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 The three main mastheads for VHS and DVD releases | |
| Industry | Motion picture video production |
|---|---|
| Genre | Science fiction/Horror/Cult |
| Founder | MGM |
| Products | VHS, DVD |
| Owner | MGM |
Midnite Movies is a line of B movies released first on VHS and later on DVD by MGM Home Entertainment. The line was launched by MGM in March 2001 following its acquisition of Orion Pictures, [1] which bought out Filmways, [2] the owner of American International Pictures (AIP). AIP, which was co-founded by James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff, [3] had a library of B movies from the 1950s and 1960s that were primarily science fiction, horror, and exploitation films. [4] The Midnite Movies collection was primarily derived from the AIP library, including most of Roger Corman and Vincent Price's horror films [5] (Corman's first distribution company, The Filmgroup, was acquired by AIP in 1963), [6] but also included films from other MGM-owned libraries, namely United Artists (UA) since 1981, [7] Cannon Films since 1983, [8] and Empire International Pictures since 1989. [9] Films from British horror specialist Hammer Film Productions [10] (the first Hammer production, The Public Life of Henry the Ninth, was initially distributed by MGM in 1935) [11] and British film production company Amicus Productions [12] were also licensed and released under the banner.
The DVDs were first released as single films, but most later releases would be double features on single double-sided discs. [13] Later, box sets would also be released, such as the Midnite Movies Creepy Classics, a four-DVD collection including The Pit and the Pendulum, The Fall of the House of Usher, "X" The Man with the X-ray Eyes, and The Dunwich Horror. [14] [15] The "Midnite Movies" line continued as MGM Home Entertainment switched distributors twice in the mid-2000s, first to Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and then to 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment; under Fox's tenure, the banner was expanded to include Fox library titles. All double feature titles released during the Fox era were two-disc packages. By 2011, no new titles were forthcoming; the previous catalog titles slowly went out of print and the Midnite Movies website was taken down. [16]
Beginning in 2013, independent media labels such as Shout! Factory (and sub-label Scream Factory), Kino Lorber Studio Classics, Twilight Time and Olive Films have licensed MGM-owned titles from the former Midnite Movies line for Blu-ray release.