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 in New York City with screenings of El Topo at the Elgin Theater , eventually spreading across the country. The screening of non-mainstream pictures at midnight was aimed at building a cult film audience, encouraging repeat viewing and social interaction in what was originally a countercultural setting.
169-426: The national success of The Rocky Horror Picture Show 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 camp experience—in effect, bringing it closer to the television form that shares its name. The term midnight movie
338-499: A blaxploitation picture. Rereleased as a midnight film, it screened around the country for six years, helping spur the popularity of reggae 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
507-410: A cult following . Exploitation films often include themes such as suggestive or explicit sex, sensational violence, drug use, nudity, gore, destruction, rebellion, mayhem, and the bizarre. Such films were first seen in their modern form in the early 1920s, but they were popularized in the 60s and 70s with the general relaxing of censorship and cinematic taboos in the U.S. and Europe. An early example,
676-471: A science fiction double feature (" Science Fiction/Double Feature "). Throughout the film, a criminologist from an unspecified point in the future narrates and provides commentary on the events. Following the wedding of their friends, a naïve young couple, Brad Majors and Janet Weiss, get engaged and decide to celebrate with their high school science teacher Dr. Scott, who taught the class where they first met (" Dammit Janet "). En route to Scott's house on
845-490: A science fiction film , and is acutely aware that her costumes for Brad and Janet may have been generalizations. When I designed Rocky , I never looked at any science fiction movies or comic books. One just automatically knows what spacesuits look like, the same way one intuitively knows how Americans dress. I had never been to the United States, but I had this fixed idea of how people looked there. Americans wore polyester so their clothes wouldn't crease, and their trousers were
1014-524: A " mercy killing ". Rocky and Frank depart for the bridal suite ("I Can Make You a Man (Reprise)"). Brad and Janet are shown to separate bedrooms, where each is visited and seduced by Frank. Meanwhile, Riff Raff and Magenta torment Rocky, who flees the suite. Janet, having learned of Brad's dalliance with Frank, discovers Rocky cowering in his birth tank. While tending to his wounds, Janet seduces Rocky as Magenta and Columbia watch from their bedroom monitor ("Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me"). Dr. Scott, now
1183-495: A "low-budget freak show/cult classic/cultural institution" with "catchy" songs. Geoff Andrew , of Time Out , noted that the "string of hummable songs gives it momentum, Gray's admirably straight-faced narrator holds it together, and a run on black lingerie takes care of almost everything else", rating it 4 out of 5 stars. On the other hand, Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader considered the wit to be "too weak to sustain
1352-506: A 20th Century Fox policy that made archival films available to theatres at any time. Having never been pulled by 20th Century Fox from its original 1975 release, it continues to play in cinemas. After The Walt Disney Company acquired 20th Century Fox in 2019 and began withdrawing archival Fox movies from theatres to be placed into the Disney Vault , the company made an exception in the case of The Rocky Horror Picture Show to allow
1521-513: A Few Dollars More ; The Big Gundown ; Day of Anger ; Face to Face ; Duck, You Sucker! ; A Fistful of Dollars and Once Upon a Time in the West . Quentin Tarantino directed two tributes to the genre, Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight . A splatter film, or gore film, is a horror film that focuses on graphic portrayals of gore and violence. It began as a distinct genre in
1690-489: A Wallflower (2012). The 1980 film Fame featured the audience reciting their callback lines to the screen and dancing the Time Warp, the dance from the stage show and film, which has become a novelty dance at parties. Director Rob Zombie cited Rocky Horror as a major influence on his film House of 1000 Corpses (2003), while the film's fan culture of cosplaying and audience participation during screenings laid
1859-412: A bit too short. Since they're very keen on sports, white socks and white T-shirts played an integral part in their wardrobe. Of course, since doing Rocky I have been to the United States and admit it was a bit of a generalization, but my ideas worked perfectly for Brad and Janet. The budget for the film was US$ 1,600,000, far more than the stage production budget, but having to double up on costumes for
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#17327985115232028-530: A comedy with political overtones starring folk singer Arlo Guthrie . On the midnight following April Fool's Day 1976, The Rocky Horror Picture Show , which had flopped on initial release the year before, opened at the Waverly Theater , a leading midnight movie venue in New York's Greenwich Village . Midnight screenings of the film soon became a national sensation, amassing a cult following all over
2197-465: A component of more complex plots set in elaborately constructed civilizations (such as the Frank Herbert ’s Dune series and the works of Isaac Asimov ), for much of the 20th century space travel has been mostly featured in cheap "B films" that often had in their core a simplistic plot typical of another exploitation subgenre, such as slasher or zombie films . Spacesploration films feature
2366-425: A compulsive, repeated cycle of going home and coming back to see the film each weekend. The audience call-backs are similar to responses in church during a mass. Many theatre troupes exist across the United States that produce shadow-cast performances where the actors play each part in the film in full costume, with props, as the movie plays on the big screen in a movie theatre. O'Brien's Orchestra, formerly known as
2535-542: A dark and rainy night, they get lost and suffer a flat tire. Seeking a telephone to call for help, the couple walks to a nearby castle (" Over at the Frankenstein Place ") where a party is being held. They are accepted in by the strangely dressed inhabitants, led by the butler Riff Raff, the maid Magenta, and a groupie named Columbia, who dance to " The Time Warp ". Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a transvestite mad scientist, introduces himself and invites them to stay for
2704-423: A desperate final plea ("I'm Going Home") but is ignored as Riff Raff kills both him and Columbia with a laser. An enraged Rocky climbs the tower with Frank's body , and, after several shots from the laser, plunges to his death. The castle lifts off into space; before Brad, Janet, and Dr. Scott are left crawling in the smog and dirt as the criminologist concludes that the human race is equivalent to insects crawling on
2873-572: A film" and thought that the "songs all sound the same". In 2005, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The Rocky Horror Picture Show helped shape conditions of cult film's transition from art-house to exploitation style. The film developed a cult following in 1976 at
3042-470: A flexible rotating cast. The performances of the audience were scripted and actively discouraged improvising, being conformist in a similar way to the repressed characters. On Halloween in 1976, people attended in costume and talked back to the screen, and by mid-1978, Rocky Horror was playing in over 50 locations on Fridays and Saturdays at midnight. Newsletters were published by local performance groups, and fans gathered for Rocky Horror conventions. By
3211-421: A government investigator of UFOs , comes to the castle in search of his nephew Eddie, who sent him a letter implying part of his brain was removed by aliens. Everyone discovers Janet and Rocky together, enraging Frank. Magenta summons everyone to an uncomfortable dinner, which they soon realize has been prepared from Eddie's mutilated remains ("Eddie"). In the chaos, Janet runs screaming into Rocky's arms, provoking
3380-476: A hit as a midnight movie , when audiences began participating with the film at the Waverly Theater in New York City in 1976. Audience members returned to the cinemas frequently and talked back to the screen and began dressing as the characters, spawning similar performance groups across the United States. At almost the same time, fans in costume began performing alongside the film. This "shadow cast" mimed
3549-652: A jealous Frank to chase her through the halls to the lab, where he uses his Medusa Transducer to turn Dr. Scott, Brad, Janet, Rocky, and Columbia into nude statues ("Planet Schmanet Janet/Wise Up Janet Weiss"/"Planet Hotdog"). After dressing the statues in cabaret costumes, Frank "unfreezes" them and leads them in a live cabaret floor show, complete with an RKO tower and a swimming pool ("Rose Tint My World"/"Don't Dream It, Be It"/"Wild and Untamed Thing"). Riff Raff and Magenta interrupt, and announce that due to Frank's extravagance, they are declaring mutiny and returning to their home planet of Transsexual, Transylvania. Frank makes
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#17327985115233718-424: A lead role. Laconic characters and desert scenes feature in many Ozploitation films, but the term has been used for a variety of Australian films of the era that relied on shocking or titillating their audiences. A documentary about the genre was Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! . Such films deal with themes concerning Australian society, particularly in respect of masculinity (especially
3887-520: A lifestyle unbound by the restrictions of clothing, yet this depiction was restricted by the requirement that genitals should not be shown. Still, there was a subversive element to them, as the nudist camps inherently rejected modern society and its values regarding the human body. These films frequently involve a criticism of the class system, equating body shame with the upper class, and nudism with social equality. One scene in The Unashamed makes
4056-426: A long decline during the mid-1980s with the advent of home video. As the drive-in movie theater began to decline in the 1960s and 1970s, theater owners began to look for ways to bring in patrons. One solution was to book lower cost exploitation films. Some producers from the 1950s to the 1980s made films directly for the drive-in market, and the commodity product needed for a weekly change led to another theory about
4225-824: A look-alike contest as Frank N. Furter, and won another at the Tiffany Theater on Sunset Boulevard . Wolfson's group eventually performed in all of the L.A. area theatres screening Rocky Horror , including the Balboa Theater in Balboa , The Cove at Hermosa Beach , and The Sands in Glendale . He was invited to perform at the Sombrero Playhouse in Phoenix, Arizona . At the Tiffany Theatre,
4394-700: 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 Jodorowsky 's surrealist El Topo , which opened in December 1970 at the Elgin. Playing with the conventions of the spaghetti Western , 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 Bunch ." El Topo regularly sold out every night for months, with many fans returning on
4563-506: A mile-long extension cord as a power conduit, it was also crucial in inspiring the growth of the independent film 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 Come (1972) had been a flop, panned by critics after its U.S. distributor, Roger Corman 's New World Pictures , marketed it as
4732-487: A movie, rating it 2.5 out of 4 stars and describing Curry as "the best thing in the movie, maybe because he seems to be having the most fun" but thinking the story would work better performed on stage for a live audience. Bill Henkin noted that Variety thought that the "campy hijinks" of the film seemed labored, and also mentioned that the San Francisco Chronicle 's John Wasserman, who had liked
4901-509: A person is raped, left for dead, recovers and then exacts a graphic, gory revenge against the rapists. The most famous example is I Spit on Your Grave (also called Day of the Woman ). It is not unusual for the main character in these films to be a successful, independent city woman, who is attacked by a man from the country. The genre has drawn praise from feminists such as Carol J. Clover , whose 1992 book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in
5070-550: A point about the artificiality of clothing and its related values through a mocking portrayal of a group of nude artists who paint fully clothed subjects. The term "Ozploitation" refers broadly to Australian horror, erotic or crime films of the 1970s and 1980s. Changes to Australia's film classification system in 1971 led to the production of a number of such low-budget, privately funded films, assisted by tax exemptions and targeting export markets. Often an internationally recognised actor (but of waning notability) would be hired to play
5239-489: A producer, the first question he asks is not "what is your film like?" but "what film is your film like?" That's the way it is, we can only make Zombie 2 , never Zombie 1 . Luigi Cozzi Mockbusters, sometimes called "remakesploitation films", are copycat movies that try to cash in on the advertising of heavily promoted films from major studios. Production company the Asylum , which prefers to call them "tie-ins",
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5408-717: A quasi-permanent home at the 500-seat King's Road Theatre from 3 November that year, running for six years. The musical made its U.S. debut in Los Angeles in 1974 before playing in New York City as well as other cities. Producer and Ode Records owner Lou Adler attended the London production in the winter of 1973, escorted by friend Britt Ekland . He immediately decided to purchase the U.S. theatrical rights. His production would be staged at his Roxy Theatre in L.A. In 1975, The Rocky Horror Show premiered on Broadway at
5577-793: A scientifically inaccurate and inconsistent depiction of space travel and are usually set in traversing spaceships and deserted planets, partially due to the films’ limited resources. Such films include From the Earth to the Moon , Robinson Crusoe on Mars , Planet of the Vampires , The Black Hole and Saturn 3 . During one of the peaks of space travel films, the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker featured outlandishly unrealistic scenes of space warfare , despite otherwise focusing on real contemporary (i.e. Cold War) intelligence agencies . Spaghetti Westerns are Italian-made westerns that emerged in
5746-539: A sellout screening of their Dalí -esque thesis film Messages, Messages , were invited to program offbeat films at midnight. Author Gary Lachman claims that Kenneth Anger '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 Theatre ." The Elgin, in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood, would soon become famous as
5915-423: A serial killer stalking and violently killing a sequence of victims. Victims are often teenagers or young adults. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) is often credited with creating the basic premise of the genre, though Bob Clark's Black Christmas (1974) is usually considered to have started the genre while John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) was responsible for cementing the genre in the public eye. Halloween
6084-458: 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 p.m.—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
6253-473: A spot at The Mabuhay , a local punk club, and performed for children's television of Argentina. Annual Rocky Horror conventions are held in varying locations, lasting days. Tucson, Arizona has been host a number of times, including 1999 with "El Fishnet Fiesta", and "Queens of the Desert" held in 2006. Vera Dika wrote that, to the fans, Rocky Horror is ritualistic and comparable to a religious event, with
6422-662: A stereotypically black American urban milieu. A prominent theme was black Americans overcoming hostile authority (" The Man ") through cunning and violence. The first examples of this subgenre were Shaft and Melvin Van Peebles ' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song . Others are Black Caesar , Black Devil Doll , Blacula , Black Shampoo , Boss Nigger , Coffy , Coonskin , Cotton Comes to Harlem , Dolemite , Foxy Brown , Hell Up in Harlem , The Mack , Disco Godfather , Mandingo , The Spook Who Sat by
6591-408: A topic of discourse for feminist film critics . Some critics have said that lesbian sex on screen is an expression of chauvinism and male power as the images are portrayed for male pleasure. The casting of pornstars and hardcore actresses in sexploitation films is not uncommon. The films sometimes contain sex shows intended to shock or arouse their audiences. Slasher films focus on
6760-528: A unique level. Members of the LGBT community composed a large part of the Rocky Horror cult following: they identified with the embrace of sexual liberation and androgyny, and attended show after show, slowly forming a community. Judith A. Peraino compares Brad and Janet's initiation into Frank N. Furter's world to the self-discovery of " queer identity", and to the traditional initiation of "virgins" in
6929-483: A weekly basis. It ran at the theater through June 1971, until at the prompting of John Lennon —who was reported to have seen the film at least three times—Beatles manager Allen Klein purchased the film through his ABKCO film company and gave it a relatively orthodox rerelease. The Elgin soon came up with another midnight hit in Peter Bogdanovich 's spree-killer thriller Targets (1968), featuring one of
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7098-652: Is a modern homage to the genre. "Canuxploitation" is a neologism that was coined in 1999 by the magazine Broken Pencil , in the article "Canuxploitation! Goin' Down the Road with the Cannibal Girls that Ate Black Christmas. Your Complete Guide to the Canadian B-Movie", to refer to Canadian-made B-movies . Most mainstream critical analysis of this period in Canadian film history, however, refers to it as
7267-510: Is a prominent producer of these films. Such films have often come from Italy, which has been quick to latch on to trends like Westerns, James Bond movies, and zombie films. They have long been a staple of directors such as Jim Wynorski ( The Bare Wench Project , and the Cliffhanger imitation Sub Zero ), who make movies for the direct-to-video market. Such films are beginning to attract attention from major Hollywood studios, who served
7436-505: Is also responsible for establishing additional tropes which would go on to define the genre in years to come. The masked villain, a central group of weak teenagers with one strong hero or heroine, the protagonists being isolated or stranded in precarious locations or situations, and either the protagonists or antagonists (or possibly both) experiencing warped family lives or values were all tropes largely founded in Halloween . John Carpenter
7605-612: Is available for attendance in various locations in Los Angeles, typically Saturday nights at midnight. By 1978, Rocky Horror had moved from an earlier San Francisco location to the Strand Theatre located near the Tenderloin on Market Street . The performance group there, Double Feature/Celluloid Jam, was the first to act out and perform almost the entire film, unlike the New York cast at that time. The Strand cast
7774-401: Is narrated by Charles Gray , with cast members from the original Royal Court Theatre , Roxy Theatre , and Belasco Theatre productions, including Nell Campbell and Patricia Quinn . The story centres on a young engaged couple whose car breaks down in the rain near a castle, where they search for help. The castle is occupied by strangers in elaborate costumes holding a party. They then meet
7943-778: Is now believed lost. In 1953, The Wild One , starring Marlon Brando, was the first film about a motorcycle gang. A string of low-budget juvenile delinquent films featuring hot-rods and motorcycles followed in the 1950s. The success of American International Pictures' The Wild Angels in 1966 ignited a more robust trend that continued into the early 1970s. Other biker films include Motorpsycho (1965), Hells Angels on Wheels (1967), The Born Losers (1967), Wild Rebels (1967), Angels from Hell (1968), Easy Rider (1969), Satan's Sadists (1969), Naked Angels (1969), Nam's Angels (1970), and C.C. and Company (1970). Stone (1974) , Mad Max (1979) and 1% (2017) combine elements of this subgenre with Ozploitation. In
8112-478: Is now often used in two different, though related, ways: as a synonym for B movie , reflecting the relative cheapness characteristic of late-night movies both theatrically and on TV, and as a synonym for cult film . In 1953, the Screen Actors Guild agreed to a residuals payment plan that greatly facilitated the distribution of B movies to television. A number of local television stations around
8281-461: Is sometimes called paracinema . "Exploitation" is loosely defined and arguably has as much to do with the viewer's perception of the film as with the film's actual content. Titillating material and artistic content often co-exist, as demonstrated by the fact that art films that failed to pass the Hays Code were often shown in the same grindhouses as exploitation films. Exploitation films share
8450-591: Is the controversial 1980 Cannibal Holocaust , in which six real animals were killed on screen. Others include Cannibal Ferox , Eaten Alive! , Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death , The Mountain of the Cannibal God , Last Cannibal World and the first film of the genre, The Man From Deep River . Famous directors in this genre include Umberto Lenzi , Ruggero Deodato , Jesús Franco and Joe D'Amato . The Green Inferno (2013)
8619-494: Is to shock the audience by dealing with taboo subject matter. The first mondo film is Mondo Cane ( A Dog's World ). Others include Shocking Asia , Africa Addio (aka Africa Blood and Guts and Farewell Africa ), Goodbye Uncle Tom and Faces of Death . These "nature-run-amok" films focus on an animal or group of animals, far larger and more aggressive than usual for their species, terrorizing humans while another group of humans tries to fight back. This genre began in
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#17327985115238788-567: The Thunder Warrior trilogy, Johnny Firecloud , Angry Joe Bass , The Manitou , Prophecy , Avenged (aka Savaged ), Scalps , Clearcut and The Ghost Dance . Sexploitation films resemble softcore pornography and often include scenes involving nude or semi-nude women. They typically have sex scenes that are more graphic sex than mainstream films. The plots of sexploitation films include pulp fiction elements such as killers, slavery, female domination , martial arts,
8957-1252: The Winter War in Finland, the Korean War and the Vietnam War before the major studios showed interest. When Orson Welles ' radio production of The War of the Worlds from The Mercury Theatre on the Air for Halloween in 1938 shocked many Americans and made news, Universal Pictures edited their serial Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars into a short feature called Mars Attacks the World for release in November of that year. Some Poverty Row low-budget B movies often exploit major studio projects. Their rapid production schedule allows them to take advantage of publicity attached to major studio films. For example, Edward L. Alperson produced William Cameron Menzies ' film Invaders from Mars to beat Paramount Pictures ' production of director George Pal 's The War of
9126-561: The cult status of the film. Costume designer Sue Blane was not keen on working for the film, until she became aware that Curry, an old friend, was committed to the project. Curry and Blane had worked together in Glasgow 's Citizens Theatre in a production of The Maids , for which Curry had worn a woman's corset. Blane arranged for the theatre to loan her the corset from the other production for Rocky Horror . Blane admits that she did not conduct research for her designing, had never seen
9295-679: The ocker male), male attitudes towards women, attitudes towards and treatment of Indigenous Australians , violence, alcohol and environmental exploitation and destruction. The films typically have rural or outback settings, depicting the Australian landscape and environment as an almost spiritually malign force that alienates white Australians, frustrating their personal ambitions and activities, and their attempts to subdue it. Notable examples include Mad Max , Alvin Purple , Patrick and Turkey Shoot . This genre contains films in which
9464-415: The "nudie-cutie", which featured nudity but no touching, and the "roughie", which included nudity and violent, antisocial behavior. Nudist films were marked by self-contradictory qualities. They presented themselves as educational films, but exploited their subject matter by focusing mainly on the nudist camps ' most beautiful female residents, while denying the existence of such exploitation. They depicted
9633-488: The "tax shelter" era emerged as among Canada's most important and influential filmmakers of the era, including David Cronenberg , William Fruet , Ivan Reitman and Bob Clark , the new regulations also had an entirely unforeseen side effect: a sudden rush of low-budget horror and genre films, intended as pure tax shelters since they were designed not to turn a conventional profit. Many of the films, in fact, were made by American filmmakers, whose projects had been rejected by
9802-540: The "tax-shelter era". The phenomenon emerged in 1974, when the government of Canada introduced new regulations to jumpstart the then-underdeveloped Canadian film industry, increasing the Capital Cost Allowance tax credit from 60 per cent to 100 per cent. While some important and noteworthy films were made under the program, including The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and Lies My Father Told Me , and some film directors who cut their teeth in
9971-503: The 1,000-seat Belasco Theatre . Set in the fictional town of Denton, the film was shot at Bray Studios and Oakley Court , a country house near Maidenhead , Berkshire , England, and at Elstree Studios for post-production, from 21 October to 19 December 1974. Oakley Court, built in 1857 in the Victorian Gothic style , is known for a number of Hammer films . Much of the location shooting took place there, although at
10140-697: The 1930s, exploitation films had sometimes been presented at midnight screenings, usually as part of independent roadshow operations. In 1957, Hammer Films ' 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 Beach district where, in late February 1969, San Francisco Art Institute graduates Steven Arnold and Michael Wiese, after
10309-791: The 1933 film Ecstasy , included nude scenes featuring the Austrian actress Hedy Lamarr . The film proved popular at the box office but caused concern for the American cinema trade association, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA). The organisation, which applied the Hays Code for film censorship, also disapproved of the work of Dwain Esper , the director responsible for exploitation movies such as Marihuana (1936) and Maniac (1934). The Motion Picture Association of America (and its predecessor,
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#173279851152310478-434: The 1950s, when concern over nuclear weapons testing made movies about giant monsters popular. These were typically either giant prehistoric creatures awakened by atomic explosions or ordinary animals mutated by radiation. Among them were Godzilla , Them! and Tarantula . The trend was revived in the 1970s as awareness of pollution increased and corporate greed and military irresponsibility were blamed for destruction of
10647-409: The 1960s, Roger Corman directed Edgar Allan Poe B horror movies with well-known horror veteran movie actors with Boris Karloff , Peter Lorre , Vincent Price and a young, unknown Jack Nicholson . He turned down directing Easy Rider , which was directed by Dennis Hopper . Black exploitation films, or "blaxploitation" films, are made with black actors, ostensibly for black audiences, often in
10816-491: The 1970s, with Starcrash and the Turkish Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam and Süpermen dönüyor . The latter two used scenes from Star Wars and unauthorized excerpts from John Williams ' score. Mondo films, often called shockumentaries, are quasi-documentary films about sensationalized topics like exotic customs from around the world or gruesome death footage. The goal of mondo films, as of shock exploitation,
10985-582: 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 One broadcast network distributes the Macabre Theatre movie package hosted by Butch Patrick , known for his portrayal of Eddie Munster on the 1960s show The Munsters . In 2006, Turner Classic Movies began airing cult films as part of its new late-night series, TCM Underground . In
11154-532: The Asylum with a cease and desist order to try to prevent them from releasing The Day the Earth Stopped to video stores in advance of the release of The Day the Earth Stood Still to theaters. The term mockbuster was used as early as the 1950s (when The Monster of Piedras Blancas was a clear derivative of Creature From The Black Lagoon ). The term did not become popular until
11323-727: The Bit Player , and Elevator Girls in Bondage (as well as Pink Flamingos ) had their New York premieres at midnight screenings. Other examples ( albeit animated ) during this time were Ralph Bakshi 's 1972 debut feature Fritz the Cat based on the Robert Crumb comic of the same name and Sally Cruikshank 's 1975 experimental short Quasi at the Quackadero . Around this time, the black comedy Harold and Maude (1971) became
11492-497: The Capital Cost Allowance was reduced to 50 per cent, although films that had entered production under the program continued to be released for another few years afterward. However, at least one Canadian film blog extends the "Canuxploitation" term to refer to any Canadian horror, thriller or science fiction film made up to the present day. Carsploitation films feature scenes of cars racing and crashing, featuring
11661-591: The Covell in Modesto . In New Orleans , an early organised performance group was active with the release there, as well as in such cities as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania , and Chicago (at the Biograph Theater ). Before long, nearly every screening of the film was accompanied by a live fan cast. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is considered to be the longest-running release in film history. It benefited from
11830-443: The Desert (1994) and the 1995 Razzie -winning stripper drama Showgirls . 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 Show features a song-and-dance battle between Rocky Horror fans (led by Drew Carey ) and Priscilla fans (led by Mimi Bobeck ). Since
11999-636: The Devil (1975), Cannonball (1976), Mad Max (1979), Safari 3000 (1982), Dead End Drive-In (1986) and Black Moon Rising (1986). Quentin Tarantino directed a tribute to the genre, Death Proof (2007). In the 1970s, a revisionist, non-traditional style of samurai film achieved some popularity in Japan. It became known as chambara , an onomatopoeia describing the clash of swords. Its origins can be traced as far back as Akira Kurosawa , whose films feature moral grayness and exaggerated violence, but
12168-458: The Door , Sugar Hill , Super Fly , T.N.T. Jackson , The Thing with Two Heads , Truck Turner , Willie Dynamite and Cleopatra Jones . In blaxploitation horror movies back in the 1970s, despite the leading stars in those movies being black, some of these movies were either produced, edited, or directed by white filmmakers. Blacula , a well-known blaxploitation horror movie,
12337-519: The Grave . USA Network launched a midnight movie package in 1989— Up All Night , which showed mainly horror and soft-core sexploitation films, ran until 1998. In 1993, Buffalo's WKBW-TV began airing a late-night hosted mix of low-budget genre movies, foreign art films and eventually well-known classic films; Off Beat Cinema later became nationally syndicated (currently through Retro Television Network ) and, as of 2013, originates from WBBZ-TV . In
12506-470: The Hammer horror films, which had their own instantly recognizable style (just as Universal Studios' horror films did). The originally proposed opening sequence was to contain clips of various films mentioned in the lyrics, as well as the first few sequences shot in black and white, but this was deemed too expensive and scrapped. In the stage productions, actors generally did their own make-up; however, for
12675-432: The Hammer horror films. Although the film is both a parody of and tribute to many kitsch science fiction and horror films, costume designer Sue Blane conducted no research for her designs. Blane has claimed that her creations for the film directly affected the development of punk rock fashion trends, such as torn fishnet stockings and colourfully dyed hair. Initial reception was extremely negative, but it soon became
12844-1003: The Hollywood studio system as not commercially viable, giving rise to the Hollywood North phenomenon. Variety dubbed the genre "maple syrup porno". Notable examples of the genre include Cannibal Girls , Deathdream , Deranged , The Corpse Eaters , Black Christmas , Shivers , Death Weekend , The Clown Murders , Rituals , Cathy's Curse , Deadly Harvest , Starship Invasions , Rabid , I Miss You, Hugs and Kisses , The Brood , Funeral Home , Terror Train , The Changeling , Death Ship , My Bloody Valentine , Prom Night , Happy Birthday to Me , Scanners , Ghostkeeper , Visiting Hours , Highpoint , Humongous , Deadly Eyes , Class of 1984 , Videodrome , Curtains , American Nightmare , Self Defense , Spasms and Def-Con 4 . The period officially ended in 1982, when
13013-593: The Living Dead (1968) were inducted in 1994 and 1999 respectively. Harold and Maude , a cult film before it was adopted as a midnight movie, was also inducted in 1997. Also in the mix are Quasi at the Quackadero (inducted 2009) and Pink Flamingos (inducted 2022). The Rocky Horror Picture Show The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a 1975 independent musical comedy horror film produced by Lou Adler and Michael White , directed by Jim Sharman , and distributed by 20th Century Fox . The screenplay
13182-489: The MPPDA) cooperated with censorship boards and grassroots organizations in the hope of preserving the image of a "clean" Hollywood, but the distributors of exploitation film operated outside of this system and often welcomed controversy as a form of free promotion. Their producers used sensational elements to attract audiences lost to television. Since the 1990s, this genre has also received attention in academic circles, where it
13351-636: The Modern Horror Film examines the implications of its reversals of cinema's traditional gender roles. This type of film can be seen as an offshoot of the vigilante film, with the victim's transformation into avenger as the key scene. Author Jacinda Read and others believe that rape–revenge should be categorized as a narrative structure rather than a true subgenre, because its plot can be found in films of many different genres, such as thrillers ( Ms. 45 ), dramas ( Lipstick ), westerns ( Hannie Caulder ) and art films ( Memento ). One instance of
13520-548: 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: Eraserhead , originally distributed the previous year. A model of shoestring surrealism, David Lynch 's feature debut (which played alongside Susan Pitt 's 1979 animated short Asparagus ) reaffirmed
13689-695: The Queerios (based in Austin, Texas ), is the longest running shadow-cast in Texas. The film has a global following and remains popular. Subcultures such as Rocky Horror have also found a place on the Internet. Audience participation scripts for many cities are available for download from the internet. The internet has a number of Rocky Horror fan-run websites with various quizzes and information, specializing in different content, allowing fans to participate at
13858-458: The S.S. Last Days ), Gestapo's Last Orgy , or Last Orgy of The Third Reich , or Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler , Salon Kitty and SS Experiment Camp . Many Nazisploitation films were influenced by art films such as Pier Paolo Pasolini 's infamous Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom and Liliana Cavani's Il portiere di notte ( The Night Porter ). Inglourious Basterds (2009) and The Devil's Rock (2011) are modern homages to
14027-518: The Scorpion's Tail , A Lizard in a Woman's Skin , Black Belly of the Tarantula , The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh , Blood and Black Lace , Phenomena , Opera and Tenebrae . Dario Argento , Lucio Fulci and Mario Bava are the best-known directors of this genre. The 2013 Argentinian film Sonno Profondo is a modern tribute to the genre. In Italy, when you bring a script to
14196-646: The Triffids (1962), Curse of the Demon (1957), and When Worlds Collide (1951). The soundtrack was released in 1975 by Ode Records and produced by English composer Richard Hartley . The album peaked at No. 49 on the U.S. Billboard 200 in 1978. It reached No. 12 on the Australian albums chart and No. 11 on the New Zealand albums chart . The album is described as the "definitive version of
14365-456: The U.S. and U.K. Cult film participants are often people on the fringe of society who find connection and community at the screenings, although the film attracts fans of differing backgrounds all over the world. "Bisexuality, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Me", by Elizabeth Reba Weise, is part of the publication, Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out (1991), an anthology edited by Loraine Hutchins and Lani Kaʻahumanu about
14534-528: The UK. In the US, the film (including documentary footage and extras) was released on VHS on 8 November 1990, retailing for $ 89.95. The film was released on DVD on October 23, 2000 for the film's 25th anniversary. This one is a THX certified two-disc set that features the original theatrical version and an extended version. A 35th anniversary edition Blu-ray was released by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment in
14703-515: The US on 19 October 2010. The disc includes a newly created 7.1 surround sound mix, the original theatrical mono sound mix, and a 4K/2K image transfer from the original camera negative . In addition, new content featuring karaoke and a fan performance were included. A 45th anniversary edition Blu-ray was released in September 2020 by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment under the 20th Century Home Entertainment label. In October 2021,
14872-512: The United Kingdom, the BBC launched a regular late night movie slot on Saturday nights on BBC Two . From Saturday August 20, 1966, BBC Two started to air a "Midnight Movie" every Saturday night on the channel. The first "Midnight Movie" was "Blind Date" starring Hardy Krüger. The Midnight Movie would air every Saturday night on BBC Two, and would continue through the 1970s. The Midnight Movie
15041-488: The United States soon began showing inexpensive genre films in late-night slots; these late-night slots were after the safe-harbor time , meaning they were largely exempt from Federal Communications Commission regulations on indecent content. In the spring of 1954, Los Angeles TV station KABC expanded on the concept by having an appropriately offbeat host introduce the films: for a year on Saturday nights, The Vampira Show , with Maila Nurmi in her newly adopted persona of
15210-421: 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
15379-573: The Waverly ( Equinox , which had just replaced Night of the Living Dead ), the Bijou (both Freaks and Night of the Living Dead ), and the Olympia ( Macunaíma , a Brazilian political black comedy ). 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. Romero 's zombie masterpiece, in particular, highlighted one of
15548-829: The Waverly Theater in New York City, then spread to other counties in New York , and to Uniondale, Long Island . Rocky Horror was not only found in the larger cities but throughout the United States, where many attendees would get in free if they arrived in costume. The western division of the film's release included the U.A. Cinemas in Fresno and Merced , the Cinema J. in Sacramento , the UC Theatre in Berkeley and
15717-848: The Waverly Theatre in New York, which developed into a standardized ritual. According to J. Hoberman , author of Midnight Movies , it was after five months into the film's midnight run when lines began to be shouted by the audience. Louis Farese Jr., a normally quiet teacher, upon seeing the character Janet place a newspaper over her head to protect herself from rain, yelled, "Buy an umbrella, you cheap bitch." Originally, Louis and other Rocky Horror pioneers, including Amy Lazarus, Theresa Krakauskas, and Bill O'Brian, did this to entertain each other, each week trying to come up with something new to make each other laugh. This quickly caught on with other theatre-goers and thus began this self-proclaimed "counter point dialogue", which became standard practice and
15886-582: The Worlds to the cinemas, and Pal's The Time Machine was beaten to the cinemas by Edgar G. Ulmer 's film Beyond the Time Barrier . As a result, many major studios, producers, and stars keep their projects secret. Grindhouse is an American term for a theater that mainly showed exploitation films. These theatres were most popular throughout the 1970s and early 1980s in New York City and other urban centers, mainly in North America, but began
16055-552: The [ Rocky Horror ] score". The film opened in the United Kingdom at the Rialto Theatre in London on 14 August 1975 and in the United States on 26 September at the UA Westwood in Los Angeles. It did well at that location, but not elsewhere. Before the midnight screenings' success, the film was withdrawn from its eight opening cities due to very small audiences, and its planned New York City opening on Halloween night
16224-423: The actions on screen above and behind them, while lip-synching their characters' lines. Still in limited release in 2024, some 49 years after its premiere, it is the longest-running theatrical release in film history. In many cities, live amateur shadow-casts act out the film as it is being shown and heavily draw upon a tradition of audience participation. The film is most often shown close to Halloween . Today,
16393-411: The air late into the night, especially on a Saturday, thus the creation of the "Midnight Movie" strand was started. Most of the films aired were at least a decade old, but from 1967 nearly all of the films broadcast were made in color, as BBC Two became the first UK channel in 1967 to transmit color television. It is also noted however, that the "Midnight Movie" never actually started at Midnight. The movie
16562-685: The arena of the TV midnight movie. Starting at L.A.'s KHJ-TV 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 time 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
16731-478: The audience performance cast had the theatre's full cooperation; the local performers entered early and without charge. The fan playing Frank for this theatre was a transgender performer, D. Garret Gafford, who was out of work in 1978 and trying to raise the funds for a gender reassignment while spending the weekends performing at the Tiffany. Presently, the live action rendition of The Rocky Horror Picture Show
16900-402: The characters' continuing adventures in the town of Denton. Production was forced to adjust amidst the Screen Actors Guild strike ; eventually the entire film was shot on a single sound stage. Shock Treatment was poorly received by critics and audiences upon release (largely due to the absence of Curry, Sarandon, and Bostwick) but over time has built its own niche following. O'Brien revisited
17069-516: The dangers of venereal disease from premarital sex. Mom and Dad , a 1945 film about pregnancy and childbirth, was promoted in lurid terms. She Shoulda Said No! (1949) combined the themes of drug use and promiscuous sex. In the early days of film, when exploitation films relied on such sensational subjects as these, they had to present a very conservative moral viewpoint to avoid censorship, as movies then were not considered to enjoy First Amendment protection. Several war films were made about
17238-543: The differences: produced completely outside of New York and/or Los Angeles as Romero was making industrial films in Pittsburgh at the time. Shot over the winter of 1971–72, John Waters 's "filth epic" Pink Flamingos , featuring incest and coprophagia , became the best known of a group of campy midnight films focusing on sexual perversions and fetishism . Filmed on weekends in Waters's hometown of Baltimore, with
17407-402: The distinctions between genres by containing elements of two or more genres at a time. Their subgenres are identifiable by the characteristics they use. For example, Doris Wishman's Let Me Die A Woman contains elements of both shock documentary and sexploitation. Although they featured lurid subject matter, exploitation films of the 1930s and 1940s evaded the strict censorship and scrutiny of
17576-492: The early 1970s to the late 1980s, primarily made by Italian and Spanish moviemakers. They focus on cannibalism by tribes deep in the South American or Asian rainforests. This cannibalism is usually perpetrated against Westerners that the tribes held prisoner. As with mondo films , the main draw of cannibal films was the promise of exotic locales and graphic gore involving living creatures. The best-known film of this genre
17745-565: The end of 1979, there were twice-weekly showings at over 230 theatres. The National Fan Club was established in 1977 and later merged with the International Fan Club. The fan publication The Transylvanian printed a number of issues, and a semi-regular poster magazine was published as well as an official magazine. Performance groups in the Los Angeles area originated at the Fox Theatre in 1977, where Michael Wolfson won
17914-698: The environment. Night of the Lepus , Frogs , and Godzilla vs. Hedorah are examples. After Steven Spielberg 's 1975 film Jaws , a number of very similar films (sometimes regarded as outright rip-offs) were produced in the hope of cashing in on its success. Examples are Alligator , Cujo , Day of the Animals , Great White , Grizzly , Humanoids from the Deep , Monster Shark , Orca , The Pack , Piranha , Prophecy , Razorback , Blood Feast , Tentacles and Tintorera . Roger Corman
18083-420: The era by claiming to be educational. They were generally cautionary tales about the alleged dangers of premarital sexual intercourse and the use of recreational drugs. Examples include Marihuana (1936), Reefer Madness (1936), Sex Madness (1938), Child Bride (1938), Mom and Dad (1945) and She Shoulda Said No! (1949). An exploitation film about homosexuality, Children of Loneliness (1937),
18252-456: The fearlessness of acclaimed transgressive European directors such as Derek Jarman , Luis Buñuel and Jean-Luc Godard in handling "disreputable" content. Many films recognized as classics contain levels of sex, violence and shock typically associated with exploitation films. Examples include Stanley Kubrick 's A Clockwork Orange , Tod Browning's Freaks and Roman Polanski 's Repulsion . Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou contains elements of
18421-404: The film has a large international cult following and has been considered by many as one of the greatest musical films of all time . In 2005, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The film begins with a pair of floating disembodied lips welcoming the audience to
18590-535: The film production was expensive. For filming, corsets for the finale had to be doubled for the pool scene, with one version drying while the other was worn on set. While many of the costumes are exact replicas from the stage productions, other costumes were new to filming, such as Columbia's gold sequined swallow-tail coat and top hat and Magenta's maid's uniform. Blane was amazed by the recreation and understanding of her designs by fans. When she first heard that people were dressing up, she thought it would be tacky, but
18759-463: The film was added to Disney+ on the Star hub for users in locations such as the UK, Ireland and Canada. Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert noted that when first released, The Rocky Horror Picture Show was "ignored by pretty much everyone, including the future fanatics who would eventually count the hundreds of times they'd seen it". He considered it more a "long-running social phenomenon" than
18928-431: The film, the producers chose Pierre La Roche, who had previously been a make-up artist for Mick Jagger and David Bowie , to redesign the make-up for each character. Production stills were taken by rock photographer Mick Rock , who has published a number of books from his work. In Rocky Horror: From Concept to Cult , designer Sue Blane discusses the Rocky Horror costumes' influence on punk music style, opining "[It
19097-422: The first film to place its exploitation elements unapologetically at the forefront instead of pretending to carry a moral or educational message. This development paved the way for the more explicit exploitation films of the 1960s and 1970s and made the nudist genre obsolete—ironically, since the nudist film Garden of Eden was the subject of the court case. After this, the nudist genre split into subgenres such as
19266-458: 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
19435-399: The genre is mostly associated with 1970s samurai manga by Kazuo Koike , on whose work many later films would be based. Chambara features few of the stoic, formal sensibilities of earlier jidaigeki films – the new chambara featured revenge-driven antihero protagonists, nudity, sex scenes, swordplay and blood. Giallo films are Italian-made slasher films that focus on cruel murders and
19604-561: The genre, the original version of The Last House on the Left , was an uncredited remake of Ingmar Bergman 's The Virgin Spring , recast as a horror film featuring extreme violence. Deliverance , in which the rape is perpetrated on a man, has been credited as the originator of the genre. Clover, who restricts her definition of the genre to movies in which a woman is raped and gains her own revenge, praises rape–revenge exploitation films for
19773-523: The groundwork for the similarly influential cult following surrounding Tommy Wiseau 's The Room (2003). Rocky Horror also inspired John McPhail 's zombie musical Anna and the Apocalypse (2018). O'Brien drafted a sequel titled Rocky Horror Shows His Heels in 1979. This script featured the return of all of the characters from the original film, and O'Brien wished to reunite the original production team. But Sharman did not wish to revisit
19942-440: The head of the house: Dr. Frank N. Furter, an apparently mad scientist and alien transvestite from the planet Transsexual in the galaxy of Transylvania, who creates a living muscle man named Rocky. The film was shot in the United Kingdom at Bray Studios and on location at an old country estate named Oakley Court , best known for its earlier use by Hammer Film Productions . A number of props and set pieces were reused from
20111-553: The history of the modern bisexual rights movement that is one of the first publications of bisexual literature . The Rocky Horror Picture Show has been featured in a number of other feature films and television series over the years. Episodes of The Simpsons , The Venture Bros. , Tuca & Bertie , The Boondocks , Glee , The Drew Carey Show , That '70s Show , Deutschland 86 , and American Dad! spotlight Rocky Horror , as do films such as Vice Squad (1982), Halloween II (2009), and The Perks of Being
20280-421: The laboratory scene and the title character's creation occurred on 30 October 1974. The film is both a parody and tribute to many of the science fiction and horror movies from the 1930s up to the 1970s. The film production retains many aspects from the stage version, such as production design and music, but adds new scenes not featured in the original stage play. The film's plot, setting, and style echo those of
20449-513: The last performances by horror movie mainstay Boris Karloff and a tale that resonated with the assassinations and other political violence of that era. 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 Buñuel and another Lennon favorite),
20618-888: 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 closure of many additional independent theaters. While Rocky Horror soldiered on, by then a phenomenon unto itself, and new films like House (1977), Up in Smoke (1978), The Warriors (1979), Altered States (1980), Forbidden Zone (1980, released 1982), The Evil Dead (1981), Heavy Metal (1981), Mommie Dearest (1981), Liquid Sky (1982), Pink Floyd – The Wall (1982), Repo Man (1984), Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) and Akira (1988)—all from mainstream distributors—were picked up by
20787-514: The mid-1960s. They were more violent and amoral than typical Hollywood westerns. These films also often eschewed the conventions of Hollywood studio Westerns, which were primarily for consumption by conservative, mainstream American audiences. Examples of the genre include Death Rides a Horse ; Django ; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ; Navajo Joe ; The Grand Duel ; The Great Silence ; For
20956-514: The midnight movie circuit, the core of exhibitors that energized the movement was disappearing. By the time the fabled Orson Welles Cinema 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 1983, film critics J. Hoberman and Jonathan Rosenbaum released a book about midnight movies simply titled Midnight Movies . In 1988,
21125-623: The midnight movie experience was institutionalized in a new manner with the introduction of the Toronto International Film Festival '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 were the Oscar-winning Australian drag queen road saga The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of
21294-413: The midnight movie's most central traditions. The commercial viability of the sort of big-city arthouse cinemas that launched outsider pictures for the midnight movie circuit began to decrease 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
21463-496: The modern splatter film. It has been suggested that if Carnival of Souls had been made in Europe, it would be considered an art film, while if Eyes Without a Face had been made in the U.S., it would have been categorized as a low-budget horror film. The audiences of art and exploitation film are both considered to have tastes that reject the mainstream Hollywood offerings. Exploitation films have often exploited news events in
21632-412: The narrative thrust that really drives audiences insane and keeps 'em doing the time warp again". A number of contemporary critics find it compelling and enjoyable because of its offbeat and bizarre qualities; the BBC summarised: "for those willing to experiment with something a little bit different, a little bit outré, The Rocky Horror Picture Show has a lot to offer." The New York Times called it
21801-409: The night (" Sweet Transvestite "). With the help of Riff Raff, Frank brings to life a tall, muscular, handsome blond man named Rocky ("The Sword of Damocles"). As Frank vows he can improve Rocky into an ideal man in a week ("I Can Make You a Man"), Eddie, a motorcyclist with a bandaged head, breaks out of a deep freeze ("Hot Patootie – Bless My Soul"). Frank kills Eddie with an ice axe, justifying it as
21970-483: The notion for a direct RHPS sequel in 1991, writing Revenge of the Old Queen . Producer Michael White had hoped to begin work on the production and described the script as being "in the same style as the other one. It has reflections of the past in it." Revenge of the Old Queen commenced pre-production; however, after studio head Joe Roth was ousted from Fox in 1993, the project was shelved indefinitely. Although
22139-399: The origin of the word: that the producers would "grind"-out films. Many of them were violent action films that some called "drive-in" films. Exploitation films may adopt the subject matter and styling of regular film genres, particularly horror films and documentary films, and their themes are sometimes influenced by other so-called exploitative media, such as pulp magazines . They often blur
22308-427: The original concept so directly, nor did Tim Curry wish to reprise his role. Instead, Sharman reunited with O'Brien to film Shock Treatment in 1981, a stand-alone feature with little continuity from the original film. Initially conceived and scripted in 1980 as The Brad and Janet Show , the film repurposed several songs from the earlier Rocky Horror Shows His Heels project with lyrical adjustments, and depicting
22477-629: 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 paradoxical element of nostalgia : the leading revivals on the circuit currently include the crème de la crème of the John Hughes oeuvre— The Breakfast Club (1985), Pretty in Pink (1986), and Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)—and
22646-661: The planet's surface: "lost in time, and lost in space... and meaning" ("Super Heroes"). Jeremy Newson and Hilary Labow play Brad and Janet's newlywed friends Ralph and Betty Hapschatt. The guests at both the Hapschatt wedding and Frank's convention consist of Perry Bedden, Christopher Biggins , Gaye Brown, Ishaq Bux , Stephen Calcutt, Hugh Cecil, Imogen Claire , Tony Cowan, Sadie Corré , Fran Fullenwider, Lindsay Ingram, Peggy Ledger, Annabel Leventon , Anthony Milner , Pamela Obermeyer, Tony Then , Kimi Wong, and Henry Woolf , as well as an uncredited Rufus Collins. Richard O'Brien
22815-634: The play set against the backdrop of the glam era that had manifested itself in British popular culture in the 1970s. Allowing his concept to come into being, O'Brien states " glam rock allowed me to be myself more". O'Brien showed a portion of the unfinished script to Australian director Jim Sharman, who decided to direct it at the small experimental space Upstairs at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square , Chelsea, London , which
22984-433: The poster. With Pink Flamingos (1972) and Reefer Madness (1936) making money in midnight showings nationwide, a Fox executive, Tim Deegan, was able to talk distributors into midnight screenings, starting in New York City on April Fools' Day of 1976. It was the "Secret" film, on 20 May, in the first Seattle International Film Festival . The cult following started shortly after the film began its midnight run at
23153-546: The preteen adventure film The Goonies (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 Registry : Eraserhead (inducted 2004) and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (inducted 2005). Midnight movie staples Freaks (1932) and Night of
23322-692: The prisoners, who are often female, are nude. The progenitor of this subgenre was Love Camp 7 (1969). The archetype of the genre, which established its popularity and its typical themes, was Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1974), about the buxom, nymphomaniacal dominatrix Ilsa torturing prisoners in a Stalag . Others include Fräulein Devil ( Captive Women 4 , or Elsa: Fraulein SS , or Fraulein Kitty ), La Bestia in calore ( SS Hell Camp , or SS Experiment Part 2 , or The Beast in Heat , or Horrifying Experiments of
23491-626: The sales manager of a local radio station who had already successfully sponsored such screenings in St. Louis . By the following February, four Milwaukee theaters were regularly showing midnight films, and the Marcus chain , the owner of one, had brought the concept to its theaters in four other Midwestern cities. "Films that feature rock concerts draw big", Boxoffice reported, "as do those dealing with outer space and fantasy". The trade paper noted one popular midnight film by name: Alice's Restaurant (1969),
23660-483: The screen fading to black and oversized, disembodied female lips appear overdubbed with a male voice , establishing the theme of androgyny to be repeated as the film unfolds. The opening scene and song, " Science Fiction/Double Feature ", consists of the lips of Patricia Quinn (who appears in the film later as the character Magenta and as 'Trixie the Usherette' in the original London production, where she also sings
23829-557: The script went unpublished, bootleg copies have leaked online, and a song from the original demo tape circulates among fans. The script remains the property of Fox, producer of the two prior films, and remains unlikely to be revived. Exploitation film An exploitation film is a film that tries to succeed financially by exploiting current trends, niche genres, or lurid content . Exploitation films are generally low-quality " B movies ", though some set trends, attract critical attention, become historically important, and even gain
23998-631: The shadow screenings. June Thomas describes the midnight screenings in Newark, Delaware as a "very queer scene", which increased visibility for the LGBTQ community: "The folks standing in line outside the State in fishnets and makeup every Saturday night undoubtedly widened the sphere of possibilities for gender expression on Main Street." The Rocky Horror Picture Show remains a cultural phenomenon in both
24167-677: The short-term public consciousness that a major film studio may avoid because of the time required to produce a major film. Child Bride (1938), for example, tackled the issue of older men marrying young girls in the Ozarks . Other issues, such as drug use in films like Reefer Madness (1936), attracted audiences that major film studios would usually avoid to keep their respectable, mainstream reputations. With enough incentive, however, major studios might become involved, as Warner Bros. did in their 1969 anti- LSD , anti- counterculture film The Big Cube . The film Sex Madness (1938) portrayed
24336-501: The song) but has the vocals of actor and Rocky Horror creator, Richard O'Brien (who appears as Magenta's brother Riff Raff). The lyrics refer to science fiction and horror films of the past and list several film titles from the 1930s to the 1960s, including The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Flash Gordon (1936), The Invisible Man (1933), King Kong (1933), It Came from Outer Space (1953), Doctor X (1932), Forbidden Planet (1956), Tarantula (1955), The Day of
24505-407: The sports cars, muscle cars , and car wrecks that were popular in the 1970s and 1980s. They were produced mainly in the United States and Australia. The quintessential film of this genre is Vanishing Point (1971). Others include Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), The Cars That Ate Paris (1974), Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974), Gone in 60 Seconds (1974), Death Race 2000 (1975), Race with
24674-408: The stage play in London, found the film "lacking both charm and dramatic impact". Newsweek , in 1978, called the film "tasteless, plotless and pointless". Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 80% based on 49 reviews, and an average grade of 6.9/10, with the critical consensus reading " The Rocky Horror Picture Show brings its quirky characters in tight, but it's
24843-617: The subgenre. Nudist films originated in the 1930s as films that skirted the Hays Code restrictions on nudity by purportedly depicting the naturist lifestyle. They existed through the late 1950s, when the New York State Court of Appeals ruled in the case of Excelsior Pictures vs. New York Board of Regents that onscreen nudity is not obscene. This opened the door to more open depictions of nudity, starting with Russ Meyer's 1959 The Immoral Mr. Teas , which has been credited as
25012-547: The subsequent search for the killers. They are named for the Italian word for yellow, giallo , the background color featured on the covers of the pulp novels by which these movies were inspired. The progenitor of this genre was The Girl Who Knew Too Much . Other examples of Giallo films include Four Flies on Grey Velvet , Deep Red , The Cat o' Nine Tails , The Bird with the Crystal Plumage , The Case of
25181-543: The time the manor was not in good condition. Most of the cast were from the original London stage production, including Tim Curry, who had decided that Dr Frank N. Furter should speak like the Queen of the United Kingdom , extravagantly posh. Fox insisted on casting the two characters of Brad and Janet with American actors, Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon. Filming took place during autumn, which made conditions worse. During filming, Sarandon fell ill with pneumonia . Filming of
25350-409: The traditional midnight screenings to continue. A Super 8 version of selected scenes of the film was made available. In 1983, Ode Records released The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Audience Par-Tic-I-Pation Album , recorded at the 8th Street Playhouse . The recording consisted of the film's audio and the standardized call-backs from the audience. A home video release was made available in 1987 in
25519-414: The turn of the millennium, the most notable successes among newly minted midnight movies have been Donnie Darko (2001) and The Room (2003). Older films are also popular on the circuit, appreciated largely in an imposed camp fashion—a midnight movie tradition that goes back to the 1972 revival of the hectoring anti-drug movie Reefer Madness (1936). ( Tod Browning 's 1932 horror classic Freaks ,
25688-482: The use of stylistic devices and dialogue associated with screwball comedies, love interests and flirtation akin to romance films , over-the-top direction, cheeky homages, fan-pleasing content and caricatures, and performances that contain sleazy teasing alluding to foreplay or kink. The use of extended scenes and the showing of full frontal nudity are typical genre techniques. Sexploitation films include Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Supervixens by Russ Meyer ,
25857-492: The way in which their protagonists fight their abuse directly, rather than preserve the status quo by depending on an unresponsive legal system, as in rape–revenge movies from major studios such as The Accused . The redsploitation genre concerns Native American characters almost always played by white actors, usually exacting their revenge on their white tormentors. Examples are the Billy Jack tetralogy, The Ransom ,
26026-514: The work of Armando Bó with Isabel Sarli , the Emmanuelle series, Showgirls and Caligula . Caligula is unusual among exploitation films in that it was made with a large budget and well-known actors ( Malcolm McDowell , John Gielgud , Peter O'Toole and Helen Mirren ). Lesbian sex scenes of the 1970s have been studied in the context of the political and social implications of lesbianism and women's sexuality, something that remains
26195-676: Was a major producer of these films in both decades. The genre has experienced a revival in recent years, as films like Mulberry Street and Larry Fessenden's The Last Winter reflected concerns about global warming and overpopulation. The Sci-Fi Channel (now known as SyFy ) has produced several films about giant or hybrid mutations whose titles are sensationalized portmanteaus of the two species; examples include Sharktopus and Dinoshark . Nazi exploitation films, also called "Nazisploitation" films, or "il sadiconazista", focus on Nazis torturing prisoners in death camps and brothels during World War II . The tortures are often sexual, and
26364-571: Was a] big part of the build-up [to punk ]." She states that ripped fishnet stockings, glitter, and coloured hair were directly attributable to Rocky Horror . Some of the costumes from the film had been originally used in the stage production. Props and set pieces were reused from old Hammer Horror productions and others. The tank and dummy used for Rocky's birth originally appeared in The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958). These references to earlier productions, in addition to cutting costs, enhanced
26533-506: Was an attempt by the BBC to provide a late night alternative, when the two other channels BBC One and ITV would normally end their Saturday programming at around 12-midnight. This was partly due to the restrictions imposed on the broadcasting hours of both BBC and ITV by the British government, normally no more than 8 hours in a given day. As BBC Two did not broadcast a large amount of daytime programming, they had plenty of hours to spare to remain on
26702-414: Was brought in to produce. As the musical went into rehearsal, the working title, They Came from Denton High , was changed just before previews at the suggestion of Sharman to The Rocky Horror Show . Having premiered in the small 60-seat Royal Court Theatre, it quickly moved to larger venues in London, transferring to the 230-seat Chelsea Classic Cinema on King's Road on 14 August 1973, before finding
26871-532: Was cancelled. Fox re-released the film around college campuses on a double-bill with another rock music film parody, Brian De Palma 's Phantom of the Paradise (1974), but again it drew small audiences. A second film poster was created using a set of red lipstick-painted lips with the tagline "A Different Set of Jaws", a spoof of the poster for the film Jaws (which was also released in 1975). The lips of former Playboy model Lorelei Shark are featured on
27040-448: Was designed to air "through" the midnight hour, and could start as early as 11.15pm. By 1983 the "Midnight Movie" strand was abandoned by BBC Two, with BBC One airing a late night movie on a Friday night instead, usually a horror film. The "Midnight Movie" slot on BBC Two would be replaced with late night sporting coverage or different genre of films on occasions, which would not use the "Midnight Movie" strand. Since at least as far back as
27209-694: Was directed by an African American filmmaker named William Crain . Blacula was one of the first early successful blaxploitation horror movies. Ganja & Hess stars Duane Jones , who played Ben in Night of the Living Dead . This movie has political and social commentary in which the vampires are a metaphor for capitalism , according to Harry M. Benshoff . Modern homages of this genre include Jackie Brown , Pootie Tang , Undercover Brother , Black Dynamite , Proud Mary and BlacKkKlansman . The 1973 Bond film Live and Let Die uses blaxploitation themes. Cannibal films are graphic movies from
27378-510: Was echoed by stations across the country, who began showing their late-night B movies with in-character hosts such as Zacherley and Morgus the Magnificent offering ironic interjections. A quarter-century later, Cassandra Peterson 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
27547-615: Was inspired by Bob Clark 's Black Christmas . The genre continued into and peaked in the 1980s with well-known films like Friday the 13th (1980) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). Many 1980s slasher films used the basic format of Halloween , for example My Bloody Valentine (1981), Prom Night (1980), The Funhouse (1981), Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) and Sleepaway Camp (1983), many of which also used elements from Black Christmas . A subtype featuring space , science fiction and horror in film . Despite ambitious literary works that depicted space travel as
27716-506: Was living as an unemployed actor in London during the early 1970s. He wrote most of The Rocky Horror Show during one winter just to occupy himself. Since his youth, O'Brien had loved science fiction and B horror movies . He wanted to combine elements of the unintentional humour of B horror movies, portentous dialogue of schlock-horror, Steve Reeves muscle flicks, and fifties rock and roll into his musical. O'Brien conceived and wrote
27885-505: Was put together from former members of an early Berkeley group, disbanded due to less than enthusiastic management. Frank N. Furter was portrayed by Marni Scofidio, who, in 1979, attracted many of the older performers from Berkeley. Other members included Mishell Erickson as Columbia, her twin sister Denise Erickson as Magenta, Kathy Dolan as Janet, and Linda "Lou" Woods as Riff Raff. The Strand group performed at two large science fiction conventions in Los Angeles and San Francisco, were offered
28054-465: Was repeated nearly verbatim at each screening. Performance groups became a staple at Rocky Horror screenings due in part to the prominent New York City fan cast. The New York City cast was originally run by former schoolteacher and stand-up comic Sal Piro and his friend Dori Hartley, the latter of whom portrayed Dr. Frank N. Furter and was one of several performers, including Will Kohler as Brad Majors, Nora Poses as Janet, and Lilias Piro as Magenta, in
28223-554: Was surprised to see the depth to which the fans went to recreate her designs. Rocky Horror fan Mina Credeur, who designs costumes and performed as Columbia for Houston's performance group, states that "the best part is when everyone leaves with a big smile on their face," noting that there's "such a kitschiness and campiness that it seems to be winking at you." The film still plays at many theatre locations and Rocky Horror costumes are often made for Halloween , although many require much time and effort to make. The film starts with
28392-517: Was used as a project space for new work. O'Brien had appeared briefly in a stage production of Andrew Lloyd Webber 's Jesus Christ Superstar , directed by Sharman, and the two also worked together in Sam Shepard 's The Unseen Hand . Sharman would bring in production designer Brian Thomson . The original creative team was then rounded out by costume designer Sue Blane , musical director Richard Hartley , and stage producer Michael White , who
28561-410: Was written by Sharman and Richard O'Brien , who also played the supporting role Riff-raff. The film is based on the 1973 musical stage production The Rocky Horror Show , with music, book, and lyrics by O'Brien. The production is a tribute to the science fiction and horror B movies of the 1930s through to the early 1960s. The film stars Tim Curry , Susan Sarandon , and Barry Bostwick . The film
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