Friday Night Runout at Blobfest.
By Hampus Eckerman: It is time for another bracket, this time for Cult Movies, to find the most interesting and worth watching Cult Movies.
A Cult Movie is kind of hard to define, but I have added a few criteria below. These aren’t fixed rules, only indications of what a cult movie is or can be.
- A Cult Movie is defined more by audience reaction than by the movie itself. Typically, there is a buzz about the movie that never quite reaches the mainstream. There is often a community aspect around the movies
- A Cult Movie isn’t about being good or bad. It is about being unique and memorable.
- There is often something that sets the movie apart from mainstream movies and makes them unique. Unusual acting, direction or script. There is a non-conformism in the movie and it is not of a type that is sent out by the barrel (i.e Troma). Sometimes, the uniqueness is not in the movie, but in the audience participation.
- Cult Movies are of the type where you are happily surprised that someone else has seen them (or been part of audience participation of) and you both feel you have to talk about them. They are of the type shown at special screenings.
- Types of Cult Movies might include:
- Turkey Movies: Movies that are so bad they are good
- Campy Movies: Movies that don’t take themselves seriously
- Exploitation and Art Movies
- Low Budget Movies
- Mockumentaries, Failed documentaries and Mondo documentaries
- Highly quotable movies
- Movies shown around or after midnight on TV
RULES FOR NOMINATION
- Bracket is not restricted to Science Fiction or Fantasy.
- Animated movies are accepted.
- TV-movies are accepted.
- Minimum length of a movie to be accepted is one hour.
- Movies should have first been shown to a wider audience at least 2010.
- Do not let the fact that a list has already been created hinder you from naming a movie that is already on it.
- You are not restricted in the number of movies you may nominate.
- Think not only of what is good or fun. Think of what is interesting or unforgettable.
Nominations will go on for approximately 2 – 4 days, then I will create a new consolidated list consisting of a mix of your recommendations and mine. You will then have a few additional days to nominate what you might have missed. Then I will finalize the list that we will use for voting. I expect the bracket to become something like mainstream Cult Movies – whatever that is.
EXAMPLES OF CULT MOVIES
- The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)
- The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)
- Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
- Amazon Women on the Moon (1987)
- Evil Dead 2 (1987)
- Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)
- Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978)
- Bad Boy Bubby (1994)
- Bad Taste (1987)
- Barbarella (1968)
- Battlefield Earth (2000)
- Bedtime for Bonzo (1951)
- Beetlejuice (1988)
- Being John Malkovich (1999)
- Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
- Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)
- Blacula (1972)
- The Blob (1958)
- The Blues Brothers (1980)
- A Boy and His Dog (1975)
- Braindead (1992)
- Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)
- Caligula (1979)
- Cannibal! The Musical (1993)
- Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
- A Clockwork Orange (1971)
- Condorman (1981)
- Crash (1996)
- Crumb (1994)
- Death Race 2000 (1975)
- The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (1988)
- Deep Throat (1972)
- Django (1966)
- Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965)
- Dr. Strangelove or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
- Drunken Master (1978)
- Eat the Rich (1987)
- Eraserhead (1977)
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
- The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)
- Flash Gordon (1980)
- Flesh Gordon (1974)
- Food of the Gods (1976)
- Frankenhooker (1990)
- Fritz The Cat (1972)
- Gamera (1965)
- Glen or Glenda (1953)
- The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980)
- Godzilla (1954)
- La Grande Bouffe (1973)
- The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle (1979)
- Hairspray (1988)
- Häxan (1922)
- Heathers (1988)
- Heavy Metal (1981)
- Heavy Metal Parking Lot (1986)
- Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988)
- Highway to Hell (1992)
- How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989)
- Howard the Duck (1986)
- Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1974)
- The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies (1963)
- Ishtar (1987)
- Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)
- The Killer Condom (1996)
- Kung Pow! Enter the Fist (2002)
- The Lair Of The White Worm (1988)
- Liquid Sky (1982)
- The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)
- Logan’s Run (1976)
- The Lost Boys (1987)
- El Mariachi (1993)
- Mars Attacks! (1996)
- Matilda (1996)
- Meet the Feebles (1989)
- Memento (2000)
- Metropolis (1927)
- Mommie Dearest (1981)
- Mondo Cane (1962)
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
- Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1982)
- Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979)
- Mr. Vampire (1985)
- Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)
- Office Space (1999)
- The Party (1968)
- The People Under the Stairs (1991)
- Phantom of the Paradise (1974)
- Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)
- Polyester (1981)
- The Princess Bride (1987)
- Pulp Fiction (1994)
- Rare Exports (2010)
- Re-Animator (1985)
- Rebel Without a Cause (1956)
- Reefer Madness (1936)
- Repo Man (1984)
- Reptilicus (1961)
- The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
- Rope (1948)
- Rumble Fish (1983)
- Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
- Satyricon (1969)
- Scanners (1981)
- Sexmission (1984)
- Shaun of the Dead (2004)
- Shivers (1975)
- Shogun Assassin (1980)
- Sid & Nancy (1986)
- Six-String Samurai (1998)
- Some Like It Hot (1959)
- Soylent Green (1973)
- Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)
- Streets of Fire (1984)
- The Stuff (1985)
- Swamp Thing (1982)
- Tank Girl (1995)
- Thelma & Louise (1991)
- Them! (1954)
- They Live (1998)
- This is Spinal Tap (1984)
- Toys (1992)
- Troll 2 (1990)
- Vampyros Lesbos (1971)
- Videodrome (1983)
- Village of the Damned (1960)
- The Warriors (1979)
- The Wicker Man (1973)
- Withnail and I (1987)
- Wizards (1977)
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::ticky ::
I see you listed both “Braindead” & “Meet the Feebles”! #obligatorykiwi
The Room (Tommy Wiseau’s 2003 “masterpiece” not the Oscar nominated film from last year)
Harold and Maude
Labyrinth
The Dark Crystal
Evil Dead 2
Also I think there may be a typo in point 5 above – is it intended to say no post 2010 movies? I’d throw in Jupiter Ascending if it’s eligible but we might have to wait a few years before we can say for certain…
Rock & Rule
Despite spawning a franchise, would the original “Mad Max” qualify?
Yes, no post 2010 movies. And original Max Max would qualify. I will not remove nominations and my guidelines are only examples.
I’m not sure it qualifies, since it deliberately capitalized on the cult/midnight movie status of Rocky Horror, but reportedly has achieved a minor cult status of it’s own:
Shock Treatment
Americathon
The Shout
The Last Wave
The Stunt Man
The Final Programme aka The Last Days of Man on Earth
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Dark Star
Rubber
The Dark Crystal
Knightriders
How I Won the War
The Magic Christian
Labyrinth
Damnation Alley
Christmas on Mars
Forbidden Zone
D.E.B.S.
Donnie Darko
Flesh for Frankenstein
Return to Oz
Silent Running
Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning
The Wicker Man (the original, obvs.)
Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death
Wristcutters: a love story
The Wizard of Speed and Time
Repo The Genetic Opera
The City of Lost Children (1995)
House (Japan, Hausu, 1977)
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec (2010)
Trollhunter (2010)
Orgy of the Dead (1965)
Shaolin Soccer (2001)
Zardoz (1974)
The Big Lebowski
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Harold and Maude
The Wanderers
The Bride with White Hair
Ashes of Time Redux
Tank Girl
Liquid Sky
I’ll have to go with RHPS in the number 1 slot as I was a “cultist” for that film for a number of years in the late 70s, early 80s and much of the music still makes me “shiver in antici Pation”
Others:
Dr. Strangelove (although I have difficulty reconciling such a brilliant and sarcastic a film with “cult)
Buckaroo Banzai
Barbarella
If we define cult as something that ‘I’ can watch repeatedly with no loss of interest, I’d have to add Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia and …that film on the tip of my tongue that was there a minute ago….
Head
The Bed-Sitting Room
Sonatine
Hudson Hawk
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Labyrinth
Krull
Better Off Dead
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Manos: The Hands of Fate
Troll Hunter (sneaks in in 2010)
Troll 2
Blade Runner
Logan’s Run
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
Project A-ko (anime)
Death Bed
Five Deadly Venoms
The Heroic Trio
Should be “before” at least 2010, or some such. Word out.
Anyway.
LEMONADE JOE (imaginative filming of 1930s musical Czech capitalist western parody)
FORBIDDEN ZONE (the Betty Boop musical—now in kolor)
MOVIE MOVIE (totally immersive 30s movie pastiche that never gives itself away)
BEDAZZLED (Pete and Dud’s testament)
J-MEN FOREVER (Proctor & Begrman dub re-cut serials to perfection)
BETTER OFF DEAD needs to be in there.
HELLZAPOPPIN
Starship Troopers…..natch
No meeting of my friends is complete without at least one Princess Bride or Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference….
Seconds for Streets of Fire, Heavy Metal, and Zardoz.
Blade Runner, and a couple others, seems too good to fit into cult. It feels like cult should be something that ends up liked in spite of itself; a guilty pleasure that would never make a serious awards list; and especially something MST3000 would run.
Some of these weren’t originally cult films, but have by now edged towards that designation.
Amelie (2002)
Animal House (1978)
Best in Show (2000)
Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls (1970)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
Blazing Saddles (1974)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Brazil (1985)
Carrie (1976)
Clerks (1995)
Cube (1997)
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Donnie Darko (2001)
Dune (1984)
Eating Raoul (1982)
Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (1988)
The Evil Dead (1981)
eXistenZ (1999)
Fantastic Planet (1973)
Fargo (1996)
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)
Forbidden Zone (1980)
Freeway (1997)
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
Ghost World (2001)
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004)
Harold and Maude (1971)
Mulholland Drive (2001)
Myra Breckinridge (1970)
Naked Lunch (1991)
Natural Born Killers (1994)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Paprika (2007)
Pink Flamingos (1972)
A Scanner Darkly (2006)
Serial Mom (1994)
Solaris (1971)
Spanking the Monkey (1994)
Strangers With Candy (2006)
Suspiria (1977)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
The Wild Bunch (1969)
Woman in the Dunes (1964)
Yellow Submarine (1968)
Young Frankenstein (1974)
Harold and Maude
Adventures in Babysitting
Near Dark
And seconds for Dark Star and Silent Running. Labyrinth, too, definitely, although I personally can’t for the life of me see why.
I feel as though it is so obvious that Spinal Tap should be on here that it’s some sort of trap…
Also: They Might Be Giants (1971)
Did I forget Spinal Tap? o.O
Rollerball (1975)
The President’s Analyst (1967) — although I’m unsure if this is a cult movie, or just a bit old and obscure.
Well, now I see it. Clearly I should have been drinking more coffee.
THE PRESIDENT’S ANALYST! Still one of the most enjoyable paranoid movies out there, with a conspiracy theory that holds its power.
Pee Wee’s Big Adventure
Mystery Men
Titan A.E.
Spice World
I feel as though it is so obvious that Spinal Tap should be on here that it’s some sort of trap…
One could almost say that about any Christopher Guest movie.
Office Space
Team America: World Police
Caddyshack
The Big Lebowski
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Repo Man
This is Spinal Tap
Die Hard
Fight Club
Dazed and Confused
Night of the Living Dead
Enthusiastic support for:
Flash Gordon (1980)
Labyrinth
The Dark Crystal
The Princess Bride
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Life of Brian
Plan 9 From Outer Space
Not mentioned yet:
Manos: The Hands of Fate
Wings of Honneamise
Godzilla (the original, not the re-edited Raymond Burr version)
Mothra
Invasion of Astro-Monster
Destroy All Monsters
(and pretty much all the Toho monster movies of a certain vintage, but those are some of the better-known ones)
The Magic Christian
…hey, is there a minimum length requirement? If not:
Hardware Wars
Closet Cases of the Third Kind
Der Fuehrer’s Face
No love for the ICE PIRATES? Space herpes! Robots that work like defective used cars! (also, Gordon Garb worked on it)
Can’t overestimate how refreshing the robot thing was in a sea of cutesy anthropomorphic bots with big friendly eyes.
Labyrinth
Legend
Godzilla (1954)
Metropolis
Rocky Horror Picture Show
Serenity
The Princess Bride
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Anything you watch at midnight showings or get together with friends and quote most of the movie.
ICE PIRATES: a robot removes a screw from its belly and its ass falls off.
PUCKOON
CALL ME GENIUS
I am somewhat embarrassed to observe that the fraction of these movies that I have seen is far higher than for the books in any of the SF/F brackets.
Hey, you got some of my favorites already.
Hell Comes to Frogtown
They Live
Labyrinth
Silent Running
also too:
Waterworld
Merlin (miniseries with Sam Neill)
Tremors
Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (with Molly Ringwald and Peter Strauss–when I saw it, I thought, “Peter Strauss has won an Emmy! What’s he doing in this?”)
Battle Beyond the Stars (an outer space version of The Magnificent Seven, with John-Boy Walton!)
Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere (miniseries)
and: There is a movie called The Killer Condom? *boggles*
I deliberately didn’t read through other people’s nominations first…
The following are not necessarily movies that I, personally, enjoy. They’re ones that I know to have cult status within the social circles I move in.
Rocky Horror Picture Show
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
The Princess Bride
May think of more later.
The Pirate Movie (1982, dir. Ken Anakin)
Ice Pirates
Flash Gordon
Hackers
A Life Less Ordinary
I’ll +1 Ice Pirates, The joys I got watching male relations squirm at the castration machine made that horrid movie worth while.
Seconding Rock & Rule and Six-String Samurai.
Also:
Road House (1989)
“Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea”
Horror Express
Time Bandits
Jabberwocky
Alphaville
California Dolls / aka …All the Marbles
Get Carter
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Dead Ringers
Witchfinder General / aka The Conqueror Worm
Excalibur
Cat People
+1 Ice Pirates
+1 Brazil
+1 Shock Treatment
Nobody has mentioned “The Fifth Element” (especially in this crowd…)?
And i too am somewhat concerned over how many of these films i’ve seen.
PS: “The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak” – for which the one word review was “Yuck”.
It’s hard, sometimes, to disentangle this sort of category. The “get together with friends and quote the whole movie” definition is pretty good, although that’s not my particular cup-of-tea.
Anyway, my two main nominations are:
The Wizard of Speed and Time (1989, depending upon how you count it)
The Thief and the Cobbler: The Recobbled cut (2006)
and, related to the second one above, I think The Phantom Edit (2000-2001) perhaps deserves assessment too.
Jubilee (1978)
The Devils (1972)
The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
+1 for the The Wizard of Speed and Time, but the original 1979 film
+1 for Time Bandits
And maybe too obscure to make the cut, but should be mentioned just in case:
The Rutles
Down Among the Z Men
Good call on The Fifth Element.
Also, Hercules in New York.
Probably all of these have been said, but…
Reservoir Dogs
Clerks
Army of Darkness
Pink Floyd: The Wall
Strictly Ballroom
Cry Baby
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Hairspray (original John Waters version)
But I’m A Cheerleader!
From other peoples nominations, I’ll second:
Cube
Destroy All Monsters
Evil Dead
Evil Dead 2
Fantastic Planet
Forbidden Zone
Knightriders
Mystery Men
Rock & Rule
Shaolin Soccer
Zardoz
And I hadn’t forgotten Spinal Tap. ^^
Agreeing on:
Life of Brian
Brazil
The Princess Bride
Silent Running
Metropolis
And adding:
Ladyhawke
Les Enfants du Paradis