Delirious (1991)
Writer Trapped Inside a TV Soap Opera
Comedy in which John Candy wakes up inside the world of the tv soap opera he writes. This feels like it misses most of the possibilities inherent in its idea
Meta-Fiction
Meta-Fiction refers to a body of works where the story breaks out beyond the limits of the medium in which it is takes place. Meta-Fiction is a term that comes from literature and originally refers to characters on the printed page. This author has coined the term Meta-Film to refer to stories that break outside the confines of a film. There are lesser known examples that do the same with television and comic-books.
Meta-Fiction and Meta-Film can refer to stories where variously:-
– Characters emerge from or enter into books, films or tv screens
– Where the author of the work becomes a character inside the narrative or we are able to step outside of the story we are watching and be privy to the process as it is being written or filmed
– Where characters become aware that they are fictional or are operating along the lines of genre cliches
– Where the fourth wall is broken in some way and characters address the screen directly
Dreams (1990)
Japanese Ghost Story Anthology
It is some surprise that Akira Kurosawa’s only full venture into fantastic cinema was with his penultimate film here. A beautifully filmed anthology of eight tales, including several ghost stories and two anti-nuclear parables
The Neverending Story II: The Next Chapter (1990)
Adventures in a Fantasy Land
Sequel to The Neverending Story made with a better budget. This delivers some amazing sets and creature designs but is killed with a script that discards the metaphors and complex level of meta-fiction of the original
Blackeyes (1989)
Character in a Book Comes to Life
TV mini-series from the great Dennis Potter in which the lead character in a smutty novel by an aging writer rebels against her fate. As always with Potter, this blurs fiction, meta-fiction and autobiographical elements
I, Madman (1989)
Killer Emerges from a Book
A rather interesting horror film in which both the heroine and the heroine of the story she is reading are stalked by a disfigured madman, as the boundary between fiction and reality begins to dissolve
Brenda Starr (1989)
Girl Reporter Comic-Strip Adaptation
Disastrous Brooke Shields starring film adaptation of the famous comic-strip about a girl reporter. Nobody involved is taking the show seriously and everything is blown into camp farce.
The Icicle Thief (1989)
Characters Enter a Film/Comedy
An absolutely delightful comedy from Maurizio Nichetti, a parody of Bicycle Thieves, which becomes a meta-fiction where the characters emerge from the screen and enter the modern world
The Understudy: Graveyard Shift II (1988)
Vampire Actor
Sequel to Graveyard Shift with a vampire appearing on a vampire film set and taking over the role in the film
Anguish (1987)
Meta-Fictional Slasher Film
Strange Spanish-made film about a mother-dominated psycho, which is also a film being watched in a theatre by an audience that is being stalked by another psycho
The Singing Detective (1986)
Meta-Fiction/Detective Story Daydreams
One of the most extraordinary works ever made for tv. From the pen of Dennis Potter, a mini-series that blends film noir, meta-fiction and autobiography
Demons (1985)
Possessed Undead Take Over a Cinema
Italian horror directed by Lamberto Bava and produced by Dario Argento, an Evil Dead-inspired work about the possessed dead taking over a cinema, all conducted with a ferocious enthusiasm
The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
Character Steps Out of a Film
Woody Allen comedy in which mousy housewife Mia Farrow is the fan of a film whereupon lead character Jeff Daniels steps out into the real world to romance her
The Neverending Story (1984)
Fantasy Adventure Inside an Interactive Book
A popular fantasy film of the 80s that sits just between the imaginative, particularly when it comes to some its creature effects and design work, and the mawkish. It also comes with an intriguing level of meta-fiction that delivers some odd messages
Curtains (1983)
Slasher Film
Slasher film that is more like an Agatha Christie whodunnit, this comes with an appealing level of meta-fictionality. Mostly, it is an actor’s film and has been set-up to allow its name cast to do amazing things
The Last Horror Film (1982)
Maniac Stalks Actress Through the Cannes Festival
This was made guerrilla-style during the Cannes festival with many scenes shot at press conferences and premieres as obsessed fan Joe Spinell stalks Caroline Munro’s actress
Providence (1977)
Meta-Fiction
Alain Resnais meta-fiction with John Gielgud as an aging writer sits in bed writing a story that is based on the people around him
The Projectionist (1971)
Movie Projectionist's Daydreams
A Secret Life of Walter Mitty for movie lovers wherein a milquetoast projectionist daydreams himself into a variety of movie scenarios as an inept superhero. Quirkily charming if never more than a single idea. Something you feel should have been a cult film
The Wizard of Gore (1970)
Splatter Magician
One of Herschell Gordon Lewis’s splatter films about a stage magician who cuts up women on stage and real life. The film makes mind boggling plays between reality and illusion
The Road to Hong Kong (1962)
Screwball Comedy
After a decade, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby returned for their sixth and final Road movie. Both they and the knockabout comedy are on great form with the show taking on the influence of the 60s spy movie fad and even sending them to The Moon
The Testament of Orpheus (1960)
French Existentialism/Meta-Fictional Autobiography
Jean Cocteau’s follow-up to his earlier Orpheus becomes an opportunity where Cocteau makes an autobiographical films, revisiting his own life and works
Road to Morocco (1942)
Screwball Comedy
Road to Morocco was the third of the Bob Hope-Bing Crosby Road films and takes them on a parody of the Arabian Nights adventure
Snowflake (2017)
Meta-Fiction/Hitmen Discover They Are Characters in a Screenplay
A insanely madcap work of meta-fiction. Imagine stupider versions of John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson from Pulp Fiction mixed with Stranger Than Fiction as they discover they are fictional characters