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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.
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Midnite movies were a way to at least gain a limited audience, whether at the drive-in (where they were originally screened) or on TV. B-movies could be cranked out cheaply and quickly and sometimes showed in theaters as double features (like they did with Grindhouse/Death Proof a few years ago).
Midnight movies, often synonymous with cult classics, are films typically shown at late-night screenings. Their heyday was in the 1970s and 1980s when independent theaters would play non-mainstream films to attract audiences during off-peak hours.
- EL TOPO (1970) El Topo, Alexandro Jodorowsky’s bizarre “acid Western” full of unforgettable imagery and love-it-or-hate-it storytelling, is generally accepted to be the first “midnight movie” as we now define it: a film curiosity that’s not for everyone, which you have to go out in the dead of night to discover.
- THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) The Rocky Horror Picture Show is without question one of the most famous midnight movies in the world, not just because of the content of the film itself, but because of how the audience reacts to it.
- FREAKS (1932) After releasing Dracula at Universal and helping to launch the talkie horror genre in 1931, director Tod Browning returned to Metro Goldwyn Mayer and started work on a pet project of his: a revenge tale about sideshow performers.
- NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) When Night of the Living Dead first arrived in the late 1960s, it immediately gained some degree of infamy not for being shown at midnight, but for being shown in the middle of the afternoon.
- Freaks. Tod Browning’s 1932 film was one of the first canonized midnight movies and is a prime example of the kind of movie that gets adopted by cult film fans: stories about outsiders, featuring taboo subjects and apparent exploitative elements.
- The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Jim Sharman’s 1975 musical hardly needs an introduction. Shortly after its release, Rocky Horror was adopted by audiences at late-night screenings, who attended shows dressed as the film’s outrageous characters (Tim Curry at his most fabulous) and talked back to the screen, interacting with all the campy goings-on.
- Eraserhead. David Lynch’s first feature-length film opened to 25 people back in 1977, but the movie gained in popularity through midnight screenings. There was an aura of mystery around Eraserhead‘s production that was very attractive to audiences — something Lynch has maintained with almost every film he’s released since then.
- El Topo. Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1970 acid-Western El Topo is considered one of the progenitors of the midnight movie, thanks to its surreal visuals and bizarre characters (including people with real deformities).
Nov 1, 2022 · Legendary drive-in film critic and host Joe Bob Briggs talks about the history of midnight movies, his upcoming Shudder special, ‘Joe-Bob's Haunted Halloween Hangout,‘ and more.
IndieWire After Dark celebrates the best midnight movies in the streaming age. Here's the complete list, from 'Cool World' to 'Junior.'
