what movie/show made you think "WTF did I just watch?"

- It's probably my favorite scifi movie that made me really feel something. I think you can find a lot to relate to, grief, depression, loss. I really think the main theme is self destruction, specifically resulting from some kind of trauma. Everyone had their own issues and they were all basically destroying themselves and finding solace in the shimmer.
  
  Quite literally self 'Annihilation', I think the shimmer itself is more analogous to cancer (continuously expanding, with random distorted outcomes, most of which are agressive towards anything untainted by the shimmer), but fundamentally each of the characters are there for their own different reasons for self-destruction with the hopes that it benefits others, as they effectively know it's a suicide mission).
  The bit that I cannot recall if it was explained is why did the special ops guy go if he had a loving wife at home; what was his reason for self destruction?
- The book is better IMO (other than no Portman :-) and one of the most disturbing things I've ever read. Highly recommended.
  
  Did you read all three books? Got real WTF in book 2 and 3.
- The movie was about cancer? Where did you read that?! The movie is the closest movie approximation of the book Alex Garland could make, considering how dense and intertwined the whole Southern Reach Trilogy is.
- Didn't understand the hype for that movie at all.
- My favourite film analysis of this is by Dan Olson of Folding Ideas: https://youtu.be/URo66iLNEZw
  It's a great breakdown and also criticises those "ending explained" videos as well.
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/URo66iLNEZw
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

Requiem for a dream

I just watched Neon Genesis Evangellion. WTF at the end of the series. Then saw there was a later movie with the "real" end. Which was also WTF.
- Literally the first thing on my mind when I saw this thread! I needed some time to process what happened after seeing End of Evangelion.
- I was looking for this reply. Seconded lmao

Enter the void
- Also "The Void" is another good one.
  
  And Touching the Void for completeness?
- The credits just soften you up for the mindfuck.

Black mirror.
- Seriously. That's a show where I could only do one or two at a time.
  
  I dropped it after 3rd Episode.

The Lobster was pretty out there.
- I absolutely love Yorgos Lanthimos' movies. Killing of a Sacred Deer is probably my favorite. His movies just have this uneasyness that really makes you feel...off watching them.
- I tried explaining this movie to someone recently, and it didn't go well...such a great, weird, movie though.

The Boys. That show is a wild ride.
- Especially, "the one scene"...
  
  You're going to have to be a lot more specific lol
  
  "Do you have the slightest idea how little that narrows it down?"
  /s
  
  You need to be way more specific. Nearly every episode has "that one scene"

Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion. It was a one weird rollercoaster ride. I still can't understand the movie too.
- All I know about EoE:
  Top tier soundtrack
  "Disgusting"
  "We'll do the rest later"
  "I'm so fucked up"
  Birds are metal
  Giant eyepussy
  Tang
  Your mom protected you by hanging a doll she thought was you.
  Domestic violence
  Delete world to hit one last time
  Did I miss anything?
  
  "Get in the fucking robot Shinji" is yet again a major plot point.

Primer. I needed to re-watch it at least 3 times to even begin understanding WTF was happening. Even the wiki sites that try to explain it are incomprehensible at first.

Eraserhead
- Really anything by David Lynch including the old PlayStation commercials

The Lighthouse. I still don't know what the hell happened.

Sorry To Bother You was a wild fucking ride. Definitely watch it high for maximum wtf
- I still have no fucking clue what that movie was supposed to be about
  
  Selling out to capitalism was my takeaway
- I was looking for this one. I went into it completely blind one night and that was a ride.

Donnie Darko leaves more questions than answers
- That's one that really only makes sense after watching it multiple times. The excerpts from the book(?) tell you the "what" and "why" of the events of the movie. Okay, they tell you enough that it makes some sense...
  
  I'm pretty sure only the director's cut has the excerpts from the book. It still takes at least two watches and some pausing.

Zardoz. The gaint floating head with the crazy man inside shouting "the gun is good, the penis is bad," Sean Connery in a WAY too revealing outfit, the bizarre, apathetic, immortal poeple, and wierd pyramid magic.
It was hands down the most strange, unfathomable film I've ever seen, and I've watched The Dancing Outlaw.
- You know, Sean Connery took that role and produced that movie (yeah, he fully embraced it) because he wanted to do something original. But I mean, as weird as it is, and as original it is as that, it is some serious Sci-Fi movie full of social commentary.
- Every time I hear or think about Zardoz, I think "this will probably be the last time I think about Zardoz." It's been almost a decade since I first had that thought.

I remember once when I was a teenager turning on the TV at like 2 in the morning on a Saturday and being treated to Adult Swim's Sealab 2021 for the first time. Along with the rest of their line up around 1999-2003. It was fucking weird as shit. But hilarious.
- Adult Swims programming from the exact same time you mentioned helped shape me into who I am now, lmao. What an awesome time for TV. I can remember sneaking downstairs to the TV to put on Space Ghost Coast to Coast. I didn't "get it" but I was very aware that I liked that type of dry humor.
  
  Space Ghost is also how I discovered Triumph the Wonder Dog.
  "If by 'worked with' you mean 'banged up the ass' then, yes, I worked with Lassie."
  "You can say that? Huh. Well, I too, once banged a dog up the a-"
  "How was I supposed to know we'd be taken off the air?!"
  
  Didn't Space Ghost Coast to Coast predate Adult Swim?
- I can still hear the theme song...

everything everywhere all at once

Mulholland Drive.
Trust me on this...just put all technology away when you watch this and give it your 100% attention. One of the craziest movies I've ever seen.
- David Lynch made a lot more stuff that falls into this category - Check out Lost Highway too some time.
- Mulholland Drive has some kind of plot that can be deciphered. Watch Inland Empire if you want to watch a David Lynch movie that makes Mulholland Drive look normal.

Everything everywhere all at once, but in a good way

Sausage party.
- That final scene... Lol
- the part when eveyone is having a gangbang still haunt me

I recently watched Pee-wee's Big Adventure for the first time since God knows how long and it feels like a little bit of a drug trip at times with the sometimes sporadic pacing and just how it is as a movie.
- Tell'em Large Marge sent ya.

Primer. This has to be one of my favorite WTF movies I have watched. Required multiple watches to understand.

- Was going to say this also. I appreciate it is a good film but also kind of wish I never watched it!

The Room (2003) is without exaggeration the worst movie ever made. It's so bad that you can't even enjoy it ironically. Someone else made a much better movie (The Disaster Artist) about how The Room ever got made in the first place. Because that will be the first question on your mind after watching it.
- Hbomberguy made a great argument (in the middle of a video about CTRL+ALT+DELETE, weirdly enough) for one reason to... find value in The Room. Not like it necessarily, but maybe come away from it having learned something. The Room is almost definitely a twisted reproduction of a real relationship that Tommy Wiseau actually had, and therefore you can watch the movie from the angle of "how terrible people like Tommy Wiseau twist the stories of past relationships to fit their narrative". Of course, you also have to parse through Tommy's absolute insanity to get to the message he's accidentally making about himself, but still.
- And yet, there are entire crowds of spoon-throwing and football-tossing fans who gather at showings of the film regularly.
  
  It's not the first bad movie to attain cult status. It's just the worst.

EXistenZ - The final question "Are we still in the game?" really summarized the first watch experience. You have no clue what's going on anymore by that point. Same goes for Total Recall by the way - that movie also has you guessing what's real and what isn't throughout 90% of the runtime.
- I can't remember when, but I know I saw EXistenZ on HBO somewhere. I first saw it from the middle of the movie and thought "If I watch this from the beginning I might understand it." Turns out watching it again didn't help, but I watched it again anyway. It was sort of like a fascinating disaster.
  Kudos to the creators of that film. I don't think I could have come up with that primis.
  
  I watched it twice in a row the first time I watched it too. I think it helped, but it's still had to watch it a third time.

Tenet
- What?

"Under The Skin" with Scarlet Johansson. It has easily the most low-key terrifying scene I've ever seen in a movie (the beach scene). And the whole film is the very definition of wtf.

Rubber. I went in knowing it was a WTF film, but had NO idea how far out it was. It made Sharknado make sense by comparison.
- But why did you watch it? No reason.
- It was also an excellent movie! That tire really made me feel for it even without any facial expressions or dialog.

Beau is Afraid is absolutely mental. I had no idea what to expect when we went to see it, and I’m so thankful the cinema was empty so we could audibly talk about wtf was going on throughout. It’s definitely a movie I want people to watch but with the caveat that I’m not recommending it.
- I absolutely loved Beau is Afraid, but yeah that last act was a trip. It reminded me of "Men". The ending of that is just pure WTF.
  
  The penis monster haunts my dreams! The whole movie was a trip and I absolutely loved the insanity of the first act, but the last 30 odd minutes were just mental
  
  Just watched Men last night, I guess this other one is going on the list now!

Dogville from 2003
- I saw that movie in a tiny arthouse theatre and absolutely loved it. Kinda weird, but it was essentially a filmed stage play.
  
  I didn't say I didn't like it, but it was a what did I just watch.

Requiem for a Dream and Happiness. Crazy movies.
- I though about that the first time I saw Requiem for a Dream, and then suddenly thought to myself. It's not actually mindblowing. It's just a formulaic, cookie cutter story of a bunch of people doing drugs, I kind of think it's really overrated from a critical standpoint now. But I did get an initial shock.

The Pacific Rim sequel. I just thought:"Why??".
- ... He's not in the second one. They actually got john boyega to star somehow.

Beau is afraid , it was WTF from the start untill the end, still don't know what it was and I am too afraid to ask.

A Serbian Film.
- First and only movie I ever regretted watching. Def could have gonna my whole life without seeing that.

Gummo

Dark City
- Just inject it in your head!

Serbian film. I genuinely regret watching it and I think everyone involved in creating it should be investigated.
- Wish I had not read the plot.
  
  Do yourself a favour and don't watch it. You will gain absolutely nothing from doing so. You'll just end up feeling disgusted and filled with regret. Truly a piece of shit movie all round.

Almost every episode of Raised By Wolves, especially the second season when things got REAL bonkers. Man, I miss that show.
- Lol. Just continuous one upping the WTF each episode. It was so good for that.
- I liked it a lot.

The Teddy Perkins episode of Atlanta had me wondering what the hell was going on in a hilarious way even though the episode was creepy.

Unicorn Wars… it’s a French/Spanish animation movie about a “carebear” v unicorns war. It’s like full metal jacket, but much more brutal and bizarre….

Biosphere (2023).
Watched it because I'm a fan of doomsday scenarios. The former president of the United states starts spontaneously growing a vagina and uterus because 'life uuuh, finds a way'.
I won't wreck the rest of the plot but this movie took a fucking wild turn and left me sitting there the whole time going WTF!

2014 Predestination, you can't really say anything about this film and not spoil it. well perhaps except Ethan Hawke and Sarah Snook starring in it
- It's based on Robert Heinleins - All You Zombies. I think.
  
  it is, correct.
  
  And I'd say is one of the more faithful adaptations of a short sf story to film. There are a couple of additions, but in general is extremely close.

Howard the Duck.

Punch Drunk Love. Seriously what was this about?

Mr. Nobody really messed me up after seeing it. I started to question every decision I had ever made

The Who's Tommy Pinball Wizard. I was expecting some cool music, and pinball. Maybe something like The Wall. Nope, What I got was Uncle Eddy and the Acid Queen.

Wilfred (the US version)
- Absolutely one of my favorite shows. It hits all the right notes for me. I can definitely understand why it wouldn't be someone's cup of tea, but it absolutely resonated with me.
  
  one of my friends, who loves TV like this told me he had instant migraine from Wilfred :P
  also, my girlfriend really didn't wanted to start it, because it was too strange for her, but after a few episodes she has fallen in love with the series.
  so fucking a pity there's no other show like this (or I don't know about it at least...)

Mother. It's not that I didn't get the allegory, it was just weird. Also Antichrist, though to be fair, saying "wtf did I just watch" was the whole point of the movie.
- I didn't get the allegory in Mother, and I didn't really care. Totally wtf, but I loved how nightmarish it was, and how it looked visually, I was completely enthralled.
  
  The guy was god, the gal was Earth.

I can’t remember the title but it was on uk Netflix for a while last year. It was a Spanish film where a girl had an ass for a face. That was weird in and of itself but then it just kept getting weirder the whole way through.
- I forgot about this comment til you replied. Just googled it, it was called Skins.