According to the introduction of Cult Cinema, “Cult movies mean many things to many people.” That’s about as close to a definition as offered anywhere in this collection of essays. Judging by the book’s contents, lack of commercial success is no sure marker: some of the films commented on turned a good profit and achieved a large following. As is the case in religion, where the term originated, cult really means whatever the mainstream or the establishment despises.
Most of the essays collected in Cult Cinema were originally found in the booklets accompanying releases by Britain’s Arrow Video, a company specializing in releasing cult movies on DVD and Blu-ray. The various writers (including filmmakers, British Film Institute curators, academics) are knowledgeable and succinct—they are fans to be sure, but not in the brainless “I’ve got a blog too!” sense. The films they analyze come from many sources, including Italy (a center for B-minus horror in the ‘70s) and Britain (how many Yanks have seen the dark comedy Withnail & I?). Some chapters focus on familiar titles such as Brian DePalma’s high-end slasher flick Dressed to Kill or Roger Corman’s gloriously strange The Fall of the House of Usher.
Several essays gaze deeply into the work of specific directors, such as David Cronenberg and Wes Craven, assaying the films carefully and even finding (this is a fan book!) fault. Cult Cinema isn’t an A-Z guide to the many cult genres but an entertaining, often-perceptive exploration of underground currents in film that have sometimes grown wide enough to threaten the mainstream.
