The 90s had plenty of weird things going, from fashion to music and every in-between, and while nostalgia paints most everything in a rose-colored light, we have to admit, some of it was really out there. Take movies for example. As the industry was figuring out how to put this new fangled thing called CGI to good use (or overuse), a lot of films snuck under our collective noses, some of them downright bizarre, if not entertaining. Here are seven unusual 90s movies you probably never saw.
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WILDER NAPALM
Superhero movies began their epic rise in popularity back in the 80s with Tim Burton‘s original Batman, and that franchise was pretty much it until the 2000s when Marvel took it to extremes. But in 1993, we got this crazy little gem from director Glenn Gordon Caron, about brothers Wallace (Dennis Quaid) and Wilder (Arliss Howard), who possess the power to start fires with their minds. Naturally, one of them hides from it and the other, well, not so much and we get a classic stand-off of good versus evil over the love a woman (Debra Winger). Lots of fires and even more insanity this is actually entertaining with an inspired turn from Quaid. Very weird.
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Delirious
John Candy was a funny guy. You could pretty much put him in any movie and you’d be sure to get laughs, even if the movie wasn’t all that good. Take 1991’s quirky Delirious, directed by Tom Mankiewicz, a comedy that follows humble Jack Gable (Candy), the head writer of a popular daytime soap opera who suffers a minor head injury and wakes up in the very town he created for TV. Suddenly, just by typing it, he makes things happen in real life. Naturally, he uses his new powers to get a girl, but trouble brews and when his typewriter breaks, things get out of hand. A host of great actors and an amusing premise sort of work for awhile, but this loses steam by the end. Still, John Candy. Love it.
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BRAINSCAN
The 1990s saw movies really begin to embrace video games as a platform for ridiculous film plots and arguably John Flynn‘s 1994 bizarre Brainscan is one of the weirdest. It follows a boy named Michael Brower (Edward Furlong), who lives a lonely life in his father’s mansion, his leg injured from a car accident. He has a crush on a beautiful girl but mostly spends his time playing games. We can relate. He begins the new ultra-realistic title Brainscan, where he plays the role of a sadistic murderer, only to find out what happened in game … occurs in real life, too. A demon named Trickster soon comes to play and it all gets whackier from there. Gory and strange, fun to watch, but better advice: Stick to your Nintendo.
POWDER
Okay, you might have heard of this one, but probably because of the scandal that surrounded the film’s director Victor Salva. The film follows Jeremy “Powder” Reed (Sean Patrick Flanery), an albino young man who is wildly intelligent and able even to read thoughts. After his grandmother dies, with whom he was living in the basement, he ends up in the home of child services psychologist Jessie Caldwell (Mary Steenburgen) and goes to school, meeting physics teacher Donald Ripley (Jeff Goldblum). From there, the film centers on aggressive bullying and electromagnetic pulses and transcendental existence. Yes. Absolutely whacked. Well-acted, this is a truly odd movie.
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THE METEOR MAN
So another superhero-ish movie, this one with the great Robert Townsend both directing and starring. He plays Jefferson Reed, a school teacher in Washington, D.C. whose neighborhood is under control of a gang called The Golden Lords, led by Simon Caine (Roy Fegan). One night, after rescuing a woman from the gang, he is struck by a small meteor that puts him in the hospital but ultimately empowers him with the ability to fly, not to mention laser vision, super speed, strength and well, your basic Superman stuff. But it’s not permanent, and while he cleans up the streets, the gang has their own plan to take him down. A misfire for sure, it has some quirky laughs and the legendary James Earl Jones completely tripping. Classic 90s weird.
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SLIVER
Sexy crime thrillers really hit their peak in the early 90s and one name at the top of that heap was Sharon Stone. In this Phillip Noyce 1993 erotic thriller, she once again plays a sex-starved woman, this time moving into an exclusive New York residential building, where the previous tenant fell off the terrace. Or did she? She soon meets two men, handsome playboy Zeke (William Baldwin) and novelist Jack (Tom Berenger), both trying to pursue her. It gets steamy and silly from there as she soon learns all kinds of secrets are running afoul and there’s no trusting anyone. Lots of ridiculous stylized sex and nudity, it’s a strangely unconvincing and unintentionally funny mess of 90s movie making. Hence, classic gold.
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BRAIN DONORS
Way back in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, the Marx Brothers pioneered a style of slapstick comedy that was certainly very influential, but like anything, kind of defined by the times. Nonetheless, in 1992 Dennis Dugan brought us Brain Donors, a return to the form with John Turturro, Mel Smith, and Bob Nelson pretty much taking on the Marx Brothers roles and you what? … it’s really funny, even as it crosses well over the line of absurd. Turturro is a tornado of antics. The plot is senseless of course, with the boys dealing with a ballet company and a wealthy socialite ripped right from the classic films of yesteryear. It is wildly energetic and hurls jokes and site gags at a blistering pace, but is well worth a watch, even if it is very unusual.