"At first I was thinking that it was one of those movies I should be stoned to appreciate, and then it sunk in that I was getting stoned just watching it."
— P. Z. Myers, Pharyngula
"John Boorman's Zardoz is a genuinely quirky movie, a trip into a future that seems ruled by perpetually stoned set decorators. ... The movie is an exercise in self-indulgence (if often an interesting one) by Boorman, who more or less had carte blanche to do a personal project after his immensely successful Deliverance."
"This will make slightly more sense later on. SLIGHTLY."
"Get ready for Zardoz, the only movie that manages to be both unbearably tedious and completely fucking insane all at the same time!"
— The Agony Booth's recap of Zardoz
of Zardoz "What you're looking at is the line between genius and insanity. Actually, the line is slightly out of focus, BEING DANCED ON BY A SCOTSMAN IN RED LINGERIE!"
— Noah Antwiler on Sean Connery's costume
Um, it was The '70s, and I was doing a lot of drugs. Frankly, even I'm not entirely sure what parts of the movie are about."
— John Boorman
Now some films make little sense, like Pocket Ninjas. And some are confusing, like Halloween III. But Zardoz goes one step further. It truly is the most bizarre film I have ever seen, and that's just one of the many reasons that it's piss-funny. You really have to see it to believe it.
Now in case you can't tell by now, Zardoz is an extremely odd movie. You might have seen shots of Sean Connery in his outfit and concluded that this was some kind of action or adventure piece. No, no, Sean Connery is in a red loincloth during a philosophical art film about the ennui of eternal life. This is what I mean by "odd." It's not weird — 'coz it's not like a David Lynch film — it's odd, in that you can clearly see why everything happens, but it's strange that anyone would think to make a film out of it. Not many films take a rapist and say "yeah, that's our hero!"
