70’s Cult Cinema

This week I really enjoyed learning about cult films of the 70’s and “midnight movies”. The 70’s was an extraordinary period for cinema and is argued to be one of the greatest decades for movies. Midnight movies was a phenomenon that emerged in the 70’s and lasted until the end of the decade. What truly began the culture of Cult movies was when Alejandro Jodorowsky’s film El Topo was screened at the Elgin Theater in Chelsea, New York. It became a hit and people were lining up outside the theater every midnight to see the film, some went to see it as many times as they could. According to the documentary we watched in class, after the movie was bought again to be shown at another big theater, it was blown out in 3 days and lost it’s aura and theatrical value, and the craze for the film died down. However, Alejandro Jodorowsky will forever be known as the starter of midnight movies and will go down in cult cinema history. After El Topo, Theater owners realized there was an audience for midnight movies and films began to be shown at midnight in theaters across the country. The documentary explained it as a giant search for the next El Topo.

It is funny because I pass by this theater all the time. What use to be known as the Elgin Theater is know the Joyce Theater. However I never knew about the history, and how this theater started this sub-culture of cinema. Strange how different the theater is know compared to how it used to be in the 70’s.

Soon other odd films, way different from mainstream cinema were shown at midnight screenings, including Night of the Living Dead, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Pink Flamingos, Eraserhead, Freaks, and much more. Most cult films often had themes of immorality, sensitive topics, non-conformity, graphic violence, sex, etc. However the audience or following is what gave that film its cult status. In order for a film to be considered a cult it had to have a loyal following. For example, Rocky Horror Picture Show, one of the most iconic cult films ever created especially when it comes down to the film’s loyal fans. Going to a midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show in the 70’s seemed like a whole different experience. People would show up to the theater dressed as their favorite characters, recite the dialogue as the movie played, people made up their own scripts and yelled them out at the screen at the right time, live performances of the movie would be enacted as the actual movie played in the background, audiences would throw toilet paper, rice, toast, their drinks, etc. to react with whatever was happening on the screen. The extreme level of audience participation turned it into its own production. Rocky Horror Picture Show is a great film, it’s fun and colorful, has catchy music, it’s weird and different, it is no surprise it became such a cult classic.