Cult Classics

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What makes a movie cultish? For a lot of people, it’s about the thrill of discovery—because these films traditionally don’t do well in the box office, they end up hidden in unlikely places, like small art theaters, late-night television, or listed in Netflix’s more eccentric genres (e.g. “psycho-dramas with a strong female lead”, or “campy horror films set in outer space”). The “found” nature of a cult film makes the viewer feel that, in discovering it, he or she has unearthed a cinematic gem too fringe for the mainstream viewer to ever understand. This self-proclaimed separation from the movie-going masses adds the viewer by default to the film’s “cult,” or what is perceived to be the small group of people who are also cognizant of its splendor. Although it explains the appeal of cult film to individual viewers, this characterization of the movies themselves is problematic. The vast majority of these works are, in fact, part of a critically acclaimed cinematic canon—award-winning works include Pulp Fiction, Apocalypse Now, The Shawshank Redemption, and many others—that revolutionized American cinema and yet maintained an essentially “cult” flavor. Furthermore, a lot of film theorists claim that this “cinephile elitism” is impossible in the digital age, since any person basically has access to any film ever made, eliminating the exclusive nature of cult viewing. Thus, the essence of these movies is less about their actual obscurity, and more about the audience’s perception of that obscurity. The cult aspect transforms the audience members from voyeurs into active participants, a traditional show into an interactive spectacle.

The essential thematic thread that connects cult films is their departure from a traditional narrative structure. Office Space, a movie about the vengeance of disgruntled IT workers at a software company, is an iconic cult satire, in which the characters represent a sub-culture of disillusioned college grads in the 90s tech industry. This film and many others also feature unlikely heroes like Marge Henderson, the pregnant Police Chief with a heavy Minnesotan accent in Fargo, or Veronica, the girl who murders the bitchy popular crowd in the black comedy Heathers. Other movies like Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction re-invented filmic genre itself, in his case by using film noir aesthetics and a postmodernist plot structure to create a unique “neo-noir” style. There’s also the “so-bad-it’s-funny” camp, in which films like Glitter and The Room are enjoyed by cult audiences in irony and scorn. All of these characteristics make for a more intensive viewing experience, via either a connection to an anti-hero, an introduction to revolutionary cinematic style, or a unique humor.

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