Midnight movie
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A midnight movie is a low-budget genre picture or distinctly nonmainstream film programmed for late-night screening or broadcast. The term is rooted in the practice that emerged in the 1950s of local
One of the definitive midnight movies, Tod Browning's Freaks (1932) was the sort of (then) obscure horror film shown on late-night TV beginning in the 1950s; in the 1970s and early 1980s, it was a staple of midnight screenings at theaters around the U.S.
Maila Nurmi as Vampira, the original midnight movie TV host.
"A film too heavy to be shown any other way." Newspaper ad for December 1970 midnight screenings of El Topo at the Elgin Theater.
David Lynch's Eraserhead (1977) found an audience through midnight screenings.
Freaks (1932 film)
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Freaks is a 1932 American pre-Code drama horror film produced and directed by Tod Browning, starring Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, and Roscoe Ates.
Midnight movie
…tradition of Luis Buñuel and another Lennon favorite), the Waverly (Equinox, which had just replaced Night of the Living Dead), the Bijou (both Freaks and Night of the Living Dead), and the Olympia (Macunaíma, a Brazilian political black comedy). Equinox (1970) and Night of the Living Dead (1968…
1932 theatrical release poster
Critic Jon Towlson notes that the everyday interaction between the able-bodied and disabled circus performers serves to uphold an anti-eugenics sentiment.
Johnny Eck as Half-Boy and Angelo Rossitto as Angeleno
Freaks lobby card