Film genre
Tod Browning
's
Freaks
(1932) can be considered an example of the sort of (then) obscure horror film shown on late-night TV beginning in the 1950s; in the 1970s and early 1980s it was a staple of midnight screenings at theaters around the U.S.
[1]
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.
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
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
.
[2]
History
[
edit
]
On television
[
edit
]
In 1953, the
Screen Actors Guild
agreed to a
residuals
payment plan that greatly facilitated the distribution of B movies to television.
[3]
A number of local television stations around 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 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
.
[4]
The format 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.
As Elvira, Mistress of the Dark,
Cassandra Peterson
presented late-night movies on the
Movie Macabre
series.
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 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.
[5]
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 the Grave
.
[6]
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 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
.
[7]
In 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 Kruger. The Midnight Movie would air every Saturday night on BBC Two, and would continue through the 1970s. The Midnight Movie 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 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 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.
In the cinema
[
edit
]
Midnight screening from 1958 for the double-feature,
Giant from the Unknown
and
She Demons
.
Since at least as far back as the 1930s,
exploitation films
had sometimes been presented at midnight screenings, usually as part of independent roadshow operations.
[8]
In 1957,
Hammer Films
'
The Curse of Frankenstein
set off a spate of midnight presentations.
[9]
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 a sellout screening of their
Dali
-esque thesis film
Messages, Messages
, were invited to program offbeat films at midnight.
[10]
Author
Gary Lachman
claims that
Kenneth Anger
's short
Invocation of My Demon Brother
(1969), a melange of occult symbology intercut with and superimposed on images from a
Rolling Stones
concert, "inaugurat[ed] the midnight movie cult at the
Elgin Theatre
."
[11]
The Elgin, in New York City's
Chelsea
neighborhood, would soon become famous as a midnight venue when it gave the U.S. premiere of a very unusual Mexican movie directed and written by a rather Dali-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
."
[12]
El Topo
regularly sold out every night for months, with many fans returning on 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.
[13]
The Elgin soon came up with another midnight hit in
Peter Bogdanovich
's spree-killer thriller
Targets
(1968), featuring one of the last performances by horror movie mainstay
Boris Karloff
and a tale that resonated with the assassinations and other political violence of that era.
[14]
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 Bunuel
and another Lennon favorite), 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 (
Macunaima
, a Brazilian political
black comedy
).
[15]
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 the differences: produced completely outside of
New York
and/or
Los Angeles
as Romero was making
industrial films
in
Pittsburgh
at the time.
[16]
Trailer
for
Pink Flamingos
(1972), showing testimonials from the film after a midnight screening.
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
.
[17]
Filmed on weekends in Waters's hometown of Baltimore, with a mile-long extension cord as a power conduit, it was also crucial in inspiring the growth of the
independent film
movement.
[18]
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 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 the Bit Player
, and
Elevator Girls in Bondage
(as well as
Pink Flamingos
) had their New York premieres at midnight screenings.
[19]
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
.
[20]
[21]
[22]
[23]
Around this time, the black comedy
Harold and Maude
(1971) became 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.
[24]
The midnight screening phenomenon was spreading around the country. In
Milwaukee
, it began in May 1974, spurred by 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), a comedy with political overtones starring folk singer
Arlo Guthrie
.
[25]
David Lynch
's 1977 feature debut
Eraserhead
found an audience through midnight screenings.
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 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.
[26]
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 the New York region alone;
20th Century Fox
had approximately two hundred prints of the movie in circulation for midnight shows around the country.
[19]
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
)
[27]
[28]
[29]
reaffirmed the midnight movie's most central traditions.
Decline
[
edit
]
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 the live entertainment for which it had been built, and the Elgin, after a brief run with gay porn, shut down completely.
[30]
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),
[31]
Up in Smoke
(1978),
[31]
The Warriors
(1979),
[20]
Altered States
(1980),
[20]
Forbidden Zone
(1980, released 1982),
[32]
The Evil Dead
(1981),
[20]
Heavy Metal
(1981),
[20]
Mommie Dearest
(1981),
[33]
Liquid Sky
(1982),
Pink Floyd ? The Wall
(1982),
[14]
Repo Man
(1984),
[20]
Hellbound: Hellraiser II
(1988)
[31]
and
Akira
(1988)
[20]
?all from mainstream distributors?were picked up by 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,
[34]
the days of the theatrical midnight movie as a significant countercultural phenomenon were already past.
Legacy
[
edit
]
In 1983, film critics
J. Hoberman
and
Jonathan Rosenbaum
released a book about midnight movies simply titled
Midnight Movies
.
[31]
In 1988, the midnight movie experience was institutionalized in a new manner with the introduction of the
Toronto International Film Festival
's nightly Midnight Madness section.
[35]
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 the Desert
(1994) and the 1995
Razzie
-winning
stripper
drama
Showgirls
.
[20]
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 the turn of the millennium, the most notable successes among newly minted midnight movies have been
Donnie Darko
(2001)
[36]
and
The Room
(2003).
[14]
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).
[37]
(
Tod Browning
's 1932 horror classic
Freaks
, 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 creme de la creme of the
John Hughes
oeuvre?
The Breakfast Club
(1985),
Pretty in Pink
(1986), and
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
(1986)?and the preteen adventure film
The Goonies
(1985).
[38]
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.
[39]
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 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).
[40]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Patterson (2007).
- ^
See, e.g., Conrich (2006).
- ^
Heffernan (2004), p. 161.
- ^
The Vampira Show
Archived
2006-08-18 at the
Wayback Machine
. Retrieved 11/14/06.
- ^
See Gibron (2006) for a detailed analysis of the Elvira persona and
Movie Macabre
.
- ^
See, e.g.,
Elvira's Movie Macabre
Archived
2006-11-12 at the
Wayback Machine
. Retrieved 11/14/06.
- ^
See
TCM Underground: Films?Archive
Archived
2007-04-10 at the
Wayback Machine
. Retrieved 12/19/06.
- ^
Schaefer (1999), pp. 124?125.
- ^
Heffernan (2004), p. 61.
- ^
Wood (2004).
- ^
Lachman (2001), p. 305.
- ^
Greenspun (1971).
- ^
Hoberman and Rosenbaum (1983), pp. 80, 95. For a detailed synopsis of the film, see
El Topo
Archived
2006-04-27 at the
Wayback Machine
(note the film's Elgin premiere is misdated).
- ^
a
b
c
The 15 Best Midnight Movies of All Time - Taste of Cinema
- ^
Hoberman and Rosenbaum (1983), p. 95.
- ^
Klawans, Stuart (13 February 2018).
"Night of the Living Dead: Mere Anarchy Is Loosed"
.
The Criterion Collection
.
- ^
Waters (2006).
- ^
Pink Flamingos Production Notes
. Retrieved 11/15/06.
- ^
a
b
Hoberman and Rosenbaum (1983), p. 13.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
The 50 Greatest Midnight Movies of All Time - Flavorwire
- ^
Midnight Movies (trailer)
on Vimeo
- ^
Sally Cruikshank - Lambiek Comiclopedia
- ^
Sally Cruikshank: A Career Retrospective, Part 1 ? Art of the Title
- ^
See Hoberman and Rosenbaum (1983), p. 298.
- ^
"Midnight Shows a Big Success in Milwaukee."
Boxoffice
Feb. 3, 1975, p. NC-3
- ^
See
History of the Rocky Horror Picture Show
and
Rocky Horror Timeline
. Retrieved 11/14/06.
- ^
Fever Dreamer: Susan Pitt's Feminist Fantasies|The Current|The Criterion Collection
- ^
Suzan Pitt Collection - Collection - Harvard Film Archive
- ^
MUBI Collection: SUZAN PITT: HER FEMINIST DREAMHOUSE|MUBI
- ^
Bijou Theatre
;
Elgin Theatre
. Retrieved 11/15/06.
- ^
a
b
c
d
In the Midnight Hour: A History of Late-Night Movies - Academy Museum
- ^
Forbidden Zone|AV Club
- ^
How ‘Mommie Dearest’ Went From Oscar Bait to Cult Classic|Collider
- ^
Remembering the Orson Welles Cinema, 50 years later - The Boston Globe
- ^
Corliss and Catto (2007).
- ^
The New Cult Canon: Donnie Darko|AV Club
- ^
See Hoberman and Rosenbaum (1983), pp. 261?262. For their consideration of
Freaks
as part of the early midnight movie phenomenon, see pp. 3, 95, 99, 295?297.
- ^
Beale (2005).
- ^
Rocky Horror Showings List
. Retrieved 06/27/08.
- ^
Brief Descriptions and Expanded Essays of National Film Registry Titles|Film Registry|Library of Congress
Sources
[
edit
]
- Published
- Beale, Lewis (2005). "A New Time for Midnight Movies,"
International Herald Tribune
(June 22) (available
online
).
- Bryant, Edward (2005). "Fantasy and Horror in the Media: 2004," in
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, Eighteenth Annual Collection
, ed. Ellen Datlow, Gavin J. Grant, and Kelly Link (New York: St. Martin's Griffin), pp. lxxiii?xcii.
ISBN
0-312-34194-6
- Cagle, Jess (1990). "Video News: News & Notes,"
Entertainment Weekly
(August 3) (available
online
).
- Canby, Vincent (1972). "
Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers
: Holly Woodlawn Cast as Small-Town Girl,"
New York Times
(March 17) (available
online
).
- Conrich, Ian (2006). "Musical Performance and the Cult Film Experience," in
Film's Musical Moments
, ed. Ian Conrich and Estella Tincknell (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), pp. 115?131.
ISBN
0-7486-2345-0
- Corliss, Richard, and Susan Catto (2007). "The Freaks Come Out at Night,"
Time
(September 12) (available
online
).
- Greenspun, Roger (1971). "
El Topo
Emerges: Jodorowsky's Feature Begins Regular Run,"
New York Times
(November 5) (available
online
).
- Heffernan, Kevin (2004).
Ghouls, Gimmicks, and Gold: Horror Films and the American Movie Business, 1953?1968
(Durham, N.C., and London: Duke University Press).
ISBN
0-8223-3215-9
- Hoberman, J., and Jonathan Rosenbaum (1983).
Midnight Movies
(New York: Da Capo Press).
ISBN
0-306-80433-6
- Hutchings, Peter (2004).
The Horror Film
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press).
ISBN
0-582-43794-6
- Kaufelt, David A. (1979).
Midnight Movies
(New York: Delacorte).
ISBN
0-385-28608-2
- Lachman, Gary
(2001).
Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius
(New York: Disinformation).
ISBN
0-88064-278-5
- Levy, Emanuel (1999).
Cinema of Outsiders: The Rise of American Independent Film
(New York and London: New York University Press).
ISBN
0-8147-5123-7
- Patterson, John (2007). "The Weirdo Element,"
Guardian
(March 2) (available
online
).
- Schaefer, Eric (1999).
"Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!": A History of Exploitation Films, 1919?1959
(Durham and London: Duke University Press).
ISBN
0-8223-2374-5
- Waters, John (2006). "The Kindness of a Stranger,"
New York Times Book Review
(November 19).
- Wood, Jennifer M. (2004). "25 Great Reasons to Stay Up Late,"
MovieMaker
no. 55 (summer) (available
online
).
- Online?Authored
- Online?Archival
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