A midnight movie is a low-budget genre picture or distinctly nonmainstream film programmed for late-night screening or broadcast. The term is rooted in the practice that emerged in the 1950s of local television stations around the United States airing cheap genre films late at night, often with a host delivering ironic asides. As a cinematic phenomenon, the midnight presentation of offbeat movies started toward the end of the following decade in a few urban centers, particularlyNew York City. The midnight run ofEl Topo at New York'sElgin Theater that began in December 1970 sparked a trend that eventually spread across the country. The screening of nonmainstream pictures at midnight was aimed at building acult film audience, encouraging repeat viewing and social interaction in what was originally acountercultural setting.
The national after-hours success ofThe Rocky Horror Picture Show in the late 1970s and the changing economics of the film exhibition industry altered the nature of the midnight movie phenomenon; as its association with broader currents of cultural and political opposition dwindled in the 1980s, the midnight movie became a more purelycamp experience—in effect, bringing it closer to the television form that shares its name. The termmidnight movie is now often used in two different, though related, ways: as a synonym forB movie, reflecting the relative cheapness characteristic of late-night movies both theatrically and on TV, and as a synonym forcult film.[2]
In 1953, theScreen Actors Guild agreed to aresiduals payment plan that greatly facilitated the distribution of B movies to television.[3] A number of local television stations around the United States soon began showing inexpensive genre films in late-night slots; these late-night slots were after thesafe-harbor time, meaning they were largely exempt fromFederal Communications Commission regulations on indecent content. In the spring of 1954, Los Angeles TV stationKABC expanded on the concept by having an appropriately offbeat host introduce the films: for a year on Saturday nights,The Vampira Show, withMaila Nurmi in her newly adopted persona of a sexy bloodsucker ("Your pin-down girl"), presented low-budget movies with black humor and a low-cut black dress.[4] The show—which ran at midnight for four weeks before shifting to 11 p.m. and, later, 10:30 p.m.—aired horror pictures likeDevil Bat's Daughter andStrangler of the Swamp and suspense films such asMurder by Invitation,The Charge Is Murder, andApology for Murder.[5] The format was echoed by stations across the country, who began showing their late-night B movies within-character hosts such asZacherley andMorgus the Magnificent offering ironic interjections.[6]
A quarter-century later,Cassandra Peterson established a persona that was essentially a ditzier, more buxom version of Vampira. As Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, Peterson became the most popular host in the arena of the TV midnight movie. Starting at L.A.'sKHJ-TV in 1981, Elvira'sMovie Macabre was soon being syndicated nationally; Peterson presented mostly cut-rate horror films, interrupted on a regular basis for tongue-in-cheek commentary.[7] Some local stations aired theMovie Macabre package in late-night slots. Others showed it duringprime time on weekend nights; after a break for the local news, another genre film—a literal midnight movie—might follow, resulting in such virtual double bills asDr. Heckyl & Mr. Hype andThe Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave.[8]
USA Network launched a midnight movie package in 1989—Up All Night, which showed mainly horror and soft-coresexploitation films, ran until 1998. In 1993, Buffalo'sWKBW-TV began airing a late-night hosted mix of low-budget genre movies, foreign art films and eventually well-known classic films;Off Beat Cinema later became nationally syndicated (currently throughRetro Television Network) and, as of 2013, originates fromWBBZ-TV. In the 2000s, horror-oriented late-night movie programming has disappeared from many broadcast stations, though B pictures, mostly of a melodramatic nature, are still widely used in post–prime time slots. The smallAmerica One broadcast network distributes theMacabre Theatre movie package hosted byButch Patrick, known for his portrayal ofEddie Munster on the 1960s showThe Munsters. In 2006,Turner Classic Movies began featuring cult films in a new late-night programming block,TCM Underground.[9] The series ran for over a decade and a half, until it was canceled in February 2023 in a cost-cutting measure by corporate parentWarner Bros. Discovery.[10][11]
Since at least as far back as the 1930s,exploitation films had sometimes been presented at midnight screenings, usually as part of independent roadshow operations.[12] In 1957,Hammer Films'The Curse of Frankenstein set off a spate of midnight presentations.[13] What film qualifies as the first true midnight movie in the sense of the term that emerged in the 1970s remains an open question. Critic Jennifer M. Wood points to the Palace Theater in San Francisco'sNorth Beach district where, in late February 1969,San Francisco Art Institute graduatesSteven Arnold and Michael Wiese, after a sellout screening of theirDalí-esque thesis filmMessages, Messages, were invited to program offbeat films at midnight.[14] AuthorGary Lachman claims thatKenneth Anger's shortInvocation of My Demon Brother (1969), a mélange of occult symbology intercut with and superimposed on images from aRolling Stones concert, "inaugurat[ed] the midnight movie cult at theElgin Theatre."[15] The Elgin, in New York City'sChelsea neighborhood, would soon become famous as a midnight venue when it gave the U.S. premiere of a very unusual Mexican movie directed and written by a rather Dalí-esque Chilean.
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The movie generally recognized as igniting the theatrical midnight film movement isAlejandro Jodorowsky's surrealistEl Topo, which opened in December 1970 at the Elgin. Playing with the conventions of thespaghetti Western, the film was described by one newspaper critic as "full of tests and riddles" and "more phony gore than maybe 20 years ofThe Wild Bunch."[16]El Topo regularly sold out every night for months, with many fans returning on a weekly basis. It ran at the theater through June 1971, until at the prompting ofJohn Lennon—who was reported to have seen the film at least three times—Beatles managerAllen Klein purchased the film through hisABKCO film company and gave it a relatively orthodox rerelease.[17] The Elgin soon came up with another midnight hit inPeter Bogdanovich's spree-killer thrillerTargets (1968), featuring one of the last performances by horror movie mainstayBoris Karloff and a tale that resonated with the assassinations and other political violence of the era.[18][19] By November 1971, four Manhattan theaters beside the Elgin were featuring regularly scheduled midnight movies: the St. Marks (Viva la muerte, a blast of surrealism in the Franco-Spanish tradition ofLuis Buñuel and another Lennon favorite), the Waverly (Equinox, which had just replacedNight of the Living Dead), the Bijou (bothFreaks andNight of the Living Dead), and the Olympia (Macunaíma, a Brazilian politicalblack comedy).[18]Equinox (1970) andNight of the Living Dead (1968), both low-budget horror pictures, demonstrate the ties between the old, TV brand of midnight movie and the newer phenomenon.George A. Romero's zombie masterpiece, in particular, highlighted one of the differences: produced completely outside ofNew York and/orLos Angeles as Romero was makingindustrial films inPittsburgh at the time.[20]
Shot over the winter of 1971–72,John Waters's "filth epic"Pink Flamingos, featuring incest andcoprophagia, became the best known of a group of campy midnight films focusing on sexual perversions andfetishism.[21] Filmed on weekends in Waters's hometown of Baltimore, with a mile-long extension cord as a power conduit, it was also crucial in inspiring the growth of theindependent film movement.[22] In 1973, the Elgin Theater started midnight screenings of bothPink Flamingos and a crime drama from Jamaica with a remarkable soundtrack. In its mainstream release,The Harder They Come (1972) had been a flop, panned by critics after its U.S. distributor,Roger Corman'sNew World Pictures, marketed it as ablaxploitation picture. Rereleased as a midnight film, it screened around the country for six years, helping spur the popularity ofreggae in the United States. While the midnight-movie potential of certain films was recognized only some time after they opened, a number during this period were distributed to take advantage of the market from the beginning—in 1973, for instance,Broken Goddess,Dragula,The White Whore and the Bit Player, andElevator Girls in Bondage (as well asPink Flamingos) had their New York premieres at midnight screenings.[23]
Around this time, the black comedyHarold and Maude (1971) became the first major Hollywood studio movie of the era to develop a substantial cult audience of repeat viewers; though apparently it was not picked up by much of the midnight movie circuit during the 1970s, it subsequently became a late show staple as the phenomenon turned more to camp revivals.[24] The midnight screening phenomenon was spreading around the country. InMilwaukee, it began in May 1974, spurred by the sales manager of a local radio station who had already successfully sponsored such screenings inSt. Louis. By the following February, four Milwaukee theaters were regularly showing midnight films, and theMarcus chain, the owner of one, had brought the concept to its theaters in four other Midwestern cities. "Films that feature rock concerts draw big",Boxoffice reported, "as do those dealing with outer space and fantasy". The trade paper noted one popular midnight film by name:Alice's Restaurant (1969), a comedy with political overtones starring folk singerArlo Guthrie.[25] A fewanimated films joined the midnight circuit, includingRalph Bakshi's 1972 debut feature,Fritz the Cat, based on theRobert Crumbcomic strip[26] andSally Cruikshank's 1975 experimental shortQuasi at the Quackadero.[27][28]
On the midnight following April Fool's Day 1976,The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which had flopped on initial release the year before, opened at theWaverly Theater, a leading midnight movie venue in New York'sGreenwich Village. Midnight screenings of the film soon became a national sensation, amassing a cult following all over the United States. Every Friday and Saturday night, audience members would talk back to the screen, dress up as characters in the film, and act out scenes complete with props.[29] Where the social aspect had always been a part of the midnight movie's attraction, withRocky Horror in an exaggerated way it becamethe attraction. By summer 1979, the film was playing on weekend midnights in twenty-odd suburban theaters in the New York region alone;20th Century Fox had approximately two hundred prints of the movie in circulation for midnight shows around the country.[23] Beginning in 1978, the Waverly developed another midnight success that was much smaller commercially, but more significant artistically:Eraserhead, originally distributed the previous year. A model of shoestring surrealism,David Lynch's feature debut (subsequently billed withSuzan Pitt's 1979 animated shortAsparagus)[30][31] reaffirmed the midnight movie's most central traditions.
The commercial viability of the sort of big-city arthouse cinemas that launched outsider pictures for the midnight movie circuit began to decrease in the late 1970s, as broad social and economic shifts weakened their countercultural base. Leading midnight movie venues were beginning to fold as early as 1977—that year, New York's Bijou switched back permanently to the live entertainment for which it had been built, and the Elgin, after a brief run with gay porn, shut down completely.[32] In succeeding years, the popularization of theVCR and the expansion of movieviewing possibilities on cable television meant the closure of many additional independent theaters. WhileRocky Horror soldiered on, by then a phenomenon unto itself, and other films from major distributors such asThe Warriors (1979),[19]Mommie Dearest (1981),[33]Pink Floyd – The Wall (1982)[19] andRepo Man (1984)[34] were picked up by the midnight movie circuit, the core of exhibitors that energized the movement was disappearing. Animated midnight movies from this decade includedHeavy Metal (1981)[35][36] andAkira (1988).[37][38]
In March 1980, an independently produced "black and white freak musical" that would later be dubbed "theCitizen Kane of underground movies" began a midnight run at L.A.'sNew Beverly Cinema.Forbidden Zone was acquired two years later by theSamuel Goldwyn Company and rereleased as a midnight movie in both Los Angeles and at New York's Waverly, where it took the place of theRocky Horror follow-upShock Treatment (1981).[39][40]The Evil Dead (1981), now recognized as one of the most influential modern horror films, followed a similar course—completely independent production, subsequent acquisition by a midsize distributor (New Line Cinema), and midnight circuit release—supplemented by an out-of-competition detour to theCannes Film Festival.[19] Among the last independent films to make a late-night impact during the movement's most influential years was, in critic Emanuel Levy's words, a "perversely beautiful sci-fi movie" that, like many midnight classics, seemingly "appeared out of nowhere":Liquid Sky (1982).[41] By the time the fabledOrson Welles Cinema in Cambridge, Massachusetts, whereThe Harder They Come ran at midnight for years, shut its doors following a fire in 1986,[42] the days of the theatrical midnight movie as a significant countercultural phenomenon were already past.
In 1988, the midnight movie experience was institutionalized in a new manner with the introduction of theToronto International Film Festival's nightly Midnight Madness section alongside itsPeople's Choice Award (previous winners includeJulia Ducournau'sPalme d'Or-winning horror dramaTitane, theEmmy Award-winning TV movieWeird: The Al Yankovic Story andCoralie Fargeat'sAcademy Award-winning satireThe Substance).[43]
In the years since, new or recent films still occasionally emerge as midnight movie "hits" on the circuit of theaters that continue to show them. The most successful of the 1990s generation were the Oscar-winning Australian drag queen road sagaThe Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) and the 1995Razzie-winningstripper dramaShowgirls.[44] One of the theaters to showPriscilla regularly at midnight was New York's Waverly (now closed), whereRocky Horror had played for a house record ninety-five weeks. A celebrated episode of television'sThe Drew Carey Show features a song-and-dance battle betweenRocky Horror fans (led byDrew Carey) andPriscilla fans (led byMimi Bobeck).
Since the turn of the millennium, the most notable successes among newly minted midnight movies have beenDonnie Darko (2001)[45] andThe Room (2003).[19] Older films are also popular on the circuit, appreciated largely in an imposedcamp fashion—a midnight movie tradition that goes back to the 1972 revival of the hectoring anti-drug movieReefer Madness (1936).[46] (Tod Browning's 1932 horror classicFreaks, the original midnight movie revival, is both too dark and too sociologically acute to readily consume as camp.) Where the irony with whichReefer Madness was adopted as a midnight favorite had its roots in a countercultural sensibility, in the latter's place there is now the paradoxical element ofnostalgia: the leading revivals on the circuit currently include the crème de la crème of theJohn Hughes oeuvre—The Breakfast Club (1985),Pretty in Pink (1986), andFerris Bueller's Day Off (1986)—and the preteen adventure filmThe Goonies (1985).[47] As of March 2008,Rocky Horror itself continued to play on a weekly basis at twenty-nine venues around the country, and once or twice a month at another forty.[48] More than a decade and a half later, in April 2025, the overall figures were similar: weekly screenings at nineteen U.S. venues, and biweekly or monthly showings at sixty others.[49]
Three popular midnight movies made during the phenomenon's heyday have been selected to theNational Film Registry:Eraserhead (inducted 2004),The Rocky Horror Picture Show (inducted 2005), andPink Flamingos (inducted 2021). The animated shortQuasi at the Quackadero was inducted in 2009. Midnight movie staplesFreaks (1932) andNight of the Living Dead (1968) were inducted in 1994 and 1999 respectively.Harold and Maude, a cult film before it was adopted as a midnight movie, was inducted in 1997.[50]
Media related toMidnight movie at Wikimedia Commons
