By Mary Leong
What springs to mind when you think of cult cinema? Reruns of The Rocky Horror Picture Show during Halloween? Or perhaps the iconic “I’m with Pedro” shirts, courtesy of Napoleon Dynamite? Ernest Mathijs’ new book, Cult Cinema, examines this wildly popular, yet hard-to-define genre of film.
“I have been researching fan audiences and publics of films for over a decade now, and I was struck by the fact that there is no encompassing up-to-date overview of cult cinema,” said Mathijs. “Everyone wants to use the term ‘cult’ now, and the term has become meaningless. I wanted to show what exactly the meaning of the term was, and how it helps us understand the function that films have in the lives of people.”
According to Mathijs, a cult film questions society’s notions of propriety, and challenges mainstream ideas about what is considered good or bad. Instead of taking a movie at face value, fans of cult films prefer to view movies as a vehicle for a greater understanding about society or culture.
“Often, cult film fans prefer films that are dense and difficult, shocking, exotic, campy, outrageous, so bad that they shatter conceptions of badness, or that allow for endless discussions,” said Mathijs.
So what makes a film a cult film? Cult films take time to develop, but a real cult following is unpredictable – “a combination of chance, a certain cultural sensibility, some adversity, and above all a committed fan base that consistently re-unearths the film over and over again.”
The most common example of a cult film is The Rocky Horror Picture Show, where fans dress up and create their own movie by throwing things and talking back to the screen. Older examples include The Wizard of Oz, Reefer Madness, while recent examples range from Donny Darko to Ichi the Killer, even box-office hit The Lord of the Rings.
“Another contemporary example would be The Room – a film so bad that fans show up at screenings to ridicule it by throwing stuff, mimicking performances, and exposing inconsistencies. The disrespect for the film means that it is the fans who are in charge of what a film ‘means’, not the film – the film itself is not important,” said Mathijs.
When asked which cult film he would recommend to readers, Mathijs names Canadian film Ginger Snaps as one of his top picks.
“It is smart, deeply philosophical, slightly shocking, a real eye-opener, and a darn good werewolf movie. Almost a decade old, Ginger Snaps has a very active, deeply engaged cult following that is the perfect example of how one small film can become a guide to life for people.”
