A cult film or cult movie, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a cult following. Cult films are known for their dedicated, passionate fanbase which forms an elaborate subculture, members of which engage in repeated viewings, dialogue-quoting, and audience participation. Inclusive definitions allow for major studio productions, especially box-office bombs, while exclusive definitions focus more on obscure, transgressive films shunned by the mainstream. The difficulty in defining the term and subjectivity of what qualifies as a cult film mirror classificatory disputes about art. The term cult film itself was first used in the 1970s to describe the culture that surrounded underground films and midnight movies, though cult was in common use in film analysis for decades prior to that.
I Drink Your Blood is a 1971 American exploitation horror film written and directed by David E. Durston, produced by Jerry Gross, and starring Bhaskar Roy Chowdhury, Jadine Wong, and Lynn Lowry. The film centers on a small town that is overrun by rabies-infected members of a Satanic hippie cult after a revenge plot goes horribly wrong.
Zinda Laash is a 1967 Pakistani Urdu-language horror film directed by Khwaja Sarfraz,. and starring Asad Bukhari, Habib, Deeba, Rehan, Zareen Panna and Nasreen. The film's plot borrows heavily from the 1958 British Hammer Horror film Dracula, as well as from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel of the same name. It is the first horror film produced in Pakistan, and also the first to be X-rated.
Mystics in Bali, also released as Leák and Balinese Mystic, is a 1981 Indonesian supernatural horror film directed by Tjut Djalil. Based on the novel Leák Ngakak by Putra Mada, the film stars Ilona Agathe Bastian, Yos Santo, Sofia W.D., and W.D. Mochtar.
The Blood Spattered Bride is a 1972 Spanish horror film written and directed by Vicente Aranda, based on the 1872 vampire novella Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. It stars Simón Andreu, Maribel Martín, and Alexandra Bastedo. The film attained cult film status for its mix of horror, vampirism, rejection of fascism, and progressive ideas on gender and sexuality. A well-known US trailer advertising a double feature of this film paired with the 1974 horror film I Dismember Mama was filmed in the style of a news report covering the "story" of an audience member who had gone insane while watching the films.
Mondo Macabro is a British documentary television series written, produced and directed by Pete Tombs and Andy Starke. Based on Tombs' 1997 book Mondo Macabro: Weird & Wonderful Cinema Around the World, the series focuses on cult films from different countries around the world. The series ran for eight episodes and was first broadcast on Channel 4 in 2001.
Pete Tombs is a British author, television and film producer, and co-founder of the American-based home video distribution company Mondo Macabro, which he established in 2002 alongside fellow co-founder Andy Starke. Tombs also co-founded the production company Boum Productions with Starke, and was the head of the UK-based, now-defunct home video labels Pagan and Eurotika!.
Alucarda is a 1977 English-language Mexican supernatural horror film directed by Juan López Moctezuma, and starring Tina Romero, Claudio Brook, Susana Kamini, and David Silva. A loose adaptation of Carmilla (1872), it revolves around two teenage orphan girls living in a Catholic convent, who unleash a demonic force and become possessed.
Symptoms is a 1974 British psychological horror film directed by José Ramón Larraz and starring Angela Pleasence, Peter Vaughan, and Lorna Heilbron. The film, based on a story by Thomas Owen, follows a woman who goes to stay with a friend at her family remote English manor where all is not as it seems. The film had its premiere at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival as the first official British entry. The film was released under the alternate title The Blood Virgin.
Mahakaal, also known as Mahakaal: The Monster, is a 1993 Indian Hindi-language horror film directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay, known as the Ramsay Brothers. The film borrows numerous elements from the 1984 American film A Nightmare on Elm Street and its sequels, including its antagonist, Shakaal—who, like Elm Street's Freddy Krueger, is a razor-gloved killer who can murder people through their dreams.
In the film industry, unsimulated sex is the presentation of sex scenes in which actors genuinely perform the depicted sex acts, rather than simulating them. Although it is ubiquitous in films intended as pornographic, it is very uncommon in other films. At one time in the United States, such scenes were restricted by law and self-imposed industry standards such as the Motion Picture Production Code. Films showing explicit sexual activity were confined to privately distributed underground films, such as stag films or "porn loops". In the 1960s, social attitudes about sex began to shift, and sexually explicit films were decriminalized in many countries.
The Diabolical Dr. Z is a 1966 French-Spanish horror film directed by Jesús Franco. The film stars Mabel Karr as Irma Zimmer, a surgeon who creates a machine that turns people into zombified slaves. Ms. Zimmer is the daughter of a Professor Zimmer, who was hounded to his death several years earlier by four of his scientific associates. Zimmer uses the machine to control an erotic dancer named Miss Muerte who uses her long poison-tipped fingernails to murder the people Ms. Zimmer holds responsible for her father's death.
Lady Terminator is a 1988 Indonesian horror-fantasy action film directed by Tjut Djalil, also credited under the pseudonym of Jalil Jackson. The film stars Barbara Anne Constable, Christopher J. Hart, and Claudia Angelique Rademaker, and is considered to be a mockbuster of the 1984 American film The Terminator.
H. Tjut Djalil was an Indonesian film director and screenwriter. His feature directorial debut was the 1974 film Benyamin Spion 025. He was also known for directing such cult films as Mystics in Bali (1981), Bajing Ireng dan Jaka Sembung (1985), Lady Terminator (1989) and Dangerous Seductress (1995).
Kaibyō are supernatural cats in Japanese folklore. Examples include bakeneko, a yōkai commonly characterized as having the ability to shapeshift into human form; maneki-neko, usually depicted as a figurine often believed to bring good luck to the owner; and nekomata, referring either to a type of yōkai that lives in mountain areas or domestic cats that have grown old and transformed into yōkai.
Centipede Horror, also known as Centipede Curse, is a 1981 Hong Kong horror film directed by Keith Li. It stars Michael Miu as Pak.
Satan's Bed is a 1986 Indonesian horror film directed by Tjut Djalil. The film's plot, which borrows elements from the A Nightmare on Elm Street series, concerns a house haunted by a Dutch ghost.
Special Silencers is a 1979 or 1982 Indonesian martial arts horror exploitation film directed by Arizal and starring Barry Prima, Eva Arnaz and W. D. Mochtar. Prima plays Hendra, a man who arrives at a village where deaths are occurring as a result of red tablets—the titular "special silencers"—supplied by a forest-dwelling mystic; when ingested, the pills cause trees to burst from the consumer's stomach.
Mondo Macabro: Weird & Wonderful Cinema Around the World is a book by British author Pete Tombs, first published in the United Kingdom in 1997 by Titan Books. A follow-up to the 1994 book Immoral Tales: Sex and Horror Cinema in Europe 1956–1984, Mondo Macabro explores cult films and "bizarre cinema from around the world".
Andrew Starke is a British film and television producer who co-founded the production company Rook Films in 2008 with director Ben Wheatley and screenwriter Amy Jump. In association with Rook Films, Starke served as producer on such films as Kill List (2011), The Duke of Burgundy (2014), The Greasy Strangler, Free Fire, An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn, In Fabric, Happy New Year, Colin Burstead, and Possessor (2020). In 2019, Starke co-founded the film distribution company Anti-Worlds with Jason Wood, Zoe Flower, Sam Dunn and John Morrissey.
