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, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, eventually spreading across the country. The screening of nonmainstream pictures at midnight was aimed at building a
cult filmA cult film is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside of 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...
setting. The national success of
The Rocky Horror Picture ShowThe Rocky Horror Picture Show is a 1975 British musical comedy film that parodies science fiction and horror films. Still in limited release 34 years after its premiere, it has the longest-running theatrical release in film history. It gained notoriety as a midnight movie in 1977 when audiences...
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 wherein something is appealing because of its bad taste and ironic value. When the usage appeared, in 1909, it denoted: ostentatious, exaggerated, affected, theatrical, and effeminate behaviour, and, by the middle of the 1970s, the definition comprised: banality,...
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 conceived neither as an arthouse film nor as pornography. In its original usage, during the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double...
, 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 and West Coast flagship television station of the Walt Disney Company-owned American Broadcasting Company, licensed to Los Angeles, 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 is a 1950s Emmy-nominated television show hosted by Vampira. The series aired on the Los Angeles ABC television affiliate KABC-TV from April 30, 1954 through April 2, 1955. The series was produced and created by Hunt Stromberg, Jr...
, with
Maila NurmiMaila Nurmi was a Finnish-American actress, who created the campy 1950s character Vampira. Her portrayal of this character as television's first horror host and in the Ed Wood cult film Plan 9 from Outer Space was influential over the decades that followed.-Early life:Born as Maila Elizabeth...
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.In the early days of television, stations needed programming, and local stations frequently produced their own shows in-house, covering the gamut from children's fare to...
such as
ZacherleyJohn Zacherle is a U.S. 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...
and
Morgus the MagnificentMorgus the Magnificent, aka 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 the air as...
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, 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.-Early...
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 programming on television during the middle of the evening.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period, for example, from 8:00 pm to 11:00 pm...
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 1977. The channel shows a variety of original and second-run programming, from syndicated TV series to edited movies...
launched a midnight movie package in 1986—
Up All NightUSA Up All Night is an American cable television series that aired on the weekends on the USA Network. The show began in June 6, 1986 and ended on April 25, 1998.-Synopsis:...
, which showed mainly horror and soft-core
sexploitationSexploitation or "sex-exploitation" describe 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 a television station in Buffalo, New York. It is the ABC affiliate for the Buffalo 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, New York...
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 now in its 15th year 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...
, 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 primarily airing classic television programming from the 1950s through the 1980s, such as Leave it to Beaver, Kojak, McHale's Navy, Adam-12, Emergency!, and The Rockford Files, as well as the horror film showcase Midnight Monster Hop...
. 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 best known for his role as Herman Munster's and Lily Munster's only son, Eddie Munster, in the television show The Munsters for which he received $600 per episode Butch Patrick (born Patrick Alan Lilley on August 2, 1953 in Los Angeles,...
, known for his portrayal of
Eddie MunsterEdward Wolfgang "Eddie" Munster, is a fictional character based on Holland Street resident Edward Munter on the CBS sitcom The Munsters, 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 television sitcom depicting the home life of a family of monsters. The show was a satire of both traditional monster movies and popular family entertainment of the era, such as Leave It to Beaver. It ran concurrently with the The Addams Family. Although the...
. In 2006,
Turner Classic MoviesTurner Classic Movies is a cable television channel 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. It was originally hosted by industrial rock/heavy metal musician and independent filmmaker Rob Zombie. TCM Underground began airing Friday the 13th of October 2006 with Plan 9 from Outer Space and Bride of...
.
In the cinema
Since at least as far back as the 1930s, exploitation films 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 FrankensteinThe Curse of Frankenstein is a 1957 British horror film by Hammer Film Productions. It was Hammer's first colour film, and the first of their Frankenstein series. Its worldwide success led to several sequels, and the studio's new versions of Dracula and The Mummy and established "Hammer Horror"...
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 and Fisherman's Wharf. It is the Little Italy of the city...
district where, in 1968,
San Francisco Art InstituteFounded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is one of the U.S.’s older and more prestigious schools of higher education in contemporary art. The school's main campus is located in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco, California, United States, with the graduate center in the Dogpatch...
graduates Michael Wiese and Steven Arnold, after a sellout screening of their
DalíSalvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marquis of Púbol was a Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres....
-esque thesis film
Messages, Messages, were invited to program offbeat films at midnight. Author Gary Lachman claims that
Kenneth AngerKenneth Anger is an Californian underground avant-garde film-maker and author.-Early life:Kenneth Anger was born in Santa Monica, California as Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer and attended the Maurice Kossloff Dancing School with Shirley Temple and Judy Garland...
'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 TheatreThis article is about the theater in New York. For Canadian theatres of that name, see Elgin Theatre.The 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...
." The Elgin, in New York City's
ChelseaChelsea is a neighborhood on the West Side of the Manhattan borough of New York City. It is located to the south of Hell's Kitchen and the Garment District starting at 34th Street, and north of Greenwich Village, and the Meatpacking District that centers on West 14th Street. West - East boundaries...
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 is a Chilean scholar in comparative religion, playwright, director, producer, composer, actor, mime, comic book writer, tarot reader, historian and psychotherapist.-Early years:Jodorowsky began his artistic activities at a very young age, inspired greatly by film and...
's surrealist
El TopoEl Topo is a 1970 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 in some countries in mainland Europe as the Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western film that emerged in the mid-1960s, so named because most were produced and directed by Italians, usually in co-production with a Spanish partner.The typical team...
, 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 directed by Sam Peckinpah, is a Western film about an aging outlaw gang at the Texas-Mexico border trying to exist in the modern world of supposedly 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 Ono Lennon, MBE was an English rock musician, singer-songwriter, author, and peace activist who gained worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles...
—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 New York headquartered 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...
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 DePalma, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Michael Cimino, and Francis Ford Coppola...
's spree-killer thriller
TargetsTargets is a film written, produced and directed by Peter Bogdanovich.-Plot summary:The story concerns an insurance agent and Vietnam veteran, played by Tim O'Kelly, who murders his wife and mother and then goes on a shooting rampage from atop a Los Angeles oil refinery...
(1968), featuring one of the last performances by horror movie mainstay
Boris KarloffBoris Karloff was a British actor who emigrated to Canada in the 1910s. He is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the 1931 film Frankenstein, 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein, and 1939 film 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 who acquired Mexican citizenship and worked in Mexico, France, and also in his native Spain and the United States...
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 and Frank Bonner as Jim Hudson. The plot revolves around four teenagers...
, which had just replaced
Night of the Living DeadNight of the Living Dead is a 1968 independent black-and-white zombie film directed by George A. Romero. Ben and Barbra are the protagonists of a story about the mysterious reanimation of the recently dead, and their efforts, along with five other people, to survive the night while trapped in a...
), the Bijou (both
FreaksFreaks is a 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' short story "Spurs"...
and
Night of the Living Dead), and the Olympia (
Macunaíma, a Brazilian political
black comedyBlack comedy is a sub-genre of comedy and satire in which topics and events that are usually regarded as taboo are treated in a satirical or humorous manner while retaining their seriousness...
).
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 Romero'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, 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 American transgressive comedy 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 of the flamboyant female impersonator, Divine...
, featuring incest and
coprophagiaCoprophagia 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.- Coprophagia in non-human animals :Coprophagous insects...
, 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 film that is produced outside of any major film studio. Originally, this term denoted independence from Paramount Pictures, MGM, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros., RKO, Universal Pictures, United Artists, and Columbia Pictures, the 8 major studio entities...
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 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 , sometimes nicknamed "King of the Bs" for his output of B-movies , is an American producer and director of low-budget movies, some of which have an established critical reputation: his cycle of films derived from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe for example...
's New World Pictures, marketed it as a
blaxploitationBlaxploitation is a film genre that emerged in the United States in the early 1970s when many exploitation films were made that targeted the urban black audience; the word itself is a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation." Blaxploitation films were the first to feature soundtracks of...
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 science fiction and comedy adventure 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 depiction of explicit sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual excitement.Over the past few decades, an immense industry for the production and consumption of pornography has grown, with the increasing use of the VCR, the DVD, and the Internet, as well as the...
. Around this time, the black comedy
Harold and MaudeHarold and Maude is a 1971 film directed by Hal Ashby. The film, featuring slapstick, dark humor, and existentialist drama, revolves around the exploits of a morbid young man, Harold , who drifts away from the life that his detached mother prescribes for him, as he develops a relationship with...
(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.
On the midnight following April Fool's Day 1976,
The Rocky Horror Picture ShowThe Rocky Horror Picture Show is a 1975 British musical comedy film that parodies science fiction and horror films. Still in limited release 34 years after its premiere, it has the longest-running theatrical release in film history. It gained notoriety as a midnight movie in 1977 when audiences...
, 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....
, a leading midnight movie venue in New York's
Greenwich VillageGreenwich Village , 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. Greenwich Village, however, was known in the late 19th – earlier to mid 20th...
. 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-Fox 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 surrealist-horror film written and directed by David Lynch, and released in . In 1971, Lynch moved to Los Angeles to pursue an MFA degree at the AFI Conservatory. At the Conservatory, Lynch began working on his first feature-length film, Eraserhead, using a $10,000 grant from the AFI...
, originally distributed the previous year.
David LynchDavid Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker and visual artist. Lynch has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Director, for The Elephant Man , Blue Velvet , and Mulholland Drive . He also received a screenplay Academy Award nomination for The Elephant Man...
'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 film released in 1980, 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 American horror film written and directed by Sam Raimi, starring Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss and Betsy Baker...
(1981),
Heavy MetalHeavy Metal is a Canadian animated film from executive producer Leonard Mogel, who was also the publisher of Heavy Metal magazine. With Ivan Reitman producing and Gerald Potterton directing, the work was expedited by having several animation houses working simultaneously on different segments,...
(1981), and
Pink Floyd The WallPink Floyd The Wall is a 1982 musical film by British director 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. The festival begins the Thursday night after Labour Day and lasts for ten days. Between 300-400 films are screened at approximately 23 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 about three drag queens who travel across the Australian outback from Sydney to Alice Springs in a coach they have named Priscilla. The film stars Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce and Terence Stamp...
(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 and was known for its "everyman" characters and themes...
features a song-and-dance battle between
Rocky Horror fans (led by
Drew CareyDrew Allison Carey is an American comedian, actor, photographer, and game show host. After serving in the U.S. Marines 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 host on the U.S...
) and
Priscilla fans (led by
Mimi BobeckKathy Kinney is an American actress. She is a versatile character actress who 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 psychological thriller film written and directed by Richard Kelly, and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, and Mary McDonnell...
(2001). Older films are also popular on the circuit, appreciated largely in an imposed
campCamp is an aesthetic sensibility wherein something is appealing because of its bad taste and ironic value. When the usage appeared, in 1909, it denoted: ostentatious, exaggerated, affected, theatrical, and effeminate behaviour, and, by the middle of the 1970s, the definition comprised: banality,...
fashion—a midnight movie tradition that goes back to the 1972 revival of the hectoring anti-drug movie
Reefer MadnessReefer Madness is a American exploitation film revolving around the tragic events that ensue when high school students are lured by pushers to try "marihuana": a hit and run accident, manslaughter, suicide, rape, and descent into madness all ensue. The film was directed by Louis Gasnier and...
(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 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' 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 longing for the past, often in idealized form.The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of , nóstos, "returning home", a Homeric word, and , álgos, "pain" or "ache"...
: the leading revivals on the circuit currently include the crème de la crème of the
John HughesJohn Wilden Hughes, Jr. was an American film director, producer and writer. He scripted some of the most successful films of the 1980s and 1990s, including National Lampoon's Vacation; Ferris Bueller's Day Off; Weird Science; The Breakfast Club; Some Kind of Wonderful; Sixteen Candles; Pretty in...
oeuvre—
The Breakfast ClubThe Breakfast Club is a 1985 American teen 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...
(1985),
Pretty in PinkPretty in Pink is a 1986 film about teenage love and social cliques in 1980s American high schools. It is one of a group of John Hughes movies starring Molly Ringwald, and is commonly identified as a "Brat Pack" movie...
(1986), and
Ferris Bueller's Day OffFerris Bueller's Day Off is a 1986 comedy film written and directed by John Hughes. It stars Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara, Jeffrey Jones and Jennifer Grey. The film was released by Paramount Pictures on June 11, 1986....
(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...
(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 film trilogy consists of three live action fantasy epic films: The Fellowship of the Ring , The Two Towers and The Return of the King...
, the
Pirates of the Caribbean sequelsPirates of the Caribbean is a series of adventure films directed by Gore Verbinski, written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. They are based on a Walt Disney theme park ride of the same name, and follow Captain Jack Sparrow , Will Turner , and Elizabeth Swann...
, the
Star Wars prequels, the Spider-Man, Batman, and
Harry PotterThe Harry Potter fantasy film series is based on the seven Harry Potter novels by British writer J. K. Rowling, starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson....
series) at midnight or 12:01 a.m. of the official release date.
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince holds the record for the highest-grossing midnight opening of alltime with a $22.2 million take on July 15, 2009.
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).
Online—
Authored
Online—
Archival
Film