The Myth of Cult

In cinema, the word 'cult' can be a dangerous one. All too often, it's a lazy, catch-all term used to describe a film that is loved by no more than three people, and is invariably shit. At the other end of the spectrum, there's a film like 'The Shawshank Redemption'. No box office success, little marketing, and pretty much no hope, 'Shawshank's fortunes were transformed, thanks to the advent of the DVD market, into one of the most rented, watched, and loved films of the modern era, a movie that began as cult, and became the complete opposite, the very definition of mainstream. 

Don't be fooled, he'd just waded through shit.

'Shawshank' became so nauseatingly popular to the point where I once told someone that I didn't really like it that much, and they looked at me as if I'd just admitted to injecting babies with ketamin. Indeed, to even have such a thing as a 'cult film' these days is difficult, with everything so readily available, transparent, and the potential to have an online following of millions at the touch of a button.
But the emergence of various pop-up and outdoor cinemas over recent years has allowed some of the true cult films to strutt their stuff in front of a contemporary audience in the way in which they were intended. Not on ITV3 on a Wednesday night at 2am after a show about Peter Andre waxing his arse, but on the big screen, whilst sitting on a beanbag next to someone who smells as if they may well have just pissed themselves.

Dear Peter, no-one cares.

Next weekend's Backyard Cinema (http://www.backyardcinema.co.uk/) sees some of these cult films get the outing they deserve. 'Tremors' arrived back in 1990, at the very back-end of the golden era of cult film which included guilty pleasures like 'Labyrinth', the mentally unbalanced 'Re-Animator', and of course 'This Is Spinal Tap'. Given that 'Tremors' is now almost 25 years old, there's unlikely to be many (any?) folk at BYC who ever saw the 'Graboids' (translation: big fucking worms) at the cinema. Of course, it isn't the best flick ever made, and never intends to be. But it's a thousand times more enjoyable than 'Schindler's List' and only half as long. (Yeah. I went there.) And Kevin Bacon is in it. (YOU KNOW KEVIN BACON RIGHT, KIDS? HE'S THE ONE FROM THE 'EE' ADVERTS >).

The 1980's in a nutshell.

BYC will also be showing what, in many people's eyes, is the very film that defines 'cult'. Hard to believe back in 1998 that an independent comedy about kidnapping, drinking, and bowling would go on to become perhaps the most quoted film of a generation, but that's what 'The Big Lebowski' has done. It even has it's own 2 day festival where they show the film, talk about it, and bowl. Personally I think that's taking it a bit too far, but each to their own.

Recent years have seen something of a decline in true cult film. 1999's 'Fight Club' began that way, with awful reviews, dreadful cinema takings, and many campaigns to ban it from the start, but has now been (rightly) recognised as the brilliantly black comedy it is, and not the disgustingly violent and manipulative drivel that Daily Mail readers (my nan) would have you believe. A few years later, and the notorious 'The Room' began it's road to cult status, to the point where the Prince Charles Cinema in Soho still shows it regularly and to packed crowds. Apparently, people take along spoons and talk along to the favourite bits of the film. I would not like to meet any of these people, but I've been told they exist.

Too. Many. Drugs.

But the most frequent examples of the cult film flourish came in the 1970's and 80's. Although well known and highly regarded today, movies such as 'A Clockwork Orange', 'Withnail And I', and 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' had tricky beginnings, initially receiving only a fraction of the appreciation they now maintain. The explosion of the DVD market two decades ago have made it possible for many forgotten or undiscovered gems to force their way into the public consciousness, and watching this type of film on a big screen with beer and burger in hand is simply an extension of this. But pop-up cinema has it's own rules, people, so abide by these and we'll get along fine:

5) - Put your mobile away. We may not be in an Odeon but I'll still smash up your Samsung Galaxy if it rings again, dig?

4) - Don't lie back too far in a deck chair. If you do, it can take up to 12 minutes to get up again. And don't lie back on a beanbag. 

At all. 

Just don't.

3) - If taking a loo break, remember the toilets may be within earshot of the audience, so best not to be singing Tatu's 'All The Things She Said' as you dry your hands and come out again. Trust me. 

2) - Do not bring plastic bags full of loud snacks such as Pringles or carrots with you. There's rules here, this isn't fucking Vietnam.

1) -  People seem more attractive at pop-up cinemas than at regular cinemas. 

This is because you are drunk.