Regular Columns

Let us consider the term “erotic horror.” This sub-genre doesn’t have a very strong tradition in North America, despite the best efforts of Seduction Cinema and Misty Mondae. I exempt the films of David Cronenberg from this consideration, as they are hardly designed with titillation in mind – they are much colder, analytical works, and the label once applied to them – “venereal horror” – is still more appropriate. No, there just hasn’t been that much on this side of the pond, relatively speaking. Perhaps in its stead... there has been the phenomenon of the “erotic thriller.” And with very few exceptions, the less said about that category of late-night cable-fodder, the better.

Overseas, the story is considerably different. Europe and Asia have been simultaneously targeting fear and desire for decades. Readers looking for a good survey of the European scene owe it to themselves to track down Cathal Tohill and Pete Tombs’ Immoral Tales: European Sex and Horror Movies 1956-1984. There’s an enormous wealth of titles to choose from for a case study (and I don’t preclude returning to this topic), but the one I’d like to consider today is Vampyres, a 1974 effort produced in England, with an English cast, but directed by Spaniard José Larraz.

It lurks behind a poster whose taglines are deliciously over the top, arguably meaningless, grammatically dubious, and utterly misleading: “BEHIND THIS MEMBRANE... you will be driven to a point... midway between LIFE and DEATH!” (?!?!) Further: “The only people who will not be STERILIZED with FEAR are those among you who are already DEAD!” Now, there have been many films to promise/threaten heart attacks/strokes/what-have-you in their ad campaigns, but The Flesh Eaters (1962) is, to my knowledge, the on...y one to boast putting a stop to one’s reproductive facilities. This publicity oddity is rather fitting, actually, providing yet another piece of charm to one of the most hugely satisfying B-movies of its era.

Written by Arnold Drake (co-creator of the superhero team The Doom Patrol), directed by Jack Curtis, and edited by future soft-core auteur Radley Metzger, The Flesh Eaters has WWII vet and charter pilot Byron Sanders flying alcoholic star Rita Morley and her supremely competent assistant Barbara Wilkin to Provincetown. Plane trouble forces them to land on an apparently deserted island. There they run into Martin Kosleck, a marine biologist who, despite his friendly manners, is clearly not to be trusted (we know this because of his accent). The next morning, the plane has vanished, and the castaways must contend with tiny, silvery blobs infesting the water. These are the flesh eaters of the title.

Herewith begin my weekly musings on the field of cult movies. As an opener, it would probably behoove me to define exactly what is meant by a “cult movie.” I’m going to be a bit disingenuous here, and provide a definition arguably so nebulous that some might consider it useless. That’s fine. There have been many attempts at this sort of definition, and most founder on specifics once one moves much beyond the “I know one when I see one” type of description often applied to porn. That said, here goes. Generally speakin..., the cult flick usually emerges from the realm of the B-movie (the two terms are not synonymous, though there is a large degree of overlap). As soon as there is any kind of following, however small but definitely committed, we have a cult film. So far, so good. The problem, of course, is what happens when the cult becomes huge. The Star Wars films and The Lord of the Rings (in both print and movie form) command a rabid following, some of whose members displaying behaviour no less obsessed and eccentric than that of the most religious followers of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which is the textbook definition of a cult film.

So whither our definition? One might refine it by emphasizing the B-movie or indie nature of the movie. In other words, it must not be mainstream, or at least not have had a mainstream success. This last qualification is, I think, important, because there are major studio productions that do, I feel, qualify as cult films. Very often, however, they were not box office successes upon original release. They are frequently pretty terrible, and are celebrated by their audiences for their awfulness. In other words, the cult movie audience embraces the film for reasons not necessarily intended by its makers. Some examples: Myra Breckinridge, Showgirls, Battlefield Earth.