The term
midnight movie is rooted in the practice that emerged in the 1950s of local television stations around the United States airing low-budget genre films as late-night programming, often with a host delivering ironic asides. As a cinematic phenomenon, the midnight screening of offbeat movies began in the early 1970s in a few urban centers, particularly
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, eventually spreading across the country. The screening of nonmainstream pictures at midnight was aimed at building a
cult filmA cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...
audience, encouraging repeat viewing and social interaction in what was originally a
counterculturalCounterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
setting. The national success of
The Rocky Horror Picture ShowThe Rocky Horror Picture Show is the 1975 film adaptation of the British rock musical stageplay, The Rocky Horror Show, written by Richard O'Brien. The film is a parody of B-movie, science fiction and horror films of the late 1940s through early 1970s. Director Jim Sharman collaborated on the...
and the changing economics of the film exhibition industry altered the nature of the midnight movie phenomenon; as its association with broader trends of cultural and political opposition dwindled in the 1980s, the midnight movie became a more purely
campCamp is an aesthetic sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its taste and ironic value. The concept is closely related to kitsch, and things with camp appeal may also be described as being "cheesy"...
experience—in effect, bringing it closer to the television form that shares its name. The term
midnight movie is now often used in two different, though related, ways: as a synonym for
B movieA B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
, reflecting the relative cheapness characteristic of late-night movies both theatrically and on TV, and as a synonym for
cult film.
On television
In 1953, the
Screen Actors GuildThe Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...
agreed to a
residualsA residual is a payment made to the creator of performance art for subsequent showings or screenings of the work. A typical use is in the payment of residuals for television reruns. The word is often used in the plural form.-Radio and television:The residual system started in U.S. network radio...
payment plan that greatly facilitated the distribution of B movies to television. A number of local television stations around the United States soon began showing inexpensive genre films in late-night slots. In the spring of 1954, Los Angeles TV station
KABCKABC-TV, channel 7, is an owned-and-operated television station of the Walt Disney Company-owned American Broadcasting Company, licensed to Los Angeles, California. KABC-TV's studios are located in Glendale, California...
expanded on the concept by having an appropriately offbeat host introduce the films: for a year on Saturday nights,
The Vampira ShowThe Vampira Show was an American variety show hosted by Vampira. The series aired on the Los Angeles ABC television affiliate KABC-TV from April 30, 1954, through April 2, 1955...
, with
Maila NurmiMaila Nurmi was a Finnish-American actress who created the campy 1950s characterVampira. She portrayed Vampira as TV's first horror host and in the Ed Wood cult film Plan 9 from Outer Space...
in her newly adopted persona of a sexy bloodsucker ("Your pin-down girl"), presented low-budget movies with black humor and a low-cut black dress. The show—which ran at midnight for four weeks before shifting to 11 p.m. and, later, 10:30—aired horror pictures like
Devil Bat's Daughter and
Strangler of the Swamp and suspense films such as
Murder by Invitation,
The Charge Is Murder, and
Apology for Murder. The format was echoed by stations across the country, who began showing their late-night B movies with
in-character hostsHorror hosts are a particular type of television presenter, often tasked with presenting low-grade films to television audiences. This tradition is primarily American, though there have been a few international hosts over the years.-Film Packages:...
such as
ZacherleyJohn Zacherle is an American television host, radio personality and voice actor known for his long career as a television horror host broadcasting horror movies in Philadelphia and New York City in the 1950s and 1960s. Best known for his character "Roland/Zacherley," he also did voice work for...
and
Morgus the MagnificentMorgus the Magnificent, also known as Momus Alexander Morgus, is a fictional character on television shows that originated in the New Orleans, Louisiana television market. From the late 1950s into the 1980s Morgus was a "horror host" of late-night science fiction and horror movies, and is back on...
offering ironic interjections.
A quarter-century later,
Cassandra PetersonCassandra Peterson is an American actress best known for her on-screen horror hostess character Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. She gained fame on Los Angeles television station KHJ wearing a black, gothic, cleavage-enhancing gown as host of Movie Macabre, a weekly horror movie presentation...
established a persona that was essentially a ditzier, more buxom version of Vampira. As Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, Peterson became the most popular host in the arena of the TV midnight movie. Starting at L.A.'s
KHJ-TVKCAL-TV, channel 9, is an independent television station in Los Angeles, California, USA, owned by the CBS Corporation. KCAL-TV shares its studio facilities with KCBS-TV inside CBS Studio Center in the Studio City section of Los Angeles, and its transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson.-Digital...
in 1981, Elvira's
Movie Macabre was soon being syndicated nationally; Peterson presented mostly cut-rate horror films, interrupted on a regular basis for tongue-in-cheek commentary. Some local stations aired the
Movie Macabre package in late-night slots. Others showed it during
prime timePrime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...
on weekend nights; after a break for the local news, another genre film—a literal midnight movie—might follow, resulting in such virtual double bills as
Dr. Heckyl & Mr. Hype and
The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave.
USA NetworkUSA Network is an American cable television channel launched in 1971. Once a minor player in basic cable, the network has steadily gained popularity because of breakout hits like Monk, Psych, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, Covert Affairs, White Collar, Monday Night RAW, Suits, and reruns of the various...
launched a midnight movie package in 1986—
Up All NightUSA Up All Night is an American cable television series that aired weekly on Friday and Saturday nights on the USA Network. The show aired from 1989 to 1998.-Synopsis:...
, which showed mainly horror and soft-core
sexploitationSexploitation, or "sex-exploitation", describes a class of independently produced, low-budget feature films generally associated with the 1960s and serving largely as a vehicle for the exhibition of non-explicit sexual situations and gratuitous nudity. The genre is a subgenre of exploitation films...
films, ran until 1998. In 1993, Buffalo's
WKBW-TVWKBW-TV, channel 7, is the ABC affiliate for the Buffalo, New York television market, and is one of many local Buffalo TV stations seen over-the-air and on cable in Canada. Its transmitter is located at 8909 Center Street in Colden. The station is owned by the Granite Broadcasting Corporation, who...
began airing a late-night hosted mix of low-budget genre movies and foreign art films,
Off Beat CinemaOff Beat Cinema is a two-hour hosted movie show that airs on television stations throughout North America late at night and features "the Good, the Bad, the Foreign..." but mostly cult movies like Night of the Living Dead, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and even more art house fare like The...
, that was picked up by several local stations around the United States and most recently by the
Retro Television NetworkThe Retro Television Network is a system of television stations that airs classic television shows as well as more recently produced programs...
. In the 2000s, horror-oriented late-night movie programming has disappeared from many broadcast stations, though B pictures, mostly of a melodramatic nature, are still widely used in post–prime time slots. The small
America OneAmerica One is an over-the-air television network in the United States. The network serves over 170 LPTV, Class A, Full Power, Cable and Satellite affiliate stations...
broadcast network distributes the
Macabre Theatre movie package hosted by
Butch PatrickButch Patrick is a former American child actor. He is widely known for his role on the TV show The Munsters where he played Eddie Munster, the son of Herman and Lily Munster...
, known for his portrayal of
Eddie MunsterEdward Wolfgang "Eddie" Munster is a fictional character on the CBS sitcom The Munsters, originally played by Butch Patrick. The only child of Herman and Lily Munster, Eddie is a werewolf...
on the 1960s show
The MunstersThe Munsters is a 1960s American family television sitcom depicting the home life of a family of monsters. It starred Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster and Yvonne De Carlo as his wife, Lily Munster. The series was a satire of both traditional monster movies and popular family entertainment of the era,...
. In 2006,
Turner Classic MoviesTurner Classic Movies is a movie-oriented cable television channel, owned by the Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary of Time Warner, featuring commercial-free classic movies, mostly from the Turner Entertainment and MGM, United Artists, RKO and Warner Bros. film libraries...
began airing cult films as part of its new late-night series,
TCM UndergroundTCM Underground is a weekly late-night cult film showcase airing on Turner Classic Movies. Developed by TCM programmers Millie De Chirico and Eric Weber, it was originally hosted by industrial rock/heavy metal musician and independent filmmaker Rob Zombie. TCM Underground began airing Friday the...
.
In the cinema
Since at least as far back as the 1930s,
exploitation filmExploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...
s had sometimes been presented at midnight screenings, usually as part of independent roadshow operations. In 1957,
Hammer FilmsHammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies and in later...
'
The Curse of Frankenstein set off a spate of midnight presentations. What film qualifies as the first true midnight movie in the sense of the term that emerged in the 1970s remains an open question. Critic Jennifer M. Wood points to the Palace Theater in San Francisco's
North BeachNorth Beach is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf and Russian Hill. The neighborhood is San Francisco's Little Italy, and has historically been home to a large Italian American population. It still holds many Italian restaurants today, though...
district where, in 1968,
San Francisco Art InstituteSan Francisco Art Institute is a school of higher education in contemporary art with the main campus in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco, California. Its graduate center is in the Dogpatch neighborhood. The private, non-profit institution is accredited by WASC and is a member of the...
graduates Michael Wiese and Steven Arnold, after a sellout screening of their
DalíSalvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
-esque thesis film
Messages, Messages, were invited to program offbeat films at midnight. Author Gary Lachman claims that
Kenneth AngerKenneth Anger is an American underground experimental filmmaker, occasional actor and author...
's short
Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969), a mélange of occult symbology intercut with and superimposed on images from a Rolling Stones concert, "inaugurat[ed] the midnight movie cult at the
Elgin TheatreThe Elgin Theater opened in 1942 on Eighth Avenue in New York City. It was designed in the Art Moderne style by Simon Zelnik and was a popular movie house for decades seating 600. It served as a home to cult films and revivals and, later in its career, as an adult theater. In 1978 the community...
." The Elgin, in New York City's
ChelseaChelsea is a neighborhood on the West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The district's boundaries are roughly 14th Street to the south, 30th Street to the north, the western boundary of the Ladies' Mile Historic District – which lies between the Avenue of the Americas and...
neighborhood, would soon become famous as a midnight venue when it gave the U.S. premiere of a very unusual Mexican movie directed and written by a rather Dalí-esque Chilean.
The movie generally recognized as igniting the theatrical midnight film movement is
Alejandro JodorowskyAlejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky, known as Alejandro Jodorowsky, is a Chilean filmmaker, playwright, actor, author, comic book writer and spiritual guru...
's surrealist
El TopoEl Topo is a 1970 Spanish language allegorical, cult western movie and underground film, directed by and starring Alejandro Jodorowsky...
, which opened in December 1970 at the Elgin. Playing with the conventions of the
spaghetti WesternSpaghetti Western, also known as Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's unique and much copied film-making style and international box-office success, so named by American critics because most were produced and...
, the film was described by one newspaper critic as "full of tests and riddles" and "more phony gore than maybe 20 years of
The Wild BunchThe Wild Bunch is a 1969 American Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah about an aging outlaw gang on the Texas-Mexico border, trying to exist in the changing "modern" world of 1913...
."
El Topo regularly sold out every night for months, with many fans returning on a weekly basis. It ran at the theater through June 1971, until at the prompting of
John LennonJohn Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
—who was reported to have seen the film at least three times—Beatles manager
Allen KleinAllen Klein was an American businessman, talent agent and record label executive. His clients included The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.- The accountant :...
purchased the film through his
ABKCOABKCO Music & Records, Inc. is a major independent record label, music publisher, and film and video production company. It owns and or administers the rights to music by Sam Cooke, The Rolling Stones, The Animals, Herman's Hermits, Marianne Faithfull, The Kinks as well as the Cameo Parkway label,...
film company and gave it a relatively orthodox rerelease. The Elgin soon came up with another midnight hit in
Peter BogdanovichPeter Bogdanovich is an American film historian, director, writer, actor, producer, and critic. He was part of the wave of "New Hollywood" directors, which included William Friedkin, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Michael Cimino, and Francis Ford Coppola...
's spree-killer thriller
TargetsTargets is a thriller film written, produced and directed by Peter Bogdanovich.-Plot summary:The story concerns a quiet insurance agent / Vietnam veteran, played by Tim O'Kelly, who murders his young wife, his mother and a grocery delivery boy at home and then initiates an afternoon shooting...
(1968), featuring one of the last performances by horror movie mainstay
Boris KarloffWilliam Henry Pratt , better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor.Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein , Bride of Frankenstein , and Son of Frankenstein...
and a tale that resonated with the assassinations and other political violence of recent years. By November 1971, four Manhattan theaters beside the Elgin were featuring regularly scheduled midnight movies: the St. Marks (
Viva La Muerte, a blast of surrealism in the Franco-Spanish tradition of
Luis BuñuelLuis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
and another Lennon favorite), the Waverly (
EquinoxEquinox is a 1970 American horror film. Originally made in 1967 under the title The Equinox... A Journey into the Supernatural it was directed by Dennis Muren, and stars Edward Connell as Dave, Barbara Hewitt as Susan Turner Frank Bonner as Jim Hudson and award-winning science fiction/horror writer...
, which had just replaced
Night of the Living DeadNight of the Living Dead is a 1968 American independent black-and-white zombie film and cult film directed by George A. Romero, starring Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea and Karl Hardman. It premiered on October 1, 1968, and was completed on a USD$114,000 budget. After decades of cinematic re-releases, it...
), the Bijou (both
FreaksFreaks is a 1932 American Pre-Code horror film about sideshow performers, directed and produced by Tod Browning and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with a cast mostly composed of actual carnival performers. The film was based on Tod Robbins' 1923 short story "Spurs"...
and
Night of the Living Dead), and the Olympia (
Macunaíma, a Brazilian political
black comedyA black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
).
Equinox (1970) and
Night of the Living Dead (1968), both low-budget horror pictures, demonstrate the ties between the old, TV brand of midnight movie and the newer phenomenon.
George A. RomeroGeorge Andrew Romero is a Canadian-American film director, screenwriter and editor, best known for his gruesome and satirical horror films about a hypothetical zombie apocalypse. He is nicknamed "Godfather of all Zombies." -Life and career:...
's zombie masterpiece, in particular, highlights the differences: produced completely outside of the organized studio system, it has a subversive posture evident throughout and especially in its conclusion, an unmistakable allegory of a racist lynching.
Shot over the winter of 1971–72,
John WatersJohn Samuel Waters, Jr. is an American filmmaker, actor, stand-up comedian, writer, journalist, visual artist, and art collector, who rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films...
's "filth epic"
Pink FlamingosPink Flamingos is a 1972 transgressive black comedy film written, produced, composed, shot, edited, and directed by John Waters. When the film was initially released, it caused a huge degree of controversy and thus became one of the most notorious cult films ever made. It made an underground star...
, featuring incest and
coprophagiaCoprophagia or coprophagy is the consumption of feces, from the Greek κόπρος copros and φαγεῖν phagein . Many animal species practice coprophagia as a matter of course; other species do not normally consume feces but may do so under unusual conditions...
, became the best known of a group of campy midnight films focusing on sexual perversions and
fetishismA fetish is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular, a man-made object that has power over others...
. Filmed on weekends in Waters's hometown of Baltimore, with a mile-long extension cord as a power conduit, it was also crucial in inspiring the growth of the
independent filmAn independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
movement. In 1973, the Elgin Theater started midnight screenings of both
Pink Flamingos and a crime drama from Jamaica with a remarkable soundtrack. In its mainstream release,
The Harder They ComeThe Harder They Come is a 1972 Jamaican crime film directed by Perry Henzell.The film stars reggae singer Jimmy Cliff, who plays Ivanhoe Martin, a character based on Rhyging, a real-life Jamaican criminal who achieved fame in the 1940s...
(1972) had been a flop, panned by critics after its U.S. distributor,
Roger CormanRoger William Corman is an American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for...
's New World Pictures, marketed it as a
blaxploitationBlaxploitation or blacksploitation is a film genre which emerged in the United States circa 1970. It is considered an ethnic sub-genre of the general category of exploitation films. Blaxploitation films were originally made specifically for an urban black audience, although the genre's audience...
picture. Rereleased as a midnight film, it screened around the country for six years, helping spur the popularity of
reggaeReggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
in the United States. While the midnight-movie potential of certain films was recognized only some time after they opened, a number during this period were distributed to take advantage of the market from the beginning—in 1973, for instance,
Broken Goddess,
Dragula,
The White Whore and the Bit Player, and
Elevator Girls in Bondage (as well as
Pink Flamingos) had their New York premieres at midnight screenings. In 1974, midnight opener
Flesh GordonFlesh Gordon is a 1974 American science fiction adventure comedy film. It is an erotic spoof of the Flash Gordon serial films from the 1930s. The screenplay was written by Michael Benveniste, who also co-directed the film with Howard Ziehm...
evidenced how the phenomenon lent itself to flirtations with
pornographyPornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
.
Around this time, the black comedy
Harold and MaudeHarold and Maude is a 1971 American dark comedy film directed by Hal Ashby and released by Paramount Pictures. It incorporates elements of dark humor and existentialist drama, with a plot that revolves around the exploits of a young man intrigued with death, Harold...
(1971) became the first major Hollywood studio movie of the era to develop a substantial cult audience of repeat viewers; though apparently it was not picked up by much of the midnight movie circuit during the 1970s, it subsequently became a late show staple as the phenomenon turned more to camp revivals. The midnight screening phenomenon was spreading around the country. In Milwaukee, it began in May 1974, spurred by the sales manager of a local radio station who had already successfully sponsored such screenings in
St. LouisSt. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
. By the following February, four Milwaukee theaters were regularly showing midnight films, and the
Marcus chainThe Marcus Corporation is a publicly held company headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The company operates two principal divisions: Marcus Theatres and Marcus Hotels and Resorts. One of the company's principal assets, Baymont Motels, was sold to La Quinta Corporation in 2003...
, the owner of one, had brought the concept to its theaters in four other Midwestern cities. "Films that feature rock concerts draw big",
BoxofficeBoxoffice is a film industry magazine dedicated to the movie theatre business published by Boxoffice Media LP. It started in 1920 as The Reel Journal, taking its current name in 1931 and still publishes today, with an intended audience of theatre owners and film professionals.Boxoffice is the...
reported, "as do those dealing with outer space and fantasy". The trade paper noted one popular midnight film by name:
Alice's RestaurantAlice's Restaurant is a 1969 American comedy film co-written and directed by Arthur Penn. It is an adaptation of the 1967 folk song of the same name by singer and songwriter Arlo Guthrie...
(1969), a comedy with political overtones starring folk singer
Arlo GuthrieArlo Davy Guthrie is an American folk singer. Like his father, Woody Guthrie, Arlo often sings songs of protest against social injustice...
.
On the midnight following April Fool's Day 1976,
The Rocky Horror Picture ShowThe Rocky Horror Picture Show is the 1975 film adaptation of the British rock musical stageplay, The Rocky Horror Show, written by Richard O'Brien. The film is a parody of B-movie, science fiction and horror films of the late 1940s through early 1970s. Director Jim Sharman collaborated on the...
, which had flopped on initial release the year before, opened at the
Waverly TheaterIFC Center is an art house movie theater in Greenwich Village, New York City in the United States of America. It is located at 323 Sixth Avenue, on the former site of the Waverly Theater, which was itself a well known art house movie theater...
, a leading midnight movie venue in New York's
Greenwich VillageGreenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
. Midnight screenings of the film soon became a national sensation, amassing a cult following all over the United States. Every Friday and Saturday night, audience members would talk back to the screen, dress up as characters in the film, and act out scenes complete with props. Where the social aspect had always been a part of the midnight movie's attraction, with
Rocky Horror in an exaggerated way it became
the attraction. By summer 1979, the film was playing on weekend midnights in twenty-odd suburban theaters in the New York region alone;
20th Century FoxTwentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
had approximately two hundred prints of the movie in circulation for midnight shows around the country. Beginning in 1978, the Waverly developed another midnight success that was much smaller commercially, but more significant artistically:
EraserheadEraserhead is a 1977 American surrealist film and the first feature film of David Lynch, who wrote, produced and directed. Lynch began working on the film at the AFI Conservatory, which gave him a $10,000 grant to make the film after he had begun working there following his 1971 move to Los Angeles...
, originally distributed the previous year.
David LynchDavid Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
's feature debut, a model of shoestring surrealism, reaffirmed the midnight movie's most central traditions.
The commercial viability of the sort of big-city arthouses that launched outsider pictures for the midnight movie circuit began to decline in the late 1970s as broad social and economic shifts weakened their countercultural base. Leading midnight movie venues were beginning to fold as early as 1977—that year, New York's Bijou switched back permanently to the live entertainment for which it had been built, and the Elgin, after a brief run with gay porn, shut down completely. In succeeding years, the popularization of the VCR and the expansion of movieviewing possibilities on cable television meant the death of many additional independent theaters. While
Rocky Horror soldiered on, by then a phenomenon unto itself, and new films like
The Warriors (1979),
The Gods Must Be CrazyThe Gods Must Be Crazy is a 1980 film, written and directed by Jamie Uys. The film is the first in The Gods Must Be Crazy series of films. Set in Botswana and South Africa, it tells the story of Xi, a Sho of the Kalahari Desert whose band has no knowledge of the world beyond...
(1980),
The Evil DeadThe Evil Dead is a 1981 horror film written and directed by Sam Raimi, starring Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, and Betsy Baker. The film is a story of five college students vacationing in an isolated cabin in a wooded area...
(1981),
Heavy MetalHeavy Metal is a 1981 Canadian fantasy-animated film directed by Gerald Potterton and produced by Ivan Reitman and Leonard Mogel, who also was the publisher of Heavy Metal magazine....
(1981), and
Pink Floyd The WallPink Floyd—The Wall is a 1982 British live-action/animated musical film directed by Alan Parker based on the 1979 Pink Floyd album The Wall. The screenplay was written by Pink Floyd vocalist and bassist Roger Waters. The film is highly metaphorical and is rich in symbolic imagery and sound...
(1982)—all from mainstream distributors—were picked up by the midnight movie circuit, the core of exhibitors that energized the movement was disappearing. By the time the fabled
Orson Welles CinemaThe Orson Welles Cinema was a movie theater at 1001 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts that operated from 1969 to 1986. Showcasing independent films, foreign films and revivals, it became a focal point of the Boston-Cambridge film community....
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, shut its doors after a fire in 1986, the days of the theatrical midnight movie as a significant countercultural phenomenon were already past.
In 1988, the midnight movie experience was institutionalized in a new manner with the introduction of the
Toronto International Film FestivalThe Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
's nightly Midnight Madness section. In the years since, new or recent films still occasionally emerge as midnight movie "hits" on the circuit of theaters that continue to show them. The most successful of the 1990s generation was the Australian drag queen road saga
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the DesertThe Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is a 1994 Australian comedy-drama film written and directed by Stephan Elliott. The plot is based on the journey of three drag queens who travel across the Australian Outback from Sydney to Alice Springs in a tour bus that they have named...
(1994). One of the theaters to show it regularly at midnight was New York's Waverly (also now closed), where
Rocky Horror had played for a house record ninety-five weeks. A celebrated episode of television's
The Drew Carey ShowThe Drew Carey Show is an American sitcom that aired on ABC from 1995 to 2004. The show was set in Cleveland, Ohio, and revolved around the retail office and home life of "everyman" Drew Carey, a fictionalized version of the actor....
features a song-and-dance battle between
Rocky Horror fans (led by
Drew CareyDrew Allison Carey is an American actor, singer, comedian, photographer, sports executive, and game show host. After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps and making a name for himself in stand-up comedy, Carey eventually gained popularity starring on his own sitcom, The Drew Carey Show, and serving as...
) and
Priscilla fans (led by
Mimi BobeckKathy Kinney is an American actress and comedian. She gained considerable popularity in the late 1990s for playing Mimi Bobeck, the outrageously made-up, flamboyantly vulgar, and vindictive nemesis of Drew Carey on the sitcom The Drew Carey Show...
).
Since the turn of the millennium, the most notable success among newly minted midnight movies has been
Donnie DarkoDonnie Darko is a 2001 American psychological thriller film written and directed by Richard Kelly and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Noah Wyle, Jena Malone, and Mary McDonnell...
(2001). Older films are also popular on the circuit, appreciated largely in an imposed
campCamp is an aesthetic sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its taste and ironic value. The concept is closely related to kitsch, and things with camp appeal may also be described as being "cheesy"...
fashion—a midnight movie tradition that goes back to the 1972 revival of the hectoring anti-drug movie
Reefer MadnessReefer Madness is a well-known 1936 American propaganda exploitation film revolving around the melodramatic events that ensue when high school students are lured by pushers to try "marijuana" — from a hit and run accident, to manslaughter, suicide, attempted rape, and descent into madness...
(1938). (
Tod BrowningTod Browning was an American motion picture actor, director and screenwriter.Browning's career spanned the silent and talkie eras...
's 1932 horror classic
FreaksFreaks is a 1932 American Pre-Code horror film about sideshow performers, directed and produced by Tod Browning and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with a cast mostly composed of actual carnival performers. The film was based on Tod Robbins' 1923 short story "Spurs"...
, the original midnight movie revival, is both too dark and too sociologically acute to readily consume as camp.) Where the irony with which
Reefer Madness was adopted as a midnight favorite had its roots in a countercultural sensibility, in the latter's place there is now the parodoxical element of
nostalgiaThe term nostalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form.The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of , meaning "returning home", a Homeric word, and , meaning "pain, ache"...
: the leading revivals on the circuit currently include the crème de la crème of the John Hughes oeuvre—
The Breakfast ClubThe Breakfast Club is a 1985 American teen drama film written and directed by John Hughes. The storyline follows five teenagers as they spend a Saturday in detention together and come to realize that they are all deeper than their respective stereotypes.-Plot:The plot follows five students at...
(1985),
Pretty in PinkPretty in Pink is a 1986 American teen romantic comedy-drama film about teenage love and social cliques in 1980s American high schools. It is one of a group of John Hughes films starring Molly Ringwald, and is commonly identified as a "Brat Pack" film...
(1986), and
Ferris Bueller's Day OffFerris Bueller's Day Off is a 1986 American teen coming-of-age comedy film written and directed by John Hughes.The film follows high school senior Ferris Bueller , who decides to skip school and spend the day in downtown Chicago...
(1986)—and the preteen adventure film
The GooniesThe Goonies is a 1985 American adventure-comedy film directed by Richard Donner. The screenplay was written by Chris Columbus from a story by executive producer Steven Spielberg. The premise surrounds a band of pre-teens who live in the "Goon Docks" neighborhood of Astoria, Oregon hoping to save...
(1985). As of late 2006,
Rocky Horror itself continues to play on a weekly basis at thirty-two venues around the country, and at least once a month at about two dozen others.
Two popular midnight movies made during the phenomenon's heyday have been selected to the
National Film RegistryThe National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
:
Eraserhead (inducted 2004) and
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (inducted 2005). Midnight movie staples
Freaks (1932) and
Night of the Living Dead (1968) were inducted in 1994 and 1997 respectively.
Harold and Maude, a cult film before it was adopted as a midnight movie, was also inducted in 1997.
Midnight releases
A distantly related phenomenon is the practice of premiering blockbuster films (e.g., the
Lord of the Rings seriesThe Lord of the Rings is an epic film trilogy consisting of three fantasy adventure films based on the three-volume book of the same name by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. The films are The Fellowship of the Ring , The Two Towers and The Return of the King .The films were directed by Peter...
, the
Pirates of the Caribbean sequelsPirates of the Caribbean is a series of fantasy-adventure films directed by Gore Verbinski and Rob Marshall , written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer...
, the
Star Wars prequels, the Spider-Man, Batman, and
Harry PotterThe Harry Potter film series is a British-American film series based on the Harry Potter novels by the British author J. K. Rowling...
series and also the Twilight Saga Series ) at midnight or 12:01 a.m. of the official release date. In 2011,
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 smashed the record for biggest midnight opening with over $43 million in grosses, surpassing
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.
See also
- Exploitation film
Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...
- Video nasty
"Video nasty" was a colloquial term coined in the United Kingdom by 1982 which originally applied to a number of films distributed on video cassette that were criticized for their violent content by the press, commentators such as Mary Whitehouse and various religious organizations.While violence...
- Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream
Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream is a 2005 documentary written and directed by Stuart Samuels, based on his book on the subject....
Sources
Published
- Beale, Lewis (2005). "A New Time for Midnight Movies," International Herald Tribune (June 22) (available online).
- Bryant, Edward (2005). "Fantasy and Horror in the Media: 2004," in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, Eighteenth Annual Collection, ed. Ellen Datlow, Gavin J. Grant, and Kelly Link (New York: St. Martin's Griffin), pp. lxxiii–xcii. ISBN 0312341946
- Cagle, Jess (1990). "Video News: News & Notes," Entertainment Weekly (August 3) (available online).
- Canby, Vincent (1972). "Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers: Holly Woodlawn Cast as Small-Town Girl," New York Times (March 17) (available online).
- Conrich, Ian (2006). "Musical Performance and the Cult Film Experience," in Film's Musical Moments, ed. Ian Conrich and Estella Tincknell (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), pp. 115–131. ISBN 0748623450
- Corliss, Richard, and Susan Catto (2007). "The Freaks Come Out at Night," Time (September 12) (available online).
- Greenspun, Roger (1971). "El Topo Emerges: Jodorowsky's Feature Begins Regular Run," New York Times (November 5) (available online).
- Heffernan, Kevin (2004). Ghouls, Gimmicks, and Gold: Horror Films and the American Movie Business, 1953–1968 (Durham, N.C., and London: Duke University Press). ISBN 0822332159
- Hoberman, J., and Jonathan Rosenbaum (1983). Midnight Movies (New York: Da Capo Press). ISBN 0306804336
- Hutchings, Peter (2004). The Horror Film (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press). ISBN 0582437946
- Kaufelt, David A. (1979). Midnight Movies (New York: Delacorte). ISBN 0385286082
- Lachman, Gary (2001). Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius (New York: Disinformation). ISBN 0880642785
- Levy, Emanuel (1999). Cinema of Outsiders: The Rise of American Independent Film (New York and London: New York University Press). ISBN 0814751237
- Patterson, John (2007). "The Weirdo Element," Guardian (March 2) (available online).
- Schaefer, Eric (1999). "Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!": A History of Exploitation Films, 1919–1959 (Durham and London: Duke University Press). ISBN 0822323745
- Waters, John (2006). "The Kindness of a Stranger," New York Times Book Review (November 19).
- Wood, Jennifer M. (2004). "25 Great Reasons to Stay Up Late," MovieMaker no. 55 (summer) (available online).
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