Shock and gore in mark Friday the 13th

Cannes is celebrating celluloid shock and gore to mark Friday 13th.

Cannes is celebrating celluloid shock and gore to mark Friday 13th.

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A documentary by Stuart Samuels explores the impact of six mainly low budget films that became cult classics after they were shown at midnight screenings by American arthouse cinemas during the 1970s.

Beginning with Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo (1970), many of the counterculture films were commercial flops before theatres like the Elgin in New York rescued them from the mainstream and transformed them into underground hits.

Directors and theatre owners interviewed in Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream recall hundreds of fans queueing around the block and screens barely visible for the cannabis smoke.

"A den of cinematic iniquity" was how one owner described those nights.

Not only were people there for blood, guts, fear and fun, but, with the outrageous The Rocky Horror Picture Show the audiences adopted the costumes of characters and became a part of the film itself.

In the words of Rocky creator Richard O'Brien: "Don't dream it, be it."

For the most part the films were made on shoestring budgets, using stables for studios and tape to put together film reels.

Only Rocky was a bigger affair, with a $1.25 million budget. But even that, after initially bombing at the box office, was rescued at midnight and went on to make at least $175 million.

IT ALL BEGAN IN CHILE

The midnight movie phenomenon began with El Topo (The Mole), an ultra-violent film by Chilean director Jodorowsky that began with a single-lined advertisement in a U.S. newspaper and became a ritual for thousands wanting to be shocked.

Then there was Night of the Living Dead (1968), the gory zombie flick with political resonances including the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King and the Vietnam war.

Director George A. Romero is in Cannes on Friday to present 20 minutes of clips from his new film Land of the Dead.

John Waters's Pink Flamingos was "shlock" as much as shock, featuring lead actor Divine eating a poodle's excrement.

"An exercise in poor taste," was how the zany director described it. "Beyond pornography."

Perry Henzell's The Harder They Come (1972), a violent tale of a Jamaican country boy making it big in the city, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, got fresh leases of life from the late showings, as did David Lynch's disturbing Eraserhead.

But then came Jaws, Star Wars, and the video machine, and shock and awe became movie mainstream, which, according to the documentary, spelled the end for the late night ritual.

"The death of the midnight film is a sad thing," Lynch said.