beginning and an end but as a mobius strip. Infinitely looping where the end is the beginning and the beginning is the end.

It invokes strong questions of self. What determines if you are you? Can someone wake up as completely different person and what would be the ramifications?

The Mystery Man knows. He is the supernatural element. He’s able to be in two places at once. Why does he help Dick Laurent only to betray him later? The Mystery Man represents things Fred doesn’t understand and doesn’t want to.

Given all the tapes, you think Bill Pullman’s character Fred Madison might have cared that someone was in his house answering his phone. Instead he thinks it’s a neat trick. Fred and the Mystery Man are one and the same.

He rots in jail the whole second half of the movie. Fred Madison turning into Pete Dayton was his way of justifying what he did to his wife. Pete Dayton was everything Fred felt inadequate about. It was his fantasy.

Being John Malkovich

Of all the people whose head you might invade, why John Malkovich? Originally the movie was to be produced by Propaganda, but director Spike Jonze pulled out when the studio head asked, “Why the fuck can’t it be Being Tom Cruise?”

John Malkovich asked the same question originally. John Malkovich’s previously had co-starred in Con Air and In The Line of Fire and a dozen other movies. He’s a great example of someone you’ll see at a Starbucks in Hollywood that you know was in something but not sure what.

The plot is simple. John Cusack’s character finds a small hidden door at work. Entering the space allows him control of the actor John Malkovich for 15 minutes. Afterwards, he’s ejected beside the New Jersey turnpike.

Cusack hatches a scheme to sell admission to Malkovich. Eventually Malkovich attempts to occupy himself to bizarre results.

Spike Jonze saw something in Malkovich that others missed. He was robbed of the academy award that year. It’s an absolute acting clinic with Malkovich nailing the mannerisms of the other characters.

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Those are my pics for cult classics mindfuck movies that don’t suck. Thanks for coming by and leave a comment if so inclined. Good night.