Creature features aren’t just movies starring a monster, they were the hosted or non hosted block of films broadcasted on television around the 70s and 80s They relied on films mostly from the 70s and before: Hammer horror movies, Japanese monster movies, 50s monster and alien films.

What killed then was horrors increasing reliance on gore, I think. Also sort of the camp aspects of genre films and their transition into serious business.

While Syfy films tried, they were too low budget and not particularly likeable.

Not sure, but if so I think it’s more because modern films are too…planned for a better word? Too aware of their status?

Like a recent film I watched was The Thirteenth Floor (1999), which is very much a cult classic. Gorgeous film about a virtual reality 30s California and the people who dive into it. It’s something that bombed badly but people who see it and review it love it, and for good reason. Despite its flaws, it’s a surprisingly thoughtful film, and the Matrix seems silly compared to it. The ending has some wicked implications too.

But something like The Northman always seems to me to scream “I am a fucking ART FILM!” The A24 stuff is manufactured cult; like it expects to be and disappointed when it isn’t.

Like Don Coscarelli is cult, because Phantasm is just so damn out there. It’s not even a scary film but over the course of the movies it somehow grows into something really unusual. You can’t ever not be aware he is telling the story he wants to.