![]() ![]() The "science" in sci-fi B's is played down (way, way down) in favor of good, old-fashioned gore. #WAXWORKS OWENSBORO MOVIE#But, in most cases, the "B" in B movie stands for "blood" in a big way. Many B's, one might argue, are science fiction, not horror. Most teen sex flicks are pretty wretched - but some memorable B's in the sex subgenre include Meatballs, Animal House and the recent American Pie.įilm purists might disagree that all B's not dealing exclusively with sex fall into the category of Splatter. Sex B's follow a pretty standard pattern: A group of high school or college boys try desperately to lose their virginity while outwitting bullies and ingesting tanker truckloads of beer. Generally, B movies can be grouped into two categories: Sex or Splatter. Meanwhile, Wes Craven, who brought B movies into the '90s with the Scream series, tried to break away from the horror genre in 1999 with Music of the Heart, but later went back to his B roots with Scream 3. Tobe Hooper, who achieved fame (or notoriety) with the '70s shock horror classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, never had much of a career outside of the horror genre (even today, Hooper's best-known film is still Poltergeist). Other actors and directors have never been able to escape their B-movie images. Some B films have even managed to resurrect a dying movie career - the way John Travolta was saved from the dustbins of cinematic history by Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, a quirky B film with a surprisingly A-list cast. In 1998, the successful Jamie Lee Curtis returned to her "scream queen" roots by reprising the role of Laurie in Halloween H20.ĭirectors who made names for themselves with B movies include Kevin Smith (Clerks), Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs) and John Carpenter (Halloween). Vincent Price, who co-starred in several major features such as The Ten Commandments, Laura and House of Seven Gables, is best remembered today for playing the villainous leads in Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe films of the 1950s and '60s. Other "mainstream" actors are still known best for their B-movie histories. Kevin Bacon got a knife in the throat in the original Friday The 13th, and Johnny Depp made his movie debut as an unfortunate victim of Freddie Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street. But many current stars got their start on the B-movie circuit. When most actors make the big time, they tend to distance themselves from their B beginnings as much as possible. #WAXWORKS OWENSBORO FULL#Charlton Heston and Elizabeth Taylor weren't starring in B's at the height of their career: Instead, the B's were full of young actors looking for a way up, such as Michael Landon in I Was A Teen-age Werewolf, or former stars on their way down, like the slumming, heroin-drained Bela Lugosi of Plan Nine From Outer Space. ![]() The low-budget film, which ran after the main feature (hence the "B"), had almost no budget, casts of virtual unknowns, and, in many cases, a man running around in a rubber Alligator Man suit. The big-budget first feature normally had a cast of Hollywood stars, lavish costumes and sets, and the spectacular action sequences and special effects audiences had grown to expect from major Hollywood productions. The Web site FlixML (tells us in hopes of drawing audiences into theaters, motion picture companies created the concept of the "double feature," pairing a big-name movie with a low-budget, low-quality second feature. Brian Glover, vice president of Cranbrook Video in Cockeysville, said his store will also hold a midnight party Tuesday, complete with spotlight, red carpet at the entrance and a female employee in a dress from the early 1900s.īut with school back in session, this would seem to reduce the number of wild-eyed 12- and 13-year-old girls storming the place at midnight, and with it a sizable chunk of the customer base for this video.B films were born in the Depression era, when economics discouraged many people from going to the movies. Much of this is driven by a Blockbuster survey that found that 43 percent of its customers who rent videos are likely to purchase "Titanic," even though 61 percent of respondents had seen the film already.Īnd it's not just the big fish of the video stores attempting to cash in on this new wave of "Titanic" madness. In what Blockbuster flacks announce breathlessly as an "unprecedented move," stores will keep their doors open all evening Monday until 2 a.m., and will be selling "Titanic" videos at the stroke of 12: 01 a.m., the earliest moment they can legally do so. Blockbuster, with 6,000 video stores in the U.S., plans to hold "Midnight Release" parties next week across the Washington and Baltimore areas. ![]()
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