Cult.Pulp.Sex.Obsession.The Kill...

By Ludmila Rishkova

November 24, 2010

sincity

(Foreseeing several impenetrable winter storms: 5”of snow for us Montrealers and several inches for people from other more southern regions, we decided to do a short bit on Movies, TV series and Books you might want to put on your list of things to do this winter.)

It’s not a matter of choosing sides when it comes down to Cult and Pulp movies and fiction. And it’s not a war of subculture versus mainstream as we will often find highly loyal fans of cult movies joining the ranks that admire mainstream pulp. Pulp and Cult are seductive in nature, looked down upon by higher culture and carry with them the alluring scent of the forbidden. Neither is afraid to toy with shallow content and superficial, even cliché, plot lines. Neither is afraid of sensationalism and both walk the thin line that splits a bad movie from a good, moving from one category to another depending on the judge. Most important of all, Pulp, like Cult, can make it into the Classics category.

What separates them is the public’s initial response: instant commercial success or commercial flop and critical failure. It doesn’t take a commercial flop to become a cult movie however: it’s hard to believe that any of Lindsay Lohan’s latest movies will make it into the cult genre along with its subculture and obsessive fan groups. What truly makes a Cult movie is the fan loyalty, borderline obsession, and popularity following a debut failure. Star Trek, Scarface and The Rocky Horror Picture Show are perhaps the most obvious examples of cult movies. Sin City, Pulp Fiction and Fight Club are a good sample of Pulp, catering to the mainstream and spanning all genres. Then we have the odds and ends that float in between, fitting in the Cult category when looked at from one perspective, in Pulp from another. A Clockwork Orange for one, The Nightmare Before Christmas and American Psycho for others.

Several film directors gravitate continuously around the Cult and Pulp scenes, producing works, often more than one, that instigate sub-cultures, shock and create controversy and later transcend to Classics. Some of them work together on a joint project; others build a fascinating and functional relationship with a favourite actor or author. They create captivating, shocking, revolting, corrupted and corruptive works that have been influencing us and others like us, since early childhood. Among them are: Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, George A. Romero, Tim Burton and Alan Ball. It is in their honour that we decided to compile our top favourites for both Cult and Pulp categories (which we believe do and should overlap).

Top 10 Cult Classics:

  1. The Rocky Horror Picture Show
  2. Ed Wood
  3. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
  4. Firefly
  5. Eraserhead
  6. Lost Highway
  7. Blade Runner
  8. Tron
  9. Mulholland Drive
  10. Blue Velvet

Top 10 Pulp Classics:

  1. Sin City
  2. Batman Returns
  3. True Blood
  4. Pulp Fiction
  5. Oldboy
  6. The Nightmare Before Christmas
  7. Fight Club
  8. A Clockwork Orange
  9. Interview With a Vampire
  10. Death Proof

Our shortlist for Cult and Pulp fiction is shorter for one reason: some of our fiction favourites already figure on the movie list.

Top 5 Cult Classics:

  1. Jack Kerouac’s On the Road
  2. Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
  3. J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye
  4. Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
  5. Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita

Top 5 Pulp Classics:

  1. Bram Stoker’s Dracula
  2. Edgar Allen Poe’s Tales of Mystery and the Macabre
  3. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
  4. William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch
  5. Shakespeare’s Complete Works