By Kaitlyn Welch, Photo Editor
We have all seen at least one of these in our lifetime, and even if we haven’t, they still manage to impact us at some point or another. That’s right; I am talking about cult classics. Believe it or not, there are quite a few movies that have gained the label “cult classic” over the past 6 decades. Most were produced in the 1970s-1990s;
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
(1975),
Rocky Horror Picture Show
(1975), Sid and Nancy (1986), Friday the 13th (1980) and even Scarface (1983), just to name a few.
What makes these movies “cult classic” worthy? The Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of a cult film is that they have to have an “enduring” appeal to a small audience, or that they have to be so horrible that they are good.
Many cult classics tend to break cultural taboos, and can feature displays of gore, profanity, sexuality, violence, or a mixture of all of these things. Sometimes, it can even be a back-fire that the producers weren’t expecting that makes their film into a cult classic.
Reefer Madness,
for example, was actually first released by a church group in 1936 to try and show the dangers of marijuana, and now the film is extremely popular in the pot smoking community. (Oh, the irony).
Also, The Wizard of Oz (1939) is significant to the British/ American gay culture because of Dorothy’s struggle to escape the black and white every day norm. The best thing about cult movies is that you never know what to expect: they can either be really good, really bad, so bad that they are good, or sometimes even so good that they end up being bad.
There are many different types of cult genres such as “so good it’s bad”, camp and guilty pleasures, midnight movies, animation, and nonfiction, just to name a few.
Even some horror movies, such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) can be classified as a cult classic due to its bloody death scenes that weren’t popular in the 70s but became intriguing during the 1990s. Night of the Living Dead (1968) wasn’t popular when it first came out because people didn’t like the thought of zombies running around eating people, but now millions of people love this movie for the exact same reason.
Rocky Horror Picture Show, a
lso known as a midnight movie, didn’t get many viewings when it first came out in 1975, but now it is a major deal to many young people (15-25), because of its fun musical numbers such as the Time Warp or Sweet Transvestite.
Many theatres put on live showings of RHPS where people can dress up however they like and participate along with the actors. Webb City Little Theatre hosts many showings each year at the Webb City’s Route 66 Movie Theatre. To see upcoming showings, like their Facebook page: Route 66 Movie Theatre.
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