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R O ENE UG DITIW H O G N! U I D E (cid:36)(cid:24)(cid:21)(cid:216)(cid:34)(cid:31)(cid:37)(cid:23)(cid:24)(cid:216)(cid:23)(cid:37)(cid:25)(cid:20)(cid:21)(cid:216)(cid:36)(cid:31) S (cid:36)(cid:24)(cid:21)(cid:216)(cid:23)(cid:31)(cid:31)(cid:20)(cid:3)(cid:216)(cid:36)(cid:24)(cid:21)(cid:216)(cid:18)(cid:17)(cid:20)(cid:216)(cid:17)(cid:30)(cid:20)(cid:216)(cid:36)(cid:24)(cid:21)(cid:216)(cid:38)(cid:21)(cid:34)(cid:41)(cid:216)(cid:39)(cid:21)(cid:25)(cid:34)(cid:20) (cid:36)(cid:24)(cid:21)(cid:216)(cid:34)(cid:31)(cid:37)(cid:23)(cid:24)(cid:216)(cid:23)(cid:37)(cid:25)(cid:20)(cid:21)(cid:216)(cid:36)(cid:31) (cid:16)(cid:60)(cid:51)(cid:59)(cid:1) (cid:1) (cid:52)(cid:54)(cid:61)(cid:48)(cid:44)(cid:58) www.roughguides.com CULT MOVIES: INTRO Credits Contributors: Paul Simpson, Samantha Cook, Larushka Ivan-Zadeh, David Parkinson and Jason Wood Contributors to previous editions: Editing: Kate Berens, Matt Milton, Joe Jo Berry, Michaela Bushell, Chas Chandler, Staines Andrew Duffy, Mark Ellingham, Caroline Layout: Kate Berens Elliott, Angie Errigo, Marianne Gray, Steve Picture research: Kate Berens, Andrew Morgan, Ann Oliver, Richard Pendleton, Lockett Edwin Pouncey, Helen Rodiss, Victoria Proofreading: Jason Freeman Williams, Emma Young Cover design: Tom Cabot Production: Rebecca Short Publishing Information This third edition published August 2010 by Rough Guides Ltd, 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL 375 Hudson Street, New York 10014, USA Email: [email protected] Distributed by the Penguin Group: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL Penguin Group (USA), 375 Hudson Street, NY 10014, USA Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 Penguin Group (New Zealand), Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand Typeset in Rockwell and Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk to an original design by Diana Jarvis. Printed by Toppan Security Printing Ltd, Singapore. The publishers and authors have done their best to ensure the accuracy and currency of all information in The Rough Guide to Cult Movies; however, they can accept no responsibility for any loss or inconvenience sustained by any reader as a result of its information or advice. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher except for the quotation of brief passages in reviews. © Rough Guides, 2010 464pp; includes index A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 978-1-84836-213-0 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 CULT MOVIES: CONTENTS Contents Introduction .........................vii Chick flicks ..........................63 Colour section .....................ix Circus ...................................67 Comedies ...........................69 Action ....................................1 Coming of age ....................77 Actor's lapses .......................4 Cops .....................................80 Adventure ..............................6 Costume ..............................84 Alcohol ...................................9 Courtroom .........................88 Animals ................................13 Crime ...................................91 Animated .............................14 Cross-dressing ...................98 Anime ...................................19 Cult studios .......................100 Apocalypse .........................22 Culture clash .....................102 Art .........................................24 Cut ......................................104 Asian extreme .....................27 Dance .................................106 B-Movies ..............................30 Decadence........................109 Bad Girls ..............................35 The Devil ...........................111 Banned .................................37 Disaster ..............................114 Beaches ...............................41 Doctors...............................117 Bikers ...................................44 Documentaries .................119 Biopics .................................46 Drama ................................125 Blaxploitation ......................49 Drugs .................................132 Bollywood ............................52 Dystopias ...........................136 Buddy ...................................54 Epics...................................138 Business ...............................57 Erotica ................................141 Cars ......................................60 Euro horror ........................143 iii CULT MOVIES: CONTENTS Eye candy ..........................146 Minimalism ........................232 Families ..............................148 Monsters ............................234 Fantasy ...............................151 Music ..................................237 Fight club ...........................157 Musicals .............................243 Film noir .............................159 Mutations ...........................249 Food ...................................166 Nazis ...................................251 Gambling ..........................168 Nostalgia ............................254 Gangsters ..........................170 Nuns ...................................257 Gay .....................................174 Outlaws ..............................259 Gross out ...........................178 Paranoia .............................261 Guilty pleasures ...............180 Politics ................................266 Heist ...................................183 Porn ....................................271 Historical............................187 Presidents ..........................273 Hollywood .........................190 Prison .................................275 Horror ................................193 Private eyes .......................279 Independent ....................197 Propaganda ......................284 Kids .....................................201 Psychos ..............................286 Kitsch ..................................205 Religion ..............................289 Lesbian ..............................209 Road movies .....................292 Made for money ...............211 Robots ................................296 Mafia ...................................213 Rock stars ..........................299 Martial arts ........................218 Romance ...........................302 Mavericks ..........................222 Samurai ..............................308 Media .................................225 Satire ..................................310 Midnight movies ..............229 School ................................312 iv CULT MOVIES: CONTENTS Sci-fi ....................................314 Teen ....................................371 Screwball ...........................320 Thrillers ..............................374 Serial Killers ......................323 Torture porn ......................380 Sexploitation .....................326 Trains ..................................382 Shorts .................................329 True Stories .......................384 Shrinks ...............................332 Turkeys ..............................387 Silents .................................335 Underground ....................390 Slasher ...............................338 Urban nightmare ..............393 Soundtracks ......................340 Vampires ...........................395 Space .................................344 Vamps ................................397 Spaghetti Westerns ..........347 Villains ................................399 Spoofs ................................349 War .....................................401 Sport ...................................353 Weepies .............................408 Spy movies ........................358 Westerns ...........................412 Steampunk ........................363 X-rated ...............................419 Superheroes .....................365 Yakuza ................................423 Supernatural .....................369 Zombies .............................425 Index ..................................427 v CULT MOVIES: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Acknowledgements Thanks above all to the filmmakers who contributed pieces to this guide: Nick Broomfield, Atom Egoyan, Cari Joji Fukunaga, Keith Fulton, John Hillcoat, Tom Kalin, Asif Kapadia, Stephen Kijak, Gideon Koppel, Andrew Kötting, Joe Lawlor, Christine Molloy, Louis Pepe, James Marsh, Scott McGehee, David Morrissey, Chris Petit, Nicolas Roeg, Ira Sachs, David Siegel, Peter Strickland and Paul Andrew Williams. The publishers would also like to thank Franz Brown and Marie Reynolds of the Tejeda-Brown Family Limited Partnership for permission to use Reynold Brown's poster design for Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman. A book featuring this and dozens of others of Brown’s classic designs – Reynold Brown: A Life in Pictures by Daniel Zimmer and David J. Nornung – was published in 2009 by the Illustrated Press. Editorial thanks go to the dedicated writers on this edition, to Sachin Tanwar and Pradeep Thapliyal, to Jason Freeman, Diana Jarvis and Dan May, and to Roger Bardon, Richard Craig and Peter Buckley for additional contributions. Samantha would like to thank Greg Ward, Jim Cook and Pam Cook, and, at Rough Guides, Andrew Lockett and Kate Berens. Larushka would like to thank Tom Moggach for all his love and support, her sister Ludmilla for being generally splendid and Kim Newman for lending me Snakes on a Train. Jason would like to thank all the filmmakers listed above, Mia Bays, Walter Donohue and Dave Shear. vi CULT MOVIES: INTRODUCTION Introduction The movies, where one man's masterpiece is always liable to be someone else’s Air Bud: World Pup, is a world where no opinion is final and deciding what makes a film “cult” can be as intellectually arbitrary as deciding if a film is “good” or “bad”. There is also a big difference between the films we watch over and over again and the films which appear in the critics’ lists of greatest-ever movies. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines “cult” as: 1) a system of religious worship especially as expressed in ritual; 2) a devotion or homage to a person or thing; 3) a popular fashion especially followed by a specific section of society; 4) denoting a person or thing popularized in this way. The dictionary, in its linguistic wisdom, assigns the last definition to a cult figure or cult movie. In cinematic terms, the word “cult” is often applied to films starring fifty-foot women on a mission of personal revenge, killer tomatoes or an entire Western town populated by midgets. Sometimes this has been extended to include movies that are either “so bad they’re good” (the clichéd example of this being any work by the “world’s worst director” Ed Wood) or are the objects of quasi-religious worship (The Big Lebowski). The word “cult” also implies knowledge hidden from the masses. So a cult movie may be the preserve of a select few or have depths missed by the casual viewer. Umberto Eco, author of cult book The Name of the Rose, identifies Casablanca as a cult movie. This sounds ludicrous, as Casablanca is one of the most famous films of all time. But Eco adds: “The work… must provide a completely furnished world so that its fans can quote characters and episodes as if they were aspects of the fan’s private sectarian world,a world about which one can make up quizzes and play trivia games so that the adepts of the sect recognize through each other a shared expertise.” By this definition, Casablanca is certainly a cult movie vii CULT MOVIES: INTRODUCTION For this book, we’ve reserved the right not to include every title as well known as that, figuring the space would be better given to titles further away from a perennial spotlight. We’ve also added a few other criteria to Eco’s definition. Any movie reviewed here should: 1) prompt people to go around quoting it to each other or inspire an unreasonable amount of devotion long after the masses have forgotten its existence; 2) be good but underappreciated, possibly because, in a market driven by stars and event movies, they were just too different to have a long run at a cinema near you; 3) be an undiscovered gem, perhaps because it’s foreign or went straight to video; 4) be so bad it’s a hoot; 5) be compelling for some other reason – the script may stink but there’s a song, a stunt or scene that makes it all worthwhile; 6) be a mainstream film that has that indefinable something we call “juice”; 7) not be a Police Academy sequel. We’ve made a conscious effort to include as many different movies as possible. You can thrill to Battleship Potemkin and still relish the moment Springtime for Hitler breaks into “Don’t be foolish, be a smarty, come and join the Nazi party”; you can feel an irrational exhilaration when you hear John Belushi chant “Toga! Toga! Toga!”, or be mesmerized by Kurosawa's Ran. For this third edition we've added lots of new categories, from Asian horror to Underground, via Bad girls, Bikers and Mavericks, Psychos and Rock stars – plus many more. Film directors with a nose for the unorthodox and intriguing – from the legendary Nic Roeg to rising stars like Cari Joji Fukunaga – have also told us about their (often rarely seen) favourites. These sections are in special boxes dotted throughout the book. And we have updated all the sections, spending improbably long hours pondering the merits of films to include or to drop. All the while, we’ve tried to maintain a spirit of fun about the proceedings and the way the book goes about its business, which is to say very seriously in a not so serious kind of way. viii