If
you’ve been an avid film fan and spend the time to check out details on one
movie before watching in theatres, there may have been some that escaped your
attention. You even hear of certain movies that reportedly achieved the status
of “cult films,” or gained a so-called “cult following.” It can be easy to
dismiss such movies as the handiwork of some religious order by the genre title
alone, but what really makes a cult film a cult film?
Defining Status
Certain
dictionaries label a cult film as a movie that has appeal to a “relatively
small audience.” Some may have had a general release, but never did well at the
box office and lived on in obscure grainy storage mediums until converted to
digital format. A few movie experts rule out highly-popular movies as cult
classics.
So Bad it’s Good
Cult
films have achieved notoriety for bland production values, bad acting, and even
horrible scripts – with some being labelled “so bad it’s good.” One such case
is 1967’s Manos: The Hands of Fate. The
product of a bet between a screenwriter and a fertiliser salesman who claimed
he could make a film on a small budget, the movie was barely known among film
suppliers before it was a featured on a Mystery
Science Theater 3000 episode in 1993.
Cult
films will have something for you and your friends to enjoy. Whether you’ll leave
the movie laughing or crying at its quality is up to you.
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