The Death of Cult - The Beginning of Modern Cinema
Cult is a genre of film grounded in all things transgressive and taboo, most often marked by passionate, dedicated fanbases, box office failure, controversy, camp, and -perhaps most importantly- exclusion from mainstream cinema. Originally coined as sort of an umbrella term to describe the culture surrounding underground and midnight movies, cult soon evolved into a medium entirely its own, with the most successful of the genre’s films being labeled as “cult classics.” The foundation of cult film was built on the desire to rebel against the mainstream and to represent a counterculture that was rejected by societal standards. And yet, as American culture has evolved, most of the defining elements of cult film have been absorbed and integrated into mainstream cinema, making it nearly impossible for anything produced today to be recognized as true cult.
The earliest form of cult cinema, the exploitation film, is argued to have been around since nearly the beginning of cinematic history. While some of these films were produced as early as the 1920s, it wasn’t until the 1960s and 70s that the genre truly became popularized. With traditionally lower budgets and lesser-known actors, many of these productions were dubbed “B movies” and were generally intended for less distribution than the major studio productions; however, the terms “B movie” and “exploitation film” aren’t quite interchangeable. B movies were still meant to be consumed by the mainstream, and accepted with their counterparts, the A-film to their double feature. Exploitation films relied on success through the exploitation of controversial subject matter; sex, drugs, violence, gore, nudity, etc. Popularized during an era of sexual oppression and high moralistic values, exploitation films provided exactly the thrill and/or release that many people were searching for, by playing into natural, human curiosity and desire. The Hays Code, adopted in 1930, and more strictly enforced as time went on, presented regulations that prevented seedier exploitation films from being shown in most major theaters in an attempt to “keep Hollywood clean.” Although it was meant to end exploitation in film, the Hays Code, and the accompanying denial it presented the public with, fueled the need for exploitation in film. And while these films weren’t allowed to premier in major theaters, there were plenty of “grindhouse” theaters on the exploitation circuit which allowed for publicity. As exploitation continued to thrive, it became the building blocks for the cultist cinematic movements emerging in the latter half of the 20th century.
One of the most influential of these cinematic movements, known as the “midnight movie” movement, has had a monumental impact on cinema as we know it today. It’s agreed amongst most scholars that the midnight movie movement began in the late 1960s, as underground and avant-garde theaters started programming risqué and exploitative materials. The term “midnight movie” is most traditionally associated with New York City; despite the fact that the movement was worldwide and thrived in certain areas of both North America and Europe, it’s the NYC midnight movie scene that has been studied most extensively. There’s debate about which film was truly the first “midnight movie”; generally, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1970 acid-Western, El Topo, is recognized as the spark behind the midnight movie phenomenon. Midnight movies were, in the simplest sense, movies that were screened at midnight. There was no advertisement for these films, save a minuscule line on the bottom of a theater ad, simply stating that the film would be screened at midnight; all other advertisement was strictly word of mouth, and yet the theaters were completely sold-out with many movie-goes returning for multiple showings. One of the biggest draws to midnight movies was the fact that the mainstream hated them; they were against everything that these films stood for. Mark Betz describes the shift to midnight movies as:
“[when] “kinky” foreign art films and American underground films came together, near the end of the 1960s, in an exploitation/art circuit that emphasized the countercultural potential of cinema.”
A counter culture is essentially a culture that rejects the ideas valued by another culture; in the case of the midnight movie, this was a rejection of mainstream societal values and standards. However, as the 1970s progressed, the countercultural movement began to lose momentum. Midnight movies became even more outrageous than ever before, but as their popularity increased the counterculture ideology that marked the movement was replaced by what Mathijs and Sexton deem, “generic and aesthetic radicalism.” Art house and B-movie distributors became more engaged in the midnight movie, and the original films were replaced by a string of new sub-genres that included lesbian vampire movies, porn chic, blaxploitation movies, and foreign philosophical allegories.
Easily the most notorious among this new batch of films was John Waters’ 1972 exploitation comedy, Pink Flamingos. Every aspect of the film oozes transgression, even by today’s standards, with Waters’ goal being to push against every boundary he could – something he did successfully; he didn’t just push boundaries, but rather obliterated them completely. Waters himself has described the film as, “a terrorist act against the tyranny of good taste,” and it’s this approach of directly challenging “good taste” through utter revulsion that made his film such a hit.
Fun fact: John Waters has been quoted with, "I made bad taste one percent more respectable, and that was what I was put on this earth to do." This is, in my opinion, an incredibly important quotation when considering the shift from midnight moves to mainstream cinema; not only did Waters make bad taste more respectable, but he made it more desirable, and in doing so has used this aversion to good taste in order to breach the gap between cult and mainstream cinema, ultimately helping to normalize certain taboo elements and desensitize today's audiences against it.
By the late 1970s, the midnight movie had become so popular that it was actually considered “a staple of alternative cinema exhibition.” As more people began to partake in these midnight screenings, they quickly became recognized as cult. Many of said screenings were accompanied by their own rituals and celebrations; especially the “campy rock musicals,” such as Rocky Horror Picture Show. These films became as much performances of cult, as they were cult themselves. Everything about these midnight movies revolved not only around the rejection of traditionalism, but the sense of community and the experience that came along with the almost exclusive screenings. However, just as the midnight movie phenomenon was incredibly influential, it was equally short-lived. After the 1970s, midnight movies began to quickly die out. The invention of the VCR had a huge impact on how movies were received. People no longer had to go to a theater to see these films; they could still do all of the same things that they’d do at a midnight screening ( such as smoking pot and having sex) but now they were able to do these things from the comfort of their own homes. Not only could they stay home, but they could pause, rewind, and watch the films as much as they wanted. By the end of the decade many of the original midnight theaters had gone out of business, and filmmakers either went underground once more, or they began to gravitate towards the independent film scene. It was incredibly rare for new midnight movie cults to appear.
Not only did midnight movie cult become rare, but cult itself became rare. Midnight movies loosened everything up, and then the shift happened; the sensibilities of the American public were altered by the integration of transgressive, taboo, and radical elements into our films, our sense of humor, and our very identity. When it became possible to make big budget, big cult films, the mainstream shifted completely to encompass everything that it had been missing. These directors had communicated so particularly and so effectively to the audience that they’d found, and they demonstrated to generations of producers that success through these types of films was not only possible, but it was unparalleled. Even filmmakers who were involved with midnight movies became more mainstream themselves; only thirty years after the premiere of Pink Flamingos, John Waters produced Hairspray, a Broadway musical. The filmmakers themselves didn’t change, nor did their values and their humors, but rather it was the American public that changed as a collective.
Unlike many of the older, midnight movie filmmakers, the authors of “Cult Cinema: An Introduction” would disagree with the idea that the midnight movies have died. They say:
“As befits cult receptions, the midnight movie did not really die. Since the 1990s the demise of the original phenomenon was balanced by three other trends. First,new films found their ways into festivals, which increasingly included midnight showings as part of their programs. Second, midnight premieres also became a feature of blockbuster releases vying for cult status.Third, the midnight movie phenomenon went into meta-mode […] audiences at the New York Pioneer Theater, aware of the legacy of the midnight movie phenomenon, were not only continuing a tradition that had existed for more than thirty years,they also consciously knew they were contributing to the heritage of the phenomenon by keeping it alive, or honoring the tradition by paying lip service to it.”
I personally agree with men like John Waters, George Romero, and David Lynch; Hollywood embraced the values and ideas put forth by these cult films, and by doing so it caused the death of the midnight movie and ensured that cult was rendered almost extinct. Cult is about so much more than liking a movie; it’s about the experience – it crosses boundaries of time, custom, form, and good taste, it violates our sense of the reasonable; and this is exactly what appeals to the film cultist. We’re allowed to vicariously delve into dangerous territory, but when it’s all said and done we can fall back on our reality – a world of reason. Transgression in a film challenges our ideas of morality, it puts us into a world of “what ifs,” and it sheds light onto an aspect of human nature that isn’t deemed pretty enough to be reflected in mainstream cinema. The counterculture of cult has somehow lost its ability to counter, and has simply become our culture. It has become impossible for anything to be transgressive, because we’ve become desensitized to amorality; it has become impossible for anything to be ironic, because everything is ironic; and it has become impossible for anything to elicit that forbidden thrill that moviegoers once sought, because we no longer need to venture out of our world and into the world of “what ifs” because we’ve already been there, we’ve seen that, and we’re exposed to it from the time we’re old enough to comprehend cinema. The need for these midnight, cult movies has disappeared because we’re now so readily exposed to everything they could have ever offered us; and the real reason it’s so difficult to find a film that is true cult lies in the fact that it’s so hard to produce anything that hasn’t already been done, that hasn’t already spoken, or that really has anything important left to say.
Sources:
“Cult Cinema: An Introduction.” Ernest Mathijs and Jamie Sexton. Cult Reception Contexts
Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream (2005)
Cult Movies 