Starting the third week of June, I’ll be taking on the Something Weird challenge.

Created by Klon on Letterboxd, here’s the info:

WEEK 1: Joe Sarno week (June 16 – 22)
WEEK 2: Uschi Digard week (June 23 – 29)
WEEK 3: Roadshow Rarities (June 30 – July 6)
WEEK 4: Bleeding Skull’s Top 50 (July 7 – 13)
WEEK 5: Herschell Gordon Lewis week (July 14 – 20)
WEEK 6: Doris Wishman week (July 21 – 27)
WEEK 7: Golden Oldies Week (July 27 – August 3)
WEEK 8: Softcore Smorgasbord (August 4 – 10)
WEEK 9: Rene Bond week (August 11 – 17)
WEEK 10: Findlay Week (August 18 – 24)
WEEK 11: Johnny Legend’s Untamed Video (August 25 – 31)
WEEK 12: Frank Henenlotter’s Sexy Shockers (September 1 – 7)
WEEK 13: Dragon Art Theatre Week (September 8 – 14)
WEEK 14: 69 EsSINtial SWV Titles (September 15 – 21)
WEEK 15: BONUS WILDCARD WEEK (September 22 – 28)

Founded in 1990 by Seattle punk show promoter Mike Vraney, Something Weird Video is an ever changing distributor and champion of bizarre cinema from the 20th Century. Most of the titles they’ve handled are a gumbo of contradictory tones that mix the horrific, childish and sexy all at once. After Vraney’s passing in 2014, the artist Lisa Petrucci (Vraney’s widow) took over and has moved the label in new directions by partnering with companies like Severin and Kino for physical releases and entering theatrical distribution with the American Genre Film Archive, you can even stream some of the titles they’ve released on platforms like Night Flight Plus, Arrow, Shudder, Amazon Prime and Tubi. Hell, they’ve even reached chi-chi sites like Criterion, Metrograph and Mubi. At the beginning of 2024 Petrucci announced that the company’s website and mail order wing would be shutting down at the end of the year. This isn’t the end of SWV as they’ll continue to license titles through their partners and it certainly isn’t the end of the line for many of these films, but it will leave many of their titles homeless for better or for worse. Where will you be able to get Sin in the Suburbs, Confessions of a Psycho Cat, The Big Snatch or Love Goddesses of Blood Island??? I’m sure many of these will get a deluxe blu-ray sooner or later, but don’t risk it when you can get them for $5.99 RIGHT NOW! Let’s all spend the summer as nature intended – nak at home watching nud camp movies! Each week highlights something that SWV is known for in one way or another, but hopefully there’ll be enough wiggle room with most of these topics that you won’t have trouble finding something good.

Joe Sarno week (June 16 – 22) Joe Sarno was called the Bergman of 42nd St, but don’t let that stop you from watching his movies! He was able to shape dramatic stories that were entertaining and of-the-moment while working with tight budgets and inexperienced performers but he never lost sight of why people were buying the tickets – HOT SEX!

Uschi Digard week (June 23 – 29) Digard is best known for her work with Russ Meyer but she became an SWV fan favorite for two gargantuan reasons, her charm and her prolific career. The Swiss actress fled to America in 1968 and began a long career filling the silver screen from corner to corner with her overflowing positive energy. Show the lady some respect and watch one of her movies.

Roadshow Rarities (June 30 – July 6) In the old days of theatrical releases some of the more lavish movies would be promoted by holding limited screenings in large cities. These roadshow releases would generate hype before the nationwide release and allow producers to tweak the film to the audience’s reaction. This model also worked for low budget productions that may have had no intention of a wide release. These explo roadshows traveled an informal circuit of theaters, churches, revival tents, high school auditoriums and anywhere else they could run a projector. They frequently promised more than they delivered and left town before the angry audience could catch up to them. Through the restoration efforts of SWV many of these movies have survived to piss audiences off to this very day!

Bleeding Skull’s Top 50 (July 7 – 13) The middle-brow champions of low-brow horror, Bleeding Skull has picked out some of their favorites from the SWV catalog. They neglected to put I Drink Your Blood or EEGAH! on the list, but I think I can forgive them since they included Ship of Monsters.

Herschell Gordon Lewis week (July 14 – 20) HG seemed to truly love packing theaters. He’s most famous for introducing gore to horror movies, but he’d fill any need that the audience had. He made every genre of exploitation — even kids movies! Gore movies would’ve happened eventually, but Herschell seemed to take joy in crafting gross-out shocks for unsuspecting cineasts. INTERESTING FACT! HG Lewis was a huge fan of Kentucky Fried Chicken and had them cater all of his productions. Col. Harland Sanders himself appeared in Lewis’ Blast Off Girls!

Doris Wishman week (July 21 – 27) Doris made the loopiest of movies. A self-proclaimed prude who made nudist camp movies, her filmography is filled with contradictions. When she tried to be mean spirited with something like Bad Girls Go To Hell there was always an undercurrent of silliness and fun, but when she tried to be silly and fun in things like Keyholes Are For Peeping there was an underlying seediness and grime that couldn’t be wiped off. It’s hard not to love her!

Golden Oldies Week (July 27 – August 3) Something Weird Video have released such a wide range of movies over the last 30 years that trying to categorize them can be tricky. They started out as a gray market mail order distributor (aka a bootlegger) not unlike the Cape Copy Center or Sinister Cinema and eventually moved into the niche se ploit titles that would set them apart. The movies on this list are the kind of cult genre titles that were the bread and butter of many of the bootleg companies of the 90s and most were not exclusive to SWV. If you look in the catalogs or on the website these would be under categories like “Nightmare Theatre’s Late Night Chill-O-Rama Horror Show,” “Jaws of the Jungle,” “Sci-fi Late Night Creature Feature Show,” or “Spies, Thighs & Private Eyes.” Many of these are currently available as downloads from the SWV site (until the end of 2024)!

Softcore Smorgasbord (August 4 – 10) All of the movies on this list have at one time or another been available through Something Weird Video. I’m sure I’ve missed some but many of them are still available on their website (until the end of 2024). These are their vintage softcore movies listed under categories with ridiculous names like: Nudie Cuties, Sexy Shockers, Sexo a-go-go, Twisted Sex, and Bucky Beaver’s Double Softies.

Rene Bond week (August 11 – 17) Rene Bond could brighten up even the most dreary productions, and she was in plenty of them. In the early adult scene she was one of the better actors, particularly when it came to comedy, though she could squeeze into some leather and throw the whips around when the role called for it. Bond appeared in somewhere near 100 films, thanks to her affable professionalism she worked with many filmmakers multiple times and regularly performed with her boyfriend Ric Lutze. Her career received an enhancement when she became one of the first stars to get a boobjob. She retired from film in the late-70s just as the porno chic era was dying down, but before the video era. You can find her in a ton of SWV titles, so take yer pick!

Findlay Week (August 18 – 24) Husband and wife Michael and Roberta Findlay made mean-spirited films. They collaborated on films like Take Me Naked, The Ultimate Degenerate, and the notorious Flesh Trilogy, plus they actually looked like criminals – walking mug shots! You expect to see them glowering on the cover of one of those tabloids next to a headline like “KIDNAPPER COUPLE COLLECTED VICTIMS FINGERS.” Instead they were pornographers which did make them like criminals in their day. A lot of the filmmakers of their era would claim they only made this kind of movie because there was money in it, but Michael and Roberta were sincere adherents. Even when audience tastes changed and the couple were divorced they continued to make their own films that mixed in elements of kink and cruelty.

Johnny Legend’s Untamed Video (August 25 – 31) Welcome to the wonderfully wacky world of Johnny Legend’s Untamed Video! Take a walk on the wild side with troublesome teenagers, sleazy sex kittens, way-out hippies, country bumpkins, big bad bikers, Mexican wrestlers, and every other variety of social deviant you can think of.

Frank Henenlotter’s Sexy Shockers (September 1 – 7) We all know Frank Hennenlotter as the director of the Basket Case films, Bad Biology, Brain Damage, and Frankenhooker, but he’s also a cinematic curator of the crass! An academic of the pathetic! A steward of sleaze! A sexton of the sexual and the Sexy Shocker series is his curio cabinet of crudity. Skin and sin are mixed together in these homegrown oddities, South American rediscoveries, and Eurohorror almost-classics. Your mind may recoil with erotic revulsion at the sights contained within these films, so choose wisely!

Dragon Art Theatre Week (September 8 – 14) Pssst. Hey…buddy… you wanna see some naked movies with your mom in em? This stuff here is premium split tail in action, my friend, straight from the vaults at Something Weird Video. It’s all the HARD X stuff on the SWV site that I could find on Letterboxd and let me tell you, when I say HARD X I mean it! These movies show it all baby, whatever sort of freaky shit you’re into, these movies have got it. Nipple clamps, ice cubes on the balls, lesbos, homos, cumshots, whips, leather, you name it! Plus we got air conditioning and the cleanest bathrooms on the deuce. Just step inside … and if you need some luudes or a lid talk to my man Shifty over at the popcorn counter. Tell him Klon sent you.

69 EsSINtial SWV Titles (September 15 – 21) This isn’t the 69 BEST SWV movies, it isn’t my 69 FAVORITE SWV movies, my goal was to highlight 69 of the MOST SWV movies.

BONUS WILDCARD WEEK (September 22 – 28) Go order something from the SWV website and watch it!

If you want to write something — I’ll share it. You can also check out all the movies I’ll be writing for this challenge this summer!