Free movie alert – Madame Shouting Phantom Dead Mother the Pig Farmer

Free movie time comes but once a week (except weeks like this when it comes twice) and - would you believe it? - it's already rolled round again. We have some real cult fiction this week, with horrors The Shout and The Phantom of the Opera, camp spy thriller Madame Sin, and Steve Buscemi's Ed and his Dead Mother amongst the new free movies available to view.

Our first offering this week is Ed and his Dead Mother, starring indie film king (or at the very least some kind of royal courtier) Steve Buscemi. Unsurprisingly left feeling rather down when his mother dies, Buscemi's Ed jumps at the chance to have her resurrected by The Happy People Corporation, and is pleased with the results – in spite of her newly-developed interest in bug chewing. However, things soon take a turn for the worse in this dark comedy, which also features Ned Beatty and Miriam Margolyes.

Strange happenings are also afoot in The Shout, a cult offering from 1978, co-written and directed by Jerzy Skolimowski, and based on a 1929 short story by I, Claudius author Robert Graves. The plot centres on a mysterious interloper named Crossley (Alan Bates), who insinuates himself into the lives of a married couple (John Hurt and Susannah York) living on the Devon coast. He claims to possess uncanny powers developed during years spent in the Australian outback, and as he seduces the wife, Rachel, he also threatens the husband, Anthony, with a scream that he claims is fatal to those who hear it.

The Shout was one of the first films from Oscar-winning producer Jeremy Thomas (The Last Emperor, Sexy Beast, Tideland), and he originally wanted Don't Look Now and The Man Who Fell to Earth director Nicholas Roeg to helm this big-screen adaptation of Graves' tale. Roeg turned down the opportunity (though he would later work with Thomas on Bad Timing, Eureka and Insignificance), and directorial duties were instead taken on by Skolimowski, a prior collaborator of both Wajda and Polanski. Also finding early roles for Tim Curry and Jim Broadbent, The Shout was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1978, and it walked away with the Grand Jury Prize at the same event.

Leon the Pig Farmer is an acclaimed culture clash comedy from directors Vadim Jean and Gary Sinyor, which picked up the FIPRESCI critics prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1992. At the commencement of the movie, the eponymous Leon (Mark Frankel) is a Jewish estate agent living in London, feeling the pressures of work, family, and a tumultuous love life that sees him torn between artist Madeleine (Bond girl Maryam d'Abo) and excitement-craving Lisa (Gina Bellman). His perspective on life undergoes radical amendment though when he learns that, courtesy of an artificial insemination blunder, his real father is a Yorkshire pig farmer (Brain Glover). Leon promptly sets off up north on a journey of self-discovery.

Since making Leon the Pig Farmer, which won them the best newcomer prizes at both the Evening Standard British Film Awards and from the London Critics Circle, co-directors Vadim Jean and Gary Sinyor have each forged their own film-making path. Jean has helmed the Terry Pratchett TV movies Hogfather and The Colour of Magic, and also directed the forthcoming documentary In the Land of the Free..., which is due out in the UK on 26th March. Meanwhile, Sinyor directed Chris O'Donnell and Renée Zellweger in The Bachelor in 1999, and is set to produce the recently announced Retreat, which will star Jason Isaacs, Thandie Newton and David Tennant.

There have been more than a few silver screen adaptations of Gaston Leroux's novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra since its publication near the start of the last century. Lon Chaney Sr. starred in a 1925 version for Universal, while the lavish 1943 take on Leroux's book found Claude Rains playing a rather diminutive, timid Phantom. Brian De Palma gave the story a rock makeover in the form of his 1974 Phantom of the Paradise, and Joel Schumacher adapted the stage musical six years ago, with Gerard Butler as the star. Nestled in amongst all those is the 1998 reinvention of The Phantom of the Opera from the cult director of Suspiria and Inferno, Dario Argento, and that is the next of our free movies this week. Argento's Phantom (played by Warlock actor Julian Sands) was abandoned as a baby and raised by rats beneath the opera house. He falls for singer Christine Daaé (the director's daughter Asia), sparking a love triangle that will have consequences for them all in this gory take on the famous literary source material.

Naina is an unofficial Hindi take on horror/thriller film The Eye (originally made in Hong Kong by the Pang Brothers, whose Bangkok Dangerous can be viewed for free by US Indie Movies users, before being remade two years ago with Jessica Alba in the lead role). The action centres on Naina, blind since a childhood accident. She undergoes a cornea transplant that brings an unexpected side-effect – terrifying visions and premonitions of death.

A high-camp, atmospheric spy thriller, Madame Sin provided significant inspiration for Mike Myers and his Austin Powers spoof spy films. The story sees a government agent (Robert Wagner) spirited away to the island lair of supervillain Madame Sin (Bette Davis) to aid in the hijack of a Polaris submarine. Amongst the supporting cast are boy's own adventure actors Denholm Elliott (the first and third Indiana Jones films) and Gordon Jackson (who famously falls for the oldest trick in the book in the train station scene of The Great Escape).

Short and stumpy like a beagle, it's time to talk all things legal!

Availability rights dictate that The Shout and Ed and his Dead Mother are only available to site users in the UK and Australia. If you are in the US or Canada (or maybe you are even somehow in both, like that really creepy bit in Lost Highway when Robert Blake is at the party with Bill Pullman and simultaneously also on the phone back at Pullman's house) then you can watch Leon the Pig Farmer and The Phantom of the Opera. Naina is only viewable for those in the US, while anyone in the UK, US, Canada or Australia can watch Madame Sin.

The third-best Banana Split was Fleegle, that's enough of talking legal!

In addition to all of those new free movies, we are also very pleased to announce that Young Soul Rebels is now available to view in all our catered-for territories. UK site users have been able to watch this Cannes prize-winner since last week, but now Indie Movies users in the US, Canada and Australia can also check out this summer of '77-set tale. The action revolves around two DJs who are trying to make their mark playing a new funk sound. However a murder in the local park sets off a sub-cultural clash between the soul boys, skinheads and punks.