Some movies are able to relentlessly push the boundaries of the visual medium, churning out bizarre, dreamlike imagery that might have a viewer questioning what they’re even experiencing. A “fever dream” is often used as a descriptor for particularly strange films, as sickness-induced dreams are known to produce some particularly far-out visuals. After all, James Cameron’s own fever dream allegedly spawned the idea of the T-800’s glistening chrome skull, meaning that such a designation isn’t necessarily an insult.

Fever dream movies aren’t necessarily good or bad by default, with some navigating trippy aesthetics, confusing editing choices, and utterly alien shifts in narrative better than others. That being said, they’re always at least memorable, sticking in the mind long after credits roll for better or for worse. From psychedelic horror films to offbeat animated features, dream-like movies can come in all sorts of weird forms.

10

Mandy

A Patented Nicolas Cage Freak-Out

Not exactly an actor well-known for his subtlety, Nicolas Cage’s best movies allow the beloved actor full permission to turn up the absurdity with his performance. Mandy is one of the most hypnotically strange entries in Cage’ venerated catalog, even if it seems like a generic revenge flick on paper.

The entire film is a nightmarish parade of visuals purpose-built to disturb and intrigue, creating a strange alternate reality full of demonic bikers and chainsaw duels.

Mandy tells the story of Nicolas Cage’s Red, a lumberjack who goes on a murderous spree of vengeance after his artist girlfriend is killed by a roving pack of zealous Christian cultists. Where Mandy truly stands out as bizarre is in its psychedelic visuals, bathing its characters in juicy saturated primary colors as they go about their grisly work.

The entire film is a nightmarish parade of visuals purpose-built to disturb and intrigue, creating a strange alternate reality full of demonic bikers and chainsaw duels. The only thing more dreamlike than the film’s appearance is its fuzzy sense of logic, with Cage’ character doing things like forging his own strange flowing battle ax to use as an instrument of pain.

9

Foodfight!

Animation So Cheap It Becomes Nearly Imaginary

Not every movie with fever dream visuals does so on purpose. Enter the infamous animated film Foodfight!, which has gone down in history as one of the worst attempts at movie brand recognition thanks in no small part to its surreal presentation. The story takes place in a giant grocery store populated by living food mascots, including recognizable faces like Mrs. ʙuттerworth and Charlie Tuna. Cartoon canine investigator Dex Dogtective is tasked with stopping the evil Brand X from taking over Marketopolis.

The mere concept of friendly cartoon mascots used to sell food jumping off the shelves, moving about and speaking is enough of a fever dream on its own. But Foodfight!‘s stiff animation, awkward celebrity voice cast, and horrifying villain make it an ill-conceived children’s movie, to say the very least. At least the utter strangeness of the finished product manages to leave a legacy slightly deeper than the cheap brand-recognition cash grab Foodfight! was always meant to be.

8

The Lighthouse

Robert Eggers’ Absurdist Masterpiece

Thanks to the recent success of Nosferatu, Robert Eggers has more than proven himself as a horror visionary with a trio of delectably scary period pieces. Of his work, The Lighthouse is easily the most strange and dreamlike, obscuring its true intentions behind multiple layers of unease. On paper, the plot tells the story of a newly-minted lighthouse keeper who takes his first job working on a desolate rocky island with only a cranky old coworker to keep him company. Before long, the two’s circumstances and isolation drive them to madness.

From sailor supersтιтions to Promethean myth, The Lighthouse has a lot of thematic balls to juggle. It manages to somehow keep them all aloft thanks to the excellent performances of Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe as they navigate bizarre edits, hallucination sequences, and intentional continuity errors that subtly put viewers on their toes from the very beginning. A messy labyrinthine tale to dissect with repeat viewings, The Lighthouse isn’t afraid to ᴀssault audiences with an unconventional tale willing to shift tones at the drop of a hat.

7

Sorry To Bother You

A Collection Of Several Very Different Movies Hiding In A Trench Coat

Few films jarringly parkour between different genres as violently as Sorry to Bother You does. Starring LaKeith Stanfield, the film begins as a racial commentary as Stanfield’s character Cash uses a “white voice”, hilariously rendered by David Cross, to appeal to customers as a telemarketer.

Rising through the ranks of the company, the story then shifts into a meditation on late-stage capitalism as Cash’s employer intends to buy broke citizens into indentured servitude. Things take a jarring shift late in the third act with a revelation of a fantastical element brewing within the company, introducing a new science fiction source of exploited labor.

Even before this, the film exists in an odd larger-than-life reality in which LaKeith Stanfield can open his mouth only to have David Cross’s voice come out, and one of the most popular shows on TV is a game show тιтled I Got the Sh*t Kicked Out of Me. Sorry to Bother You starts off just normal enough to make its plunge into lunacy feel that much more abrupt.

6

Mad God

A Silent Trek Through Hell And Back

It figures that some of the most upsettingly dreamy movies of all time have little to no dialogue, allowing their surreal imagery to do the talking. Mad God is a stop-motion masterpiece by special effects legend Phil Tippett of Star Wars, Jurᴀssic Park, and RoboCop fame that took an astounding 30 years of production. The meager story, as much as it can be surmised, follows a lone gas-mask wearing ᴀssᴀssin as he descends into an increasingly nightmarish world, seemingly meant to execute a target with the use of a suitcase bomb.

Mad God proves the value of stop-motion as an art form even in the modern cinematic landscape of blockbusters suffused with CGI. That being said, the film is far from easy viewing, containing some deviously upsetting and hellish imagery not meant for the faint of heart. For those that can stomach it, Mad God is a trippy descent through one man’s visual craft decidedly unlike any other film ever made.

5

Eraserhead

The Most Surreal Movie Of A Famously Dreamy Filmmaker

If there’s one director primarily known for his dreamlike sensibilities when it comes to his films, it’s the late great David Lynch. From projects like Mulholland Drive to Inland Empire, Lynch was always pushing the boundaries of what film could truly accomplish as a glimpse into the subconscious.

Though much of his filmography could be described as a fever dream, Eraserhead is arguably his most surreal and unbelievable project. Described by Lynch as a very personal film, the loose plot of Eraserhead centers on a young man who has an unplanned pregnancy with his girlfriend, only to be stuck taking care of an inhuman alien-like baby whose wails fracture an already fraying psyche.

The narrative is far from the focus of the film compared to the dreamlike visuals, laden with heavy symbolism, such as the dancing woman in the radiator or the planet with a face that vomits a spermatozoon. Even describing Eraserhead is an unreal experience that hardly captures a fraction of the film’s utter strangeness.

4

Under The Skin

Scarlett Johansson’s Strangest Star Vehicle Ever

For as big of a star as she is, it was quite brave of Scarlett Johansson to lend her performance to the meditative horror film Under the Skin. The small-scale picture posits Johansson as a shape-shifting alien who masquerades as human, seducing unwitting men and luring them in before “eating” them in a strange esoteric process. Her way of life is interrupted when one man takes it upon himself to end the killing once and for all, going after her himself.

With all the familiar hallmarks of an A24 horror movie, Under the Skin still manages to shock and тιтillate with its eerie imagery. The process by which Johansson’s character absorbs her meals is a trippy enough visual on its own, but the use of real Scotsmen filmed via hidden camera during the segments in which she shops for unsuspecting victims to pick up adds a strange layer of reality. As a whole, the melancholy yet weirdly casual tone of the film, not to mention an early appearance of Adam Pearson pre-A Different Man fame, make for an intriguing fairy tale.

3

House

A Masterclass In Hilariously Strange Horror

House, better known in the West as Hausu, is a triumph of outrageous and hilarious horror comedy. The typical haunted house story centers on a group of friends all oddly-named after their surface-level personality traits, including Kung Fu, Gorgeous, Fantasy, Prof, Mac, Melody, and Sweet.

Absolutely unmatched in the absurdity department, at least compared to contemporaneous films, House is a wacky pushing-of-the-envelope for the haunted house subgenre.

Gorgeous invites the rest of the girls to go on an impromptu summer vacation with her to her aunt’s house after finding out her father got married without telling her. But the aunt and her house have sinister plans in store for the unsuspecting group. The scares of House are bizarre to the point of hilarity, with evil cats, killer pianos, and hilarious low-budget green screen special effects ᴀssaulting the girls at every turn.

The larger-than-life sets and surreal editing style further contribute to the comically strange experience, leading many viewers to question just how in on its own joke House may be. Absolutely unmatched in the absurdity department, at least compared to contemporaneous films, House is a wacky pushing-of-the-envelope for the haunted house subgenre.

2

Beau Is Afraid

The Unabashed Epic Of Bizarre Proportions

After the success of Hereditary and Midsommar, horror filmmaker Ari Aster’s filmography was challenged by Beau Is Afraid. Here, Joaquin Phoenix stars as the тιтular Beau, nervous and timid man who has to travel across the country after his mother suddenly and tragically dies. Coming into contact with a hostile, stressful world, Beau ends up on a meandering series of tangents that diverge heavily from his original goal before finally circling back around.

The narrative structure of Beau Is Afraid is utterly incoherent. It can be argued whether that is a strength or a weakness of the film, but there’s no denying that it does no favors to the Herculean task of making sense of the non-stop avalanche of frightening and fantastical imagery. Piling on nonsensical subplot after nonsensical subplot, Beau eventually finds some explosive answers about the mysteries of his own origins that are quickly glossed over before a random downer ending that makes no effort to explain the many lingering threads.

1

Altered States

Psychedelic Horror At Its Finest

Many films might explore psychedelic imagery reminiscent of a fever dream, but few do so in as diagetic a way as Altered States. The Ken Russell-helmed science fiction horror movie follows Dr. Edward Jessup, played by William Hurt, as he attempts to explore the outer reaches of the human psyche via sensory deprivation chambers and hallucinogenic substances. Of course, this results in some deliciously nightmarish visuals that certainly leave an impression.

Admittedly, compared to other films that might be strange the whole way through, Altered States takes its time in unleashing the absurdity. By the time it’s able to let loose, however, the viewer is perfectly primed for some of the most terrifyingly weird images ever put to screen, walking back human evolution through sheer psychosis. Even if the movie has a relatively grounded frame story gluing the chaos together, the dream-like bits of Altered States aren’t easy to forget.