WEIRDUMENTARY Celebration + EXP TV's BIZARRE ENCOUNTERS... Screening!

WEIRDUMENTARY: ANCIENT ALIENS, FALLACIOUS PROPHECIES, AND MYSTERIOUS MONSTERS FROM 1970s DOCUMENTARIES

As part of an evening devoted to the strange, the speculative, and the wildly entertaining edges of nonfiction cinema—“high strangeness” in its purest form—7th House presents a celebration of Gary D. Rhodes’s new book WEIRDUMENTARY—an instant classic compendium of pseudoscientific documentaries from the ’70s and ’80s exploring the unexplained—paired with a screening of obscure media collective EXP TV’s immaculately titled original film BIZARRE ENCOUNTERS WITH MYSTERIES FROM BEYOND THE AMAZING WORLD OF UNKNOWN FORCES IN SEARCH OF PSYCHIC PHENOMENA (2023).

Rhodes will offer a special presentation on the book and the history of the genre, followed by a conversation with the author, and culminating in a rare screening of BIZARRE ENCOUNTERS…, EXP TV’s original film collage, made specifically for PRS—a quintessential, expertly crafted, head-first deep dive into the weird world of phenome-films.

Dive into the forgotten world of pseudoscientific documentaries—from ancient aliens to cryptids—and discover why millions couldn’t look away. With WEIRDUMENTARY, Rhodes explores the strangest cinematic phenomenon of the 1970s and 1980s: films sold to the unsuspecting public as documentaries that blurred the line between fact and fantasy with absolute conviction. Beginning with Chariots of the Gods (1970) and ending with The Man Who Saw Tomorrow (1981), Rhodes showcases these popular works that offered spurious experts, questionable evidence, and low-budget dramatizations in the service of something far more compelling than proof: possibility.

Written with clarity, humor, and deep archival knowledge, WEIRDUMENTARY is both a guide and a delight—a tour through a world where the Bermuda Triangle, Bigfoot, UFOs, psychic phenomena, and speculative histories weren’t fringe curiosities but mainstream obsessions. Figures like Leonard Nimoy and Orson Welles loom large in this landscape, lending their voices to a genre built on authority, atmosphere, and the tantalizing suggestion that it might all be real.

As a renowned film historian, Rhodes brings scholarly rigor, genuine enthusiasm, and a light-hearted playfulness to the material—treating these films not as curiosities to be dismissed, but as cultural artifacts that reveal how we look for meaning in the unknown.

Followed by:

EXP TV's BIZARRE ENCOUNTERS WITH MYSTERIES FROM BEYOND THE AMAZING WORLD OF UNKNOWN FORCES IN SEARCH OF PSYCHIC PHENOMENA

To close out the evening, we plunge into the depths of the genre with EXP TV’s definitive, reverent—but affectionately hilarious—kaleidoscopic tapestry of classic, rare, and “what-the-heck-is-that-from?” phenome-film footage:

“How can you harness the power to bend spoons? Can you hurt a fern’s feelings? What was the 23,000 year old computer used by The Druids? Do ghosts ride bicycles? Is Bigfoot actually a visitor from outer space? Who are the children that communicate with flowers by using their gift of ‘skin vision’? Can you telepathically send Charlie Chaplin movies to someone else’s mind? All these questions and more will be answered by EXP TV’s brand new movie – Bizarre Encounters with Mysteries From Beyond The Amazing World of Unknown Forces In Search of Psychic Phenomena. A psychotropic film collage of the rarest, oddest, kraziest mixed-up moments from the golden era of uncanny documentaries. Rated G”

Approx. 50 mins.

Tickets: $10 (All Screenings Are In Person Only)

Please email events@prs.org or phone 323-663-2167 with any questions.