After the failure to get his Dune project to the screen, and the minor blip that was Tusk in 1980, Alexandro Jodorowsky brought us Santa Sangre in 1989. Back to the form that viewers witnessed in the surreal classics El Topo (1970) and Holy Mountain (1973), the film has become a cult classic of surreal avant-garde horror cinema.

Santa Sangre (Holy Blood) was an Italian-Mexican production, co-written (other writers being Claudio Argento and Roberto Leoni) and directed by Jodorowsky. A film that is crammed full of allegorical imagery, it's a wild ride through the mind of a young man trapped in a mental hospital. As we travel through flash-backs and flash-forwards, into a world of bizarre circus, and a fanatical religious cult known as Santa Sangre.

Along with his earlier works, the film is considered to be one of Jodorowsky's greatest works. A trippy hallucinatory nightmare through the mind of one of the greatest cult film directors of all time. A true piece of psychological horror, that mixes uncomfortable images, with dark humour, violence and sexuality.

The tag-line to Santa Sangre was "Forget Everything You Have Seen". And in many ways that line still holds true. As the film stands-up to this day, as a surreal masterpiece, unrivalled by films that have attempted to follow in its footsteps. It's such a shame that Jodorowsky never got to make his version of Dune. Which could well be one of the greatest movies never made. Despite the fact that much of the ideas and images from it have found there way into many sci-fi and horror films since.

Originally called Dr. Macaura's Pulsocon and later renamed Dr. Macaura's Blood Circulator, this early hand crank driven vibrator was produced some time around the late 1800s, and remained in production well into the 1920s. 

The device was held in one hand, pushed against the desired body part, and hand-cranked to caused the invigorating vibration required. Apparently the action that Dr. Macaura's invention created was a plunging motion, on the desired body part.

The plunging motion could be eventuated with the addition of applicators, that would screw into the end of the device for more focused sensations. Apparently turning the handle produced a surprisingly intense vibration over the affected area. It came with a full complement of paperwork (16 and 58 page booklets and a pamphlet). What more could a lady need from a blood circulation stimulating device. One assumes, despite the photo on the right, that a lady could self stimulate most required areas of her body herself, in the privacy of her own boudoir. 

Strange British sci-fi sex comedy, that featured a whole host a renowned comedy actors of the period, and plenty of semi-nudity. A cult classic of British sexploitation, it tells the story of a race of topless, large-breasted women from the planet Angvia (and anagram of vagina), in another dimension, come to earth to kidnap women to repopulate their planet. All lead by an interdimensional sex goddess called Zeta. 

The film is low-budget exploitation film-making at its so-bad-its-good best. A cut-rate Carry On type caper, with a blatant James Bond rip-off theme. (With a super-spy character called James Word.) The plot drags, and the one-shot director Michael Cort uses plenty of padding and scenes that seem utterly out of place. It's bright, gaudy and silly. And must have been an influence on Mike Myers when he was creating Austin Powers. The colours are in-your-face trippy 60s, spliced with a Mod aesthetic. Making it a great example of British psychedelic cinema. 

The film was a flop on its initial release. Zeta One was released in the United Kingdom in 1970, being described by one critic as,  "quite preposterous in illogicality and silliness". It was later released in America by Film Ventures International, briefly in 1973 as The Love Slaves and then wider in 1974 under the title The Love Factor. Despite its failure on initial release, Zeta One has gained a cult following in the subsequent decades.

Cho Aniki which translates as "Super Big Brother" is bizarre video game from Japan.  The game gain cult status from its surreal graphics, wacky humour and homoerotic overtones. The game is essentially a side-scrolling shoot-em-up, where spend much of the game semi-naked, with other semi-naked muscle men, fighting more semi-naked and oiled-up muscle men. There are pyramids of semi-naked men, rocket powered dildos, and an end of level boss that fires a giant man shaped penis out of his robotic cod-piece. You really can't make this stuff up, and that's all just a brief explanation of the weirdness that is Cho Aniki, that actually spawned a whole series of sequels. 

The first game debuted in 1992 for the PC Engine system. The game's many sequels and spin-offs later appeared on the Super Famicom, Sega Saturn, PlayStation, and PlayStation 2.  

The game is an example of what the Japanese refer to as "kuso-ge", meaning "shit game". In fact it's classed as a sub-genre, known as "baka-ge", which translates as "idiot game".

This video clip from 1997 first popped its head up on the Weird Wide Web last year. Originally a brilliantly funny instructional video found by the curators of the Found Footage Festival Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett, in a Minnesota thrift store, on an old VHS tape. With the bad fashion of the presenter, her sudden unexplained appearance topless, and hysterically delivered dead-pan lines like, "I’ll show you how to reach a cybersex climax. We’ll also visit others who have mastered the art of one-handed typing." It's a gem of a find.

Part documentary, part early form of mockumentary, I Am Curious (Yellow) was part of the emerging new wave of Swedish cinema in the late 1960s. Originally conceived as a 3 and a half-hour epic, the film was split into two companion films named Yellow and Blue, after the colours of the Swedish flag.

The film tells the story of Lena, as she goes on a journey of self discovery, followed by a film crew. With the director Sjöman documenting himself, documenting Lena. Lena builds an archive of her life, and her discoveries, as the film explores social and political themes of the period. Blurring the lines between fact and the fictional life of Lena, through interviews with people on the streets, and even an interview with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., while he was on a visit to Sweden. 

The film's frank portrayal  of Lena's sex life caused controversy on the film's release. With graphic nudity and simulated sexual intercourse and oral sex, the film came to the attention of the censors.  

Women are not film-makers you'd usually associate with the slasher movie genre. But The Slumber Party Massacre was written by Rita Mae Brown, and directed by Amy Holden Jones. The movie was originally written as and intended to be a parody of the rising popularity of the genre, in the late 70s and early 80s. However it was made as a straight genre piece, and as such straddles a black comedy line. With some of the original humour still shining through, as well as the unintended humour of clunky script and bad b-movie acting.

The movie (being an intended parody) follows the slasher genre formula. High school girls, played by 20-somethings, with plenty of shower scene nudity. (At only 8 minutes in!) An escaped serial killer with a love of power tools. Except, unlike most slasher movies, we know who the killer is and what he looks like in this movie. But you do get a series of set-piece deaths, that sway wildly between gore spectacles and over-the-top hilarity. It's cheap, it's tacky, and it has "massacre" in the title. Perfect slasher stuff!

Part from its infamy as one of the must see movies of the slasher genre of the period, for any die-hard fans, The Slumber Party Massacre has little more going for it. Coming out of Roger Corman's stable of New World Pictures, which gave many of Hollywood's top film-makers their first break. Amy Jones would go on to write the screenplays for Mystic Pizza (1988), and was a writer on the Beethoven series of movies. She is said to have given up an editing job of E.T. to direct The Slumber Party Massacre.

Purported to be the world's first sex doll, is said to be the creation of Nazi scientists in 1941. Borghild, was a sex doll or "gynoid", developed as a "female hygiene project" to stop soldiers on the front having sex with prostitutes. It was believed that the project was developed by Himmler, and approved by Hitler, to give inflatable sex dolls to the troops, that they could carry in their back-packs. 

The project was pushed forward by an ambitious Danish doctor, called Hannussen. He wanted to create a doll with an ”artifial face of lust”, for the soldiers.

A total of fifty dolls were supposedly ordered for use in Jersey by officials, but the purported project was cancelled by Himmler after two years, after soldiers refused to carry them due to the fear of embarrassment if they were captured and one was found in their possession. The bombing of Dresden also supposedly destroyed the factories that were planned to build the dolls, as well as the records of the project.

After many years of investigation, with no evidence to support the story, many historians now consider that the Borghild Project is a hoax. However in 2009, a black comedy titled The Borghilde Project was released. Starring Jaye Davidson, the film presents the project as being factual.

The Tit and the Moon (La Teta y la luna) is a film from 1994. A Spanish/French co-production, directed by Bigas Luna. It stars Mathilda May (the naked vampire alien in Lifeforce from the 1984 Tobe Hopper directed sci-fi horror film) as a Portuguese dancer. A young boy, who resents the arrival of his baby brother, asks moon for a tit that only he can feed from. His obsession with breasts results in him finding Mathilda's character, but she holds the attention of many men in the town. Will the young lad achieve his wish, and have her tits for his own?

The Tit And The Moon is a beautifully told comic story of love and obsession, that carefully finds a balance between comedy, sexual obsession, and the dreams of childhood. Through surreal fantasy sequences, it delicately and irreverently handles its subject matter, creating a gem of a movie that is warm and endearing while playing with eroticism and sexual fantasy. 

The film is considered as the final part of Bigas Luna's "Iberian Trilogy" of films, which also include Jamón, Jamón (1992) and Huevos de oro (1993).

Italian horror from director Andrea Bianchi, who also directed the 1981 horror Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror, among many other Italian horrors. It tells the story of a movie director who hires a medium to hold a seance as part of a movie he's making. Unbeknownst to the cast and crew the medium unleashes the evil spirit of Jack the Ripper, who takes possession of one of the cast. Who then starts going on a gory killing spree.

Produced by Italian horror legend Lucio Fulci, the movie is padded out with kill scenes from Fulci's own past and future movies, including A Cat In The Brain, which was made around the same time as Massacre. This is low-budget schlock Italian horror at its border-line best/worst. Actually, it may be best to just go watch A Cat In The Brain, and see the same kill scenes wrapped in a better movie. But then again for obscure cult Italian horror, why not stick with the "source" material. Purely based on this one coming out first out of the two movies. Though it is likely that footage used was filmed for the latter movie.