|
A cult film is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but relatively small group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside of the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame amongst mainstream audiences, including Carnival of Souls (1962), Easy Rider (1969), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Death Race 2000 (1975), Taxi Driver (1976), The Warriors (1979), Evil Dead (1981), Blade Runner (1982), Blue Velvet (1986), Pulp Fiction (1994) and Fight Club (1999).
Many cult movies have gone on to transcend their original cult status and have become recognized as classics; others are of the "so bad it's good" variety, and are destined to remain in obscurity. Cult films often become the source of a thriving, obsessive, and elaborate subculture of fandom, hence the analogy to cults. However, not every film with a rabid fanbase is necessarily a cult film.
The term cult film is used to describe a film that has had little to no success commercially and critically upon its initial release but has later spawned a small, but devoted and usually obsessive fanbase, however there are various exceptions. This has led to a misconception in Cult classic films that the definition is a film that 'you either love or hate'.
The term was first coined in the early 1980s in the book Cult Movies, by Danny Peary and is continued to be used to describe the films to this day. Usually, cult films have limited but very special, noted appeal. Cult films are often known to be eccentric, and do not follow traditional standards of mainstream cinema and usually explore topics not considered in any way mainstream—yet there are examples that are relatively normal. They are often considered controversial because they step outside standard narrative and technical conventions known.
A
high-voltage spectacle boasting impressive (for the time) special
effects, Poltergeist is a must-see horror classic. Life is very
pleasant for the close-knit Freeling family until a host of otherworldy
forces invades their peaceful suburban home. Before long, their house
is transformed into a swirling supernatural sideshow -- all centered
around their angelic young daughter, Carol Anne (Heather O'Rourke).
When a mysterious, driverless black sedan begins running people down in a small Southwestern town, new sheriff Wade Parent (James Brolin)
must find out who -- or what -- is behind the killings. What he
uncovers is a truth more terrifying than anyone expected. Is it pure
evil? This cult horror classic from director Elliot Silverstein also features Kathleen Lloyd, R. G. Armstrong and John Marley.
When the botanical experiments of Dr. Alec Holland (Ray Wise) go awry and a lab explosion renders him more plant than man, rival scientist Anton Arcane (Louis Jourdan)
takes note. His plan? Capture Swamp Thing and learn his secrets -- but
Arcane must first get by busty government operative Alice Cable (Adrienne Barbeau). Horror-meister Wes Craven takes a sabbatical from decapitations and gore with this campy adaptation of the DC Comics favorite.
In this spine-tingling film -- one of the first 3D movies ever made -- Vincent Price
thrills as Professor Henry Jarrod, the creepy curator of a wax museum
who loses his beloved business to a fire and then rebuilds it. This
time, though, he doesn't use wax models, but a ghoulish alternative:
dead bodies. Also includes The Mystery of the Wax Museum, the 1933
feature that House of Wax was based on.
A group of actors and their eccentric artistic director, Alan (Alan Ormsby),
travel to a burial island rich in tales of evil curses and demons.
Their task is to exhume a recently deceased body and try their hand at
witchcraft in an attempt to raise the dead. While Alan means for his
morbid plan to be a trick that ends in a surprise all-night party,
everyone is stunned when the "trick" works, and the dead become
uninvited guests.
This 1979 chiller is based on the reportedly true story of George Lutz (James Brolin) and his wife, Kathleen (Margot Kidder),
who move into their Long Island dream house with their children. But
the Lutz's lives turn into a hellish nightmare as the legacy of a
murder committed on the premises gradually affects the family. Even the
priest they call in, Father Delaney (Rod Steiger), cannot exorcise the demonic presence from the home.
When the evil Dr. Gordon (Charles Macaulay) kidnaps Matt Farrell (John Ashley),
he takes him to a remote island to make him a human guinea pig in his
bizarre experiments. Gordon's nefarious plan is to create a race of
superhumans. So far, however, he's only succeeded in creating a bunch
of creepy animal/human mutants. Now, with the help of Gordon's mutant
creations, Farrell must stage a daring escape in this cult classic
co-starring Pam Grier.
An alien band of killer clowns descends from the cosmos to harvest
scores of small-town victims, cocooning their prey in cotton candy to
save for later. With the extraterrestrials disguised as harmless circus
employees, the authorities don't suspect a thing. But the joke is on
the clowns when two street-wise teens (Grant Kramer and Suzanne Snyder), armed with an ice-cream truck, do battle to save their friends in this cult favorite.
Hick handymen Val McKee (Kevin Bacon) and Earl Bassett (Fred Ward)
can barely eke out a living in the Nevada hamlet of Perfection, so they
decide to leave town -- despite am admonition from a shapely seismology
coed (Finn Carter)
who's picking up odd readings on her equipment. Before long, Val and
Earl discover what's responsible for those readings: 30-foot-long
carnivorous worms with a proclivity for sucking their prey underground.
In this remake of the 1971 horror film by the same name, Crispin Glover
plays a shy young man named Willard who's constantly pestered by his
co-workers and has no friends save for his pet rats. When one of the
rats is killed at work, Willard exacts bloody revenge on all those who
did him wrong -- with the help of his furry friend Ben, an unusually
intelligent (and lethal) rat who leads his cohorts to commit horrific
murders.
|
