The problem with this topic is always that "cult film" is too malleable a term. For me there's no way in Hell
Fight Club, a movie made by a huge studio that had a large budget (over $60-million), got a huge release (opened on nearly 2,000 screens in the U.S.), with a known director and one of the biggest young movie stars of the day could ever, ever be considered a "cult" flick. It just isn't. That fact that it didn't make a hundred million bucks, get nominated for lots of high-profile Oscars (it did get one on the technical side, for sound effects editing) or likely to be something your Grandma would enjoy, that isn't enough to make it a "cult" film, is it? I definitely don't think so.
Generally for me, a cult film has to be something that was never part of the mainstream during its initial releases, by in large ignored or panned critically, and remains fairly anonoymous for a signifigant period of time. The cult reputation is one that has to build by word of mouth pretty much (or in this day and age, word of internet), secretly entering into the pop culture via a hipness that a relatively few rabid fans discover. A good rule of thumb: if sitcoms, comic strips and stand-ups are referencing the movie almost right away, it ain't no cult movie.
As far as subject mater, they're usually genre entries of some kind, and too dark or weird for mainstream consumption. But that doesn't automatically make every horror or sci-fi flick without a happy ending a cult movie. At least, I don't think it should.
Another good rule of thumb for me is, would an average Blockbuster stock it on their shelves? That doesn't always hold true, but it's a good guidepost anyway. Certainly when they have six to twenty copies of a title, that should tell you it isn't quite as cult as you may think.
The prototypical cult film will always be
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). There were other cult movies before it, but
Rocky Horror was the first phenomenon, and the first to make an industry of it. It has become the real gold standard by which to judge all other pretenders to the throne. Of course at this point after being held up as
the cult film for so long, it's hardly a cult film itself anymore. But it certainly was.
People throw "cult film" around pretty liberally, including everything from
A Clockwork Orange to
Apocalypse Now to
Blue Velvet to
The Big Lebowski to
The Road Warrior to
Being John Malkovich to
Pulp Fiction. I don't see how any one of those could be regarded as cult movies.
Fight Club? Really?
But yes, it is a malleable term. If one regards
Taxi Driver and
The Matrix as cult flicks, there's no sanctioning board in existence to stop them from doing so (but rest assured,
I'M working on it).
Some of my favorite cult flicks from the past few decades that still have a good undergound rep without much mainstreaming are
A Boy & His Dog (1975),
Gummo (1997),
The Dark Backward (1991),
Blood & Concrete: a love story (1991),
Parents (1989),
Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995),
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974),
Lawn Dogs (1997),
The Music of Chance (1993),
My Name is Nobody (1974),
Six-String Samurai (1998),
Fresh (1994),
La Cucaracha (1998) and
Freeway (1996).
Even some of those I just listed above, they're treading the slippery line between cult flicks and simply being underrated, it's an impossible term to define. I know personal definitions vary, so fire away! Being pedantic is simply my want, sorry.
OK, so I'm not sorry.
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so your saying an anti-social film, makes it a cult status film?
