Flaming Creatures

Flaming Creatures

1963 · 42 min · ★ 4.7 · Comedy, Horror, Fantasy

Filmmaker and artist Jack Smith described his own film as a “comedy set in a haunted movie studio.” Flaming Creatures begins humorously enough with several men and women, mostly of indeterminate gender, vamping it up in front of the camera and participating in a mock advertisement for an indelible, heart-shaped brand of lipstick. However, things take a dark, nightmarish turn when a transvestite chases, catches and begins molesting a woman. Soon, all of the titular “creatures” participate in a (mostly clothed) orgy that causes a massive earthquake. After the creatures are killed in the resulting chaos, a vampire dressed like an old Hollywood starlet rises from her coffin to resurrect the dead. All ends happily enough when the now undead creatures dance with each other, even though another orgy and earthquake loom over the end title card.

Directed by Jack Smith · Written by Jack Smith

Your Rating

Cast

Francis Francine Francis Francine
Sheila Bick Delicious Dolores
Joel Markman Our Lady of the Docks
Mario Montez The Spanish Girl
Arnold Rockwood Arnold
Judith Malina The Fascinating Woman
Marian Zazeela Marian Zazeela
Beverly Grant Whirling Dervish
Piero Heliczer

More from Jack SmithSee all →

The Yellow Sequence

The Yellow Sequence · 1965

The Yellow Sequence

A sort of addendum to Smith's second feature, NORMAL LOVE, but which stands on its own as an anarchic ode to (and explosion of) pop culture, featuring none other than Tiny Tim.

The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man

The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man · 1981

The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man

“New York plays itself, as Taylor Mead and Winifred Bryan regale in pas de deux among the trashcans and the towers. The Studiedly Goofy and the Monumentally Grand are joined in masterly pas de don’t [...] The awed couple do battle with the status quo and teach the world to dance on the head of a bin. Rice detects real dignity in Bryan and amazing grace in Mead as they essay solitary promenades through the parks, subways and streets of a wintery New York landscape. Photographed and directed by Ron Rice, edited and scored by Taylor Mead.” –Edward Leffingwell

Chumlum

Chumlum · 1963

Ron Rice's Chumlum is one of those films in which the conditions of its construction are integral to the experience of watching it. It is a record of a cadre of creative people having fun on camera, playing dress-up, dancing, flirting, lazing around.

The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda

The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda · 1968

The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda

At the court of the Yellow Emperor, the Majoon Traveler & Lady Firefly appear in the Hall of Unconscious Magnetism.

Night of the Dark Full Moon

Night of the Dark Full Moon · 1972

Night of the Dark Full Moon

MovieThrillerHorror

A man investigates the grisly crimes that occurred in a former insane asylum, unsettling the locals who all seem to have something to hide.

Two Wrenching Departures

Two Wrenching Departures · 2006

Two Wrenching Departures

Made in response to the death of his friends Bob Fleischner and Jack Smith, who died within one week of each other in 1989, this feature includes footage from Jacobs’s Star Spangled to Death showing Smith perambulating through downtown Manhattan, as well as views of Fleischner from Jacobs’s 1961 short The Whirled.

Batman Dracula

Batman Dracula · 1964

MovieThrillerDrama

Batman Dracula is a 1964 black and white American film produced and directed by Andy Warhol, without the permission of DC Comics. The film was screened only at Warhol's art exhibits. A fan of the Batman series, Warhol made the movie as a homage. Batman Dracula is considered to be the first film featuring a blatantly campy Batman. The film was thought to have been lost until scenes from it were shown at some length in the documentary Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis.

The Illiac Passion

The Illiac Passion · 1967

The Illiac Passion

MovieDramaFantasy

Prometheus, on an Odyssean journey, crosses the Brooklyn Bridge in search of the characters of his imagination. After meeting the Muse, he proceeds to the "forest." There, under an apple tree, he communes with his selves, represented by celebrated personages from the New York "underground scene" who appear as modern correlatives to the figures of Greek mythology. The filmmaker, who narrates the situations with a translation of Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, finds the personalities of his characters to have a timeless universality.

Love Thing

Love Thing · 2012

MovieComedyFantasy

Love Thing captures the emerging multicultural spirit and personal freedom of the late 1970s with an outrageous attitude and experimental style. A work in progress now finally completed it's the last American musical comedy from that era which can be viewed today as a prophetic satire. Through its provocative, entertaining storyline highlighted by song and dance, the movie answers the burning question of our time, "What happens after the marriage?

Blonde Cobra

Blonde Cobra · 1963

A man fondles objects, looks at himself in the mirror, poses in different clothes, smiles and makes faces at the camera while his voice on the soundtrack speaks of his despair, makes impressionistic statements and little songs, quotes Greta Garbo and Maria Montez, tells the story of a lonely little boy and tells the story of a woman named Madame Nescience who dreams of herself as the Mother Superior of a convent of sexual perversion.

Andy Warhol's Factory People... Inside the Sixties Silver Factory

Andy Warhol's Factory People... Inside the Sixties Silver Factory · 2008

Andy Warhol's Factory People... Inside the Sixties Silver Factory

MovieDocumentary

Takes an in-depth look at the lives and times of the people who hung out with Andy Warhol and "worked" at the Silver Factory during the Sixties, making it all click as a new counter-culture arose and began to exert its influence throughout the arts.

Wino

The filmmaker brings his camera to the Bowery, filming the homeless, interacting with them.

Home Movies 1971-81

Home Movies 1971-81 · 1985

Home Movies 1971-81

MovieDocumentary

Home movies shot on Super 8mm by W+B Hein over 10 years.

Respectable Creatures

Respectable Creatures · 1966

Respectable Creatures

Respectable Creatures is an unusual blending of Jack Smith's first known film, Buzzards over Baghdad, with stray images from Normal Love, concluding with material which he shot at Carnaval in Rio.

Song for Rent

Song for Rent · 1969

During its 1969 showings at the Elgin Theater, No President was preceded by the color short filmed according to Smith’s direction by photographer Don Snyder (who also shot slides during the same session). Smith appeared as his red-wigged, plastic-jawed, alter ego Rose Courtyard, seated in a wheelchair amid the detritus of the Plaster Foundation. The film was accompanied by two rounds of Kate Smith singing “God Bless America”. Dressed in a red satin gown, clutching a bouquet of dead roses, Rose is finally moved to stand up and salute. The film was found in a can labeled “Song for Rent”, title of a 1971 mixed media production in which Smith appeared. (J. Hoberman)

Batman Dracula – “Jack Gerard Smoking”

Batman Dracula – “Jack Gerard Smoking” · 1964

Batman Dracula – “Jack Gerard Smoking”

One of four finished Batman Dracula shorts shown publicly by Warhol.

More Like This

Un Chien Andalou

Un Chien Andalou · 1929

Un Chien Andalou

Un Chien Andalou is an European avant-garde surrealist film, a collaboration between director Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali.

Life of Brian

Life of Brian · 1979

Brian Cohen is an average young Jewish man, but through a series of ridiculous events, he gains a reputation as the Messiah. When he's not dodging his followers or being scolded by his shrill mother, the hapless Brian has to contend with the pompous Pontius Pilate and acronym-obsessed members of a separatist movement. Rife with Monty Python's signature absurdity, the tale finds Brian's life paralleling Biblical lore, albeit with many more laughs.

Snatch

MovieCrimeComedy

Unscrupulous boxing promoters, violent bookies, a Russian gangster, incompetent amateur robbers, and supposedly Jewish jewellers fight to track down a priceless stolen diamond.

28 Days Later

28 Days Later · 2002

MovieHorrorThriller

Twenty-eight days after a killer virus was accidentally unleashed from a British research facility, a small group of London survivors are caught in a desperate struggle to protect themselves from the infected. Carried by animals and humans, the virus turns those it infects into homicidal maniacs -- and it's absolutely impossible to contain.

Saw

MovieHorrorMystery

Two men wake up to find themselves shackled in a grimy, abandoned bathroom. As they struggle to comprehend their predicament, they discover a disturbing tape left behind by the sadistic mastermind known as Jigsaw. With a chilling voice and cryptic instructions, Jigsaw informs them that they must partake in a gruesome game in order to secure their freedom.

Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny

Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny · 2006

Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny

MovieComedyMusic

In Venice Beach, naive Midwesterner JB bonds with local slacker KG and they form the rock band Tenacious D. Setting out to become the world's greatest band is no easy feat, so they set out to steal what could be the answer to their prayers... a magical guitar pick housed in a rock-and-roll museum some 300 miles away.

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! · 1978

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!

MovieComedyHorror

After a wave of reports of mysterious attacks involving people and pets being eaten by the traditionally docile fruit, a special government task force is set up to investigate the violent fruit and put a stop to their murderous spree.

Death at a Funeral

Death at a Funeral · 2007

Death at a Funeral

MovieComedyDrama

A myriad of outrageous calamities befalls an eccentric English clan with more than a few skeletons in its closets when the family's patriarch dies an unexpected death.

Spice World

Spice World · 1997

MovieAdventureFantasy

World famous pop group the Spice Girls zip around London in their luxurious double decker tour bus having various adventures and performing for their fans.

Cat People

Cat People · 1982

MovieFantasyHorror

After years of separation, Irena Gallier and her minister brother, Paul, reunite in New Orleans. When zoologists capture a wild panther, Irena is drawn to the cat – and zoo curator Oliver to her. Soon, Paul will have to reveal the family secret: that when sexually aroused, they revert into predatory jungle cats.

Big Trouble in Little China

Big Trouble in Little China · 1986

Big Trouble in Little China

MovieActionAdventure

Truck driver Jack Burton gets embroiled in a supernatural battle when his best friend Wang Chi's green-eyed fiancée is kidnapped by henchmen of the sorcerer Lo Pan, who must marry a girl with green eyes in order to return to the human realm.

Highlander

Highlander · 1986

MovieAdventureAction

He fought his first battle on the Scottish Highlands in 1536. He will fight his greatest battle on the streets of New York City in 1986. His name is Connor MacLeod. He is immortal.

Barbarella

Barbarella · 1968

MovieScience FictionAdventure

In the far future, a highly sexual woman is tasked with finding and stopping the evil Durand-Durand. Along the way she encounters various unusual people.

Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At!

Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At! · 1966

Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At!

During World War II, two French civilians and a downed British Bomber Crew set out from Paris to cross the demarcation line between Nazi-occupied Northern France and the South. From there they will be able to escape to England. First, they must avoid German troops – and the consequences of their own blunders.

In Bruges

In Bruges · 2008

MovieComedyDrama

Ray and Ken, two hit men, are in Bruges, Belgium, waiting for their next mission. While they are there they have time to think and discuss their previous assignment. When the mission is revealed to Ken, it is not what he expected.

Donnie Darko

Donnie Darko · 2001

MovieFantasyDrama

After narrowly escaping a bizarre accident, a troubled teenager is plagued by visions of a large bunny rabbit that manipulates him to commit a series of crimes.

Alien

MovieHorrorScience Fiction

During its return to the earth, commercial spaceship Nostromo intercepts a distress signal from a distant planet. When a three-member team of the crew discovers a chamber containing thousands of eggs on the planet, a creature inside one of the eggs attacks an explorer. The entire crew is unaware of the impending nightmare set to descend upon them when the alien parasite planted inside its unfortunate host is birthed.

Rate this film

Your ratings make Midnight smarter