Cult Films

I think the one area of movies that do not really have franchises and are not really affected by advertising are cult films. This includes movies such as "Donnie Darko," "Harold and Maude," "A Clockwork Orange," and many more. A huge section of the public are not aware of these movies because they have not been highly advertised. A lot of these films are very artistic with the exception of a few like "The Room." A lot of these films are done with a smaller budget as well such as "The Blair Witch Project."The fans they have  are extremely loyal and seem to enjoy that these films have not gone mainstream. I watched one documentary on a boy who was obsessed with "Donnie Darko" and he actually had 50 copies of the movie and he watched it twice a day. There isn't a lot of "Donnie Darko" memorabilia so he didn't have anything he could just buy from a major store or website. Interestingly enough, "Donnie Darko" opened a month after 9/11 and was virtually ignored upon release which is why it wasn't initially popular. Cult film fan bases usually emerge some years after the movie has already come out. Some cult films have done very well such as "The Blair Witch Project." The movie made to look like a documentary definitely helped people get more interested to watch it. Some cult films like "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" do have more of a solid community with strangers getting together and watching the movie and dressing up and interacting with the movie. Cult films are really interesting to look into just because there are so many of them but how they become known by their fans is different than the usual advertising. Things are done more by the word of mouth. Most of the cult films I've watched are from older friends that want to show me something I've probably never witnessed before.