Scorpio Rising: WTF Did I Just Watch?

So now we're up to Scorpio Rising, one of the more unusual films on the list.  This is a 1964 experimental film that clocks in at just under 30 minutes.  There's no dialogue or any plot in the conventional sense of the word.  The TSPDT brigade puts this movie at #413, and I weep for the future of filmmaking.

Full Disclosure: I'd never seen Scorpio Rising before this, and I hope never to again.  I don't really have a very good record with experimental films: I just don't like them (with very few exceptions).  I watch movies for a story, the magic of cinema, and for the most part, experimental films just don't deliver.  But anyway...

I had a hard time writing a review for this...how much can you really say about a film that has neither plot nor dialogue?  This was my face for most of it.


The first seven or eight minutes (a large chuck of the 30 minute film) are spent watching a man work on his motorcycle.  Then we're treated to several different men getting dressed and putting on their hopelessly cliched black, studded leather jackets (which can't help but remind me of Vyvyan's "Very Metal" jacket from The Young Ones).  I'm now a third of the way through the film, and I'm kind of wondering where this is all going or indeed, if it has plans on going anywhere at all.

Luckily, dear readers, it does go somewhere -- just nowhere that's accessible to anyone who hasn't just taken  a few hits of this stuff.


The rest of the film is spent cutting between a lot of images -- sex (or at least foreplay, I don't think there's any actual intercourse in this movie, despite the fact that it got banned in LA briefly because of indecency), motorcycles, Jesus, Nazi imagery, a guy getting honey smeared on his lower abdomen...I literally do not know what to make out of any of this.  My mind is a blank as to what artistic merit this film has, and frankly I would like an explanation.  Preferably one that doesn't involve a group of Village People rejects getting high and making a home movie.  Because that's literally what this plays out as.

But it made it onto the "They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?" list.  I know that everyone likes different films, one man's shit is another man's souffle, blah blah blah, but the fact of the matter is that there must be a good number of people out there who like this film for it to be placed so highly on a list that draws from tons of different resources.  And I just. don't. get it.  If anyone can explain...please.  That would make me happy.

What did I like about it?  I liked the music.  The entire film is set to pop songs from the 50s and early 60s, most of which I enjoy.  So I liked that.  Other than that?  Well, I liked the bit where it ended.  That was cool. Seriously guys, I am at a loss, I do not know what to think or what to write.  This has never happened to me before.  I think this movie may have killed my brain. :(



Please come back tomorrow, when I'll be watching The Nutty Professor.  Hopefully I will have my mind back by then.

Want to know more about the Top 1000 List?  Check it out and see if your favorites are here! They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?