Pass the Kool-Aid: Five Flicks That Aspired To Cult Status

The trailer for this week's "Repo! The Genetic Opera" announces itself, via a quote from...

Fanboys (2009?)
Directed by Kyle Newman

The Internet giveth and the Internet taketh away. “Fanboys,” a low-budget comic ode to “Star Wars” nerds, was first scheduled for release in August of last year, but it’s been delayed at least four times so far and will now hit theaters — at the earliest — on February 6th, 2009. According to one of the film’s co-stars, Seth Rogen, the fault lies at least in part in the “Star Wars” cultists who are the film’s core (and perhaps only) audience. Speaking to Collider.com recently while promoting his new film “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” Rogen said, “I think [the Weinstein Company, the distributor] got scared by Internet buzz and I’m of the thought that Internet buzz is literally influenced by 500 people with laptops. And I think they let Internet buzz change it and then change it back and then make some other weird version of it. And I don’t know what the hell they are going to release.” The changes he’s referring to involve the very crux of the movie’s story — initially, director Kyle Newman’s movie was about a bunch of friends who break into George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch to steal a print of “The Phantom Menace” because one of the group is dying of cancer and won’t live long enough to see the release date. The Weinstein Company eventually grew worried about releasing a comedy centered around cancer, and brought in additional producers (Judd Apatow’s partner Shauna Robertson, in particular) to remove the subplot and replace it with more raunchy humor. When fans on Aint it Cool News got wind of TWC’s Jedi mind trick, they began organizing boycotts of the entire company’s slate of movies (while posting comments to AICN like, “F*%$ you Weinsteins, suck a cock.”). Though TWC later relented, they’ve continued to push “Fanboys” off their schedule, perhaps to clear the air of the lingering stench of geek bitterness. Thank goodness the poor character with cancer wasn’t waiting for the release of his own movie.

Shock Treatment (1981)
Directed by Jim Sharman

The producers of “Shock Treatment” thought that if they got a bunch of the actors and almost all of the creators of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” together again, the result would be a massive cult hit along the lines of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” The problem, ultimately, was that while “Shock Treatment” and “Rocky Horror” were very similar creatively — even narratively, with a couple of squares getting their all-American values tested by outlandish eccentrics — they were miles apart thematically. “Rocky” is a loving tribute (albeit a demented one) to the world of late-night double features. “Shock Treatment,” in which Brad and Janet are trapped in a town that exists entirely within a television studio, is an act of cultural criticism. (“Rocky” left the criticism to the people in the audience.) “Rocky” loved movies; “Shock Treatment” hates television. Perhaps more to the point, the first movie is fun; it’s about boring people who are launched into an exciting world of youth and sexual energy. The second movie is about boring people who are launched into a frustrating world of manipulation and imprisonment. Which would you rather watch? Despite the producers’ careful courtship of the “Rocky” faithful and a much-hyped premiere at midnight, “Shock Treatment” was a flop, maybe because the audience for the movie already had plans at midnight down the street watching the first movie (its uniformly negative portrayal of audiences as boobs ready to be led down the garden path probably didn’t play well with, y’know, audiences). Summing up the film’s failure on the 25th anniversary DVD of “Shock Treatment,” producer John Goldstone hits the nail on the head when he says “In hindsight, what you realize is that you can’t create a cult. Cults happen organically. An audience finds a movie, embraces it, and makes it into a cult.”

[Additional photos: "Snakes on a Plane," New Line, 2006; "The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra," TriStar Pictures, 2001; "Shock Treatment," Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, 1981]

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