Friday, March 30, 2012

Guide to Cult Movies and Cult Films

What is a cult movie? A cult movie is a movie that earns a fanatical following by a small group of people. It's also a movie that bears watching many, many times and contains memorable, repeatable dialogue. Cult movies are preferably made socially unacceptable ingredients, such as horror, sex, violence, or science fiction.

Some movies, like Star Wars and Casablanca have devoted followings, but those are considered too large for cult status. The main idea is that we love our cult movies specifically because we know that most people don't.

The following are cult films endorsed by Combustible Celluloid. I've seen these movies over and over in the theater and on video. They are films that I know well enough to play in my head. But they are films without which I might just perish were I on a desert island.

Please keep checking back. This page will be updated from time to time.

The third film in Sam Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy features more zombies, more action, more laughs, and more kisses. "Gimme some sugar, baby!"


Audition (2001)
That's no doubt Audition is a horror film, but some audience members will be scratching their heads waiting for the first really scary moment, which does not arrive for one full hour. The film's slow first half directly compliments the second, which contains scenes so gruesome that I feel the need to warn the weak-hearted away. 

Frank Henelotter's amazing low-budget splatter comedy showcases Siamese twin brothers -- one normal, the other a squishy little beast who lives in a basket -- searching for revenge on the New York doctors who separated them.

This mind-blowing Japanese film is endlessly entertaining, by turns gory and hilarious, disturbing and exciting. The great Japanese exploitation filmmaker Kinji Fukasaku (The Green Slime, Yakuza Graveyard) was nearly seventy when he made this masterpiece, and it turned out to be his final completed film.

Any of the Coen Brothers' films could qualify as cult classics, but this one is both the most underappreciated and has the most fanatical following. That's mostly thanks to Jeff Bridges' brilliantly laid-back performance as The Dude. "That rug really tied the room together..."

John Carpenter's goofy kung-fu comic book adventure revels in its own silliness and features an amazing John Wayne-ish performance by Kurt Russell.

Edgar G. Ulmer's expressionistic horror film teams Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi for the first time and also spins a Poe-like tale of murder, possession, torture and imprisonment.

Black Sunday (a.k.a. The Mask of Satan) stars Barbara Steele as a resurrected witch and her modern-day double. It was Mario Bava's first film as director and a huge hit for distributor American International Pictures.

Ridley Scott's bleak, rainy sci-fi epic starring Harrison Ford as a nearly washed-up Replicant hunter reveals a new layer with each viewing. With Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, Daryl Hannah and Brion James. From a Philip K. Dick novel.

David Lynch's brightly colored suburban horror show peels away America's facade and revels in the dark sex we like to imagine that we don't think about. With Kyle MacLachlan, Laura Dern, Isabella Rossellini and Dennis Hopper.

Brazil (1985)
Terry Gilliam's futuristic comedy squeezes the life out of the world and builds it into higher and higher vertical towers. Jonathan Pryce plays the everyman whose life is changed by some bungled paperwork.

Brick (2006)
In a combination of Dashiell Hammett and high school movies, Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) tries to solve the murder of his ex-girlfriend, using lots of rock-hard, quotable dialogue in the process.

Sam Peckinpah's strangest, and perhaps most personal, movie continues to fascinate his hardcore fans long after discussions of the violence in The Wild Bunch has faded away.

Cat People (1942)
Jacques Tourneur directs Val Lewton's brilliant, atmospheric production about a Serbian woman (Simone Simon) who may or may not turn into a cat when aroused.

Stanley Kubrick brilliantly and hilariously adapts Anthony Burgess' cautionary sci-fi novel about a vicious punk (Malcolm McDowell) who undergoes scientific treatment to make him "fit" for society.

Crumb (1995)
The greatest documentary ever made, Terry Zwigoff's film gets to the soul of its fascinating subject, and the underground nature of Crumb's art makes this a compulsively watchable, irreverent cult classic.

Based on an Italian comic book (or "fumetti"), this Mario Bava crime thriller has never enjoyed the devotion of Bava's horror films. John Phillip Law plays the title character, a master criminal with an underground lair and a sexy, blond girlfriend (Marisa Mell).

Detour (1945)
Edgar G. Ulmer's nasty little B-noir is a road movie in which Tom Neal never has a chance once he crosses paths with Ann Savage, the wickedest of all femme fatales.

Richard Kelly makes an incredible directorial debut with this sci-fi, horror, coming-of-age tale of a poor schizophrenic (Jake Gyllenhal) who, with the help of with a giant demonic rabbit, glimpses a vision of a terrible future. Drew Barrymore and Patrick Swayze are very good in supporting roles.

Ed Wood (1994)
Tim Burton's beautiful and funny homage to the worst filmmaker who ever lived (played by Johnny Depp). Shot in black and white, the film dutifully re-creates three of Wood's masterworks.

Robert Clouse's kung-fu epic showcases the great Bruce Lee at his absolute best, culminating in an amazing fight scene in a room of mirrors.


Eraserhead (1977)
David Lynch's unusual and powerful black-and-white Eraserhead is certainly one of the greatest debuts by an American director. There's also something slightly compulsive about watching it, which explains its success as a midnight cult film during the Rocky Horror-era.

Some fans prefer this much lower-budget original to the slick sequel, and it has some definite advantages, including an energetic, DIY energy and a more genuine grindhouse-era vibe.

Sam Raimi perfected the horror comedy with this kinetic, hilarious tale of Bruce Campbell fighting off unseen evil demons in a cabin in the woods.

Russ Meyer's fast car, fast women crime picture features three amazon go-go dancers who try to swindle a nasty old man out of his hidden fortune.

John Waters fans might argue over whether the earlier films are better than the more recent ones, but the truth is that any Waters film qualifes as a cult classic. Female Trouble is one of the funniest and most outrageous, with Divine playing the petulant Dawn Davenport. "I hate you and I hate Christmas!"

Freaks (1932)
Tod Browning's circus sideshow horror flick focuses on the humanity of (real) circus freaks, climaxing in a horrific show of revenge.

In order to save their town from developers, a group of rowdy kids pins all their hopes on finding an old pirate treasure supposedly hidden nearby. A little like an "Indiana Jones Junior," The Goonies has recently become a cult item among Gen Xers, who fondly remember the film from their childhood or teen years.

Gun Crazy (1949)
One of the greatest of all films, this "B" movie classic has it all. In telling his story of two lovers on the run, director Joseph H. Lewis uses a startling immediacy not found in any other films at the time.

Heathers (1989)
Michael Lehmann directs the greatest and most realistic high school movie ever made with Christian Slater as a student obsessed with causing teen suicides and Winona Ryder as his would-be girlfriend.

Jacques Tourneur directs Val Lewton's masterpiece, a voodoo zombie remake of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.

Labyrinth (1986)
Quite a collection of talents assembled for this one: David Bowie (who sings), Jim Henson, Terry Jones of Monty Python, producer George Lucas, future director and voice artist Frank Oz, and the unbearably gorgeous Jennifer Connelly. It's was sort of made for kids, but instead it's weird, funny, and compulsively watchable.


Let Me In (2010)
The rare remake that stands up next to the original, different, but almost as good. Kodi Smit-McPhee and Chloë Grace Moretz are worthy American counterparts, playing the weird, lonely boy tormented by bullies, and the peculiar, blood-lusting girl who has been "twelve for a long time."

This strange, cool, beautiful Swedish vampire film from director Tomas Alfredson practically re-invented the subgenre; oddly, it opened in the U.S. the same day as Twilight, but true genre fans knew which one to see.

Memento (2001)
To portray a man with no short-term memory, director Christopher Nolan very simply lays out his film in reverse, so that we have no idea what happened just moments before. Bottle-blond Guy Pearce plays the lead role, a man hunting for his wife's killer using only Polaroids and other clues he leaves for himself. Joe Pantoliano and Carrie Anne Moss co-star.

Endlessly quotable, guaranteed to make you laugh until you're breathless, this ramshackle comedy from five Brits and one American not only endures, but it launched the awesome directing career of Terry Gilliam.

David Cronenberg's brilliant adaptation of an unadaptable novel by William S. Burroughs. Peter Weller inhabits the persona of the junkie writer stuck in the Interzone with a talking bug typewriter. With Judy Davis, Roy Scheider, Julian Sands and Ian Holm.

Near Dark (1987)
Kathryn Bigelow's stylish, ultra-violent tale of redneck vampires may be the best of its genre. Starring Bill Paxton, Jenny Wright and Lance Henriksen.

George A. Romero's uncommonly intelligent zombie flick has as much to say about the living as it does the dead.


Pandora's Box (1928)
Louise Brooks' mysterious, alluring gaze was the equal of Garbo's and superior to nearly everyone else, before or since. She had a twinkle in her eye and a sly, dazzling smile that enchanted and endangered. This dark drama is so shockingly sensual that Brooks' Lulu can't find her match until she decides she likes the looks of someone named Jack.

Michael Powell's Technicolor horror film delves into the purest form of voyeurism as a cameraman goes on a killing spree, stabbing women with his tripod while filming their expressions.

Tim Burton's feature debut is a road movie with the unflappable Pee-Wee (Paul Reubens) trying to get his stolen bike back.

Pi (1998)
Darren Aronofsky made his feature debut with this highly imaginative, low-budget sci-fi story, relying on multiple, mathematical ideas and low-tech execution.

Edward D. Wood Jr.'s masterpiece has Bela Lugosi in his last film role and space aliens reviving earth's recent dead in order to take over the world.

Stuart Gordon's clever and funny sci-fi story has two medical students reviving corpses and getting into more and more trouble with each one.

Repo Man (1984)
Alex Cox's punk comedy follows a young repo man (Emilio Estevez) who learns the Meaning of Life from the master Harry Dean Stanton as they hunt for a $20,000 Chevy Malibu with some dead aliens hidden in the trunk.

George Miller's fuel-injected futuristic car movie features Mel Gibson as a leather-clad badass who cruises the highways in search of gasoline, occasionally battling with freaks of all shapes and sizes.

Allan Arkush's teen comedy features the greatest rock band of all time, the Ramones, inspiring students like Riff Randell (P.J. Soles) to take over the high school. (Co-written by Joe Dante and Joseph McBride.)

Rushmore (1998)
Jason Schwartzman stretches himself a little too thin while attending Rushmore, including a helpless crush on a beautiful teacher (Olivia Williams) and a friendship with an inconsolably sad entrepreneur (Bill Murray in one of his greatest performances). Every quirky move and every deadpan line reading just zings.

A most unusual, tricky, and dense adapatation of Philip K. Dick, directed in quasi-animated style by Richard Linklater; this one baffled even sci-fi fans when it opened, but it endures.


Serenity (2005)
Joss Whedon wrote and directed this feature film based on his short-lived TV series "Firefly." Serenity is a delightful, infectious blend of pulp Westerns, Star Trek, Star Wars and even samurai films. Whedon's language deliberately evokes the rawhide talk of the Old West, while imagining potential new slang and other hybrids. 

Edgar Wright directs this spot-on zombie comedy, which spends more time setting up a sense of place, developing characters and creating brilliant jokes than on zombie effects and gore. Star Simon Pegg co-wrote the screenplay.

This is a true masterpiece of the unrest of the 1960s, years before Easy Rider or anything else remotely like it, going into crazy, angry places and finishing up as one of Samuel Fuller's greatest works.

Alex Cox's bio-pic of the Sex Pistols' infamous bass player and his abrasive blonde girlfriend rises to the top through its great performances by Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb.

Jack Hill's strange B-flick features Lon Chaney Jr. as the caretaker for a family whose members go more and more insane as they get older.

Jonathan Demme's concert film with the Talking Heads may be the most exuberant and best-paced of its kind.

Jim Jarmusch's minimalist black-and-white road comedy masterpiece features a couple of losers whose dull lives are interrupted by the visit of a cute female Hungarian cousin.

Rob Reiner's uncanny, phony rock documentary is still the unprecedented champ of the genre. Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer offer dead-on performances of brain-dead British heavy-metal rockers.

Twin Peaks (1990)
This one counts because a slightly re-edited version of the two-hour pilot (included in this box set) was shown theatrically in Japan. Aside from that, David Lynch's majestic, amazing TV series was as cinematic as anything else going on in the early 1990s.


Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)
Lambasted by critics, this was lumped in with the worst of its year, mainly because it wasn't much like the TV show. The film contains tons of nightmare imagery that looks filtered through fluorescent lights and often goes unanswered. It's a seriously underrated work and one of Lynch's purest dives into his own twisted soul.

Monte Hellman's existential race movie shatters all expectations with its minimal dialogue and long, slow takes. Starring the great Warren Oates and rockers Dennis Wilson and James Taylor.

Videodrome (1983)
David Cronenberg's ultra-bizarre sci-fi story explores the relationship between man and video -- literally. James Woods and Deborah Harry star.

In a kind of bizarro New York, an innocent gang tries to get back across the city to Coney Island after being wrongly accused of murder; along the way, every other gang in the city, each with its own costume and motif, tries to kill them. Walter Hill directs this energetic, unforgettable work.

Edward Woodward plays a puritan cop who arrives on a remote island to investigate the disappearance of a young girl, but the townspeople seem to know nothing about it. This brilliantly unfolds in perfectly sculpted waves and including fascinating subtexts.
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