7 Strangest Musicals in Film History

Musicals have always pushed the boundaries of filmmaking, playing with disbelief in a way few other genres can. However, some musicals go above and beyond to create truly bizarre experiences. From creepy horror to historical revisionism, the strangest musicals in film history will challenge your senses.

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7. Cannibal! Musical (1993)

Preliminary work by Trey ParkerSouth Park the musical takes the true story of Alferd Packer, the only American ever convicted of cannibalism, and turns it into a wild homage to Rodgers and Hammerstein. The film follows Packer’s ill-fated journey through Colorado with five other prospectors. It presents his story of survival cannibalism as a fun musical, with songs about building a snowman and the joys of owning a horse named Liana.

Cannibal! Musical becomes increasingly disturbing as the group faces starvation, and upbeat tunes accompany scenes of violence and cannibalism. The play reaches its peak of absurdity in the courtroom finale, where Packer defends his actions with an elaborate song and dance number parodying Oklahoma! And West Side Storycomplete with choreographed jury members and a judge performing operatic solos. This combination of historical tragedy, gory plots and serious musical theater creates a bizarre experiment that far exceeds the shock value South Park.

Cannibal! Musical available to stream on Prime Video and Peacock.

6. Dancer in the dark (2000)

Lars von Trier’s experimental musical deliberately subverts the genre’s conventions by combining his gritty Dogme ’95 filmmaking style with surreal production values. In perhaps the strangest casting choice in music history, Icelandic art-pop star Björk plays Selma, a visually impaired factory worker who transforms the mundane sounds of industrial machinery, trains and even bloody murder scenes into complex musical fantasies.

Dancer in the dark is especially disturbing because it uses the conventions of the musical genre against itself. While traditional musicals offer escapism and joy, von Trier creates musical numbers that arise from absolute horror and despair, including a scene where Selma dances with a bloody corpse. Additionally, Björk’s otherworldly acting style and von Trier’s documentary-style approach to filming lead to an unnerving breakup. This deliberate contradiction between form and content makes Dancer in the dark one of the most conceptually bizarre musicals ever made.

Dancer in the dark available to stream on Tubi, Plex and The Roku Channel.

5. Reefer Madness: The Musical (2005)

Reefer Madness: The Musical parodies the infamous anti-marijuana propaganda campaign of the 1930s. But don’t let the historical roots fool you; What takes this musical into bizarre territory is its commitment to escalating madness. One puff of marijuana transforms innocent teenagers into color-saturated perverts in elaborate musical fantasies that include a cannibalistic orgy, a food fight, Jesus Christ performing a Vegas-style song, and a hallucinatory sequence in which a character makes love to a marijuana leaf while singing an innuendo-laden ballad . Not enough? What if I told you that at some point, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tap dances from his wheelchair to join a chorus of cannabis-crazed zombies?

Through a combination of historical revisionism, anti-drug hysteria and musical theater imagery, Reefer Madness creates a viewing experience reminiscent of watching a fever dream. Add in a cast that includes names like Kristen Bell and Neve Campbell, and you have a film that everyone should watch at least once.

Reefer Madness: The Musical available to stream on Tubi and Prime Video.

4. Repo! Genetic opera (2008)

Repo! Genetic opera is a post-apocalyptic gothic rock opera that imagines a future in which organ failure has become an epidemic and a megalithic corporation is offering transplants on an extortionate payment plan – skip your payments and Repomen will surgically harvest your organs while you’re still alive. But even this premise doesn’t prepare audiences for a world where people are addicted to surgery like drugs, corpses are processed into street drugs, and Paris Hilton’s face literally falls off during an aria about plastic surgery addiction.

The unique aspect of this film’s madness comes from its determination to be both a true opera and a splatter film. Each scene is performed in musical styles ranging from industrial metal to classical opera, often within the same song, and graphic surgery scenes play out like baroque music videos. Despite the initial mixed reception, Repo! Genetic opera developed a devoted cult.

Repo! Genetic opera available to stream on Tubi and Prime Video.

3. Phantom of Paradise (1974)

Brian De Palma’s psychedelic rock opera combines Phantom of the Opera With Faust create a new generation of musical horror. The story follows disfigured composer Winslow Leach (William Finlay) who sells his soul to an immortal producer named Swan (Paul Williams) and becomes a leather-clad, helmeted ghost haunting a stone palace called “Paradise.”

What does Phantom of Paradise Particularly bizarre is its genre-bending soundtrack, composed by Paul Williams, which parodies everything from ’50s doo-wop to glam rock while telling its own supernatural story. The film’s surreal sequences include a Frankenstein-inspired scene where Swan electronically resurrects a dead singer, a Beach Boys parody performed by a band modeled after KISS, and a climactic wedding sequence in which the artist is killed live on television. This combination of German Expressionism, glam rock aesthetics and horror film elements creates something that defies categorization while commenting on the heartbreaking nature of the music industry.

Phantom of Paradise is available to stream on Prime Video.

2. Apple (1980)

Apple is an Israeli-produced disco musical set in a dystopian 1994, where the music industry controls the world through a combination of fascist aesthetics and holographic stickers that citizens must wear to demonstrate allegiance to an all-powerful music corporation. If this premise is not enough to show how strange Apple As one can imagine, the film’s main conflict between natural folk music and synthetic disco becomes a biblical allegory, with the Devil running a record company and God driving a gold Rolls-Royce.

What does Apple Particularly insane is its complete disregard for narrative coherence in favor of increasingly outlandish musical numbers. From leather-clad disco troopers to diamond-encrusted vampires and spacesuit-wearing drag queens, it often feels like the film’s crew is constantly trying to outdo themselves when it comes to weirdness. Finally, Apple perhaps the only musical that can claim to be simultaneously a biblical allegory, a dystopian warning and a disco opera.

Apple available to stream on Pluto TV.

1. Lisztomania (1975)

Ken Russell’s hallucinatory rock opera reimagines classical composer Franz Liszt as the world’s first rock star, but it barely scratches the surface of her madness. In the film, The Who’s Roger Daltrey stars as Liszt in sequences in which he is seduced by vampire groupies, wields a 10-foot phallus that shoots sparks, and battles a Nazi vampire version of Richard Wagner who has turned into a machine gun-wielding Frankenstein’s monster. guitar.

Lisztomania ignores historical accuracy in favor of psychedelic excess, and all the better for it. With a soundtrack composed by Rick Wakeman (who also appears as the Norse god Thor), the film is both an homage and a deconstruction of Liszt’s musical work. In the end, Russell’s determination to create the most outlandish rock opera possible results in a film that makes it psychedelic Tommy It looks like a documentary in comparison.

Lisztomania available for purchase and rental on several digital platforms.