Sinners

As I write this, Sinners is 2025’s highest-grossing original film. It’s also written and directed by Ryan Coogler, one of Hollywood’s most revered and popular recent directors. That said, being popular doesn’t stop Sinners from being a cult film in the making. Like many cult films, Sinners constantly shakes things up with different genre elements. One minute it’s a 1930s gangster story crossed with a fun hangout movie, the next it’s a full-blooded horror film. All while peppering in a cast of brilliant characters, songs and musical numbers, and deep thematic topics. Such as cultural legacy, appropriation, ingrained power structures and America’s racism. Modern big-budget films are rarely this audacious. Considering Sinners’ success seemingly has studios spooked, we may not see another huge film this unique for a while. That’s why this film is destined for cult stardom. It’s too special and significant not to inspire a legion of fans.

I Saw the TV Glow 

Many cult films also speak to marginalised experiences, particularly LGBTQ+ audiences. This is where I Saw The TV Glow slots in. Its discussion of how media provides great outlets for young people to express themselves, along with its difficult but important discussion of how hard it is to break free from an identity that society expects of you and that you have internalised, holds particular resonance for trans audiences. Plus, it’s framing through a lens of 90s and early 2000s nostalgic memory and heavy psychological horror gives I Saw The TV Glow a distinct style and feeling. These elements and the film’s bittersweet message at such a horrendous time for trans people will ensure a devoted following.

Polite Society

Smaller action films are also prime targets for cult status, especially if they have an instantly iconic main character. Polite Society centres on Ria, a British-Pakistani teenager aiming to become a stunt performer. When her beloved sister, aspiring artist Lena, unexpectedly gets engaged, Ria tries to sabotage their relationship. Slowly, she discovers a dark plot involving cloning that will require all her skills to overcome. A loving ode to sisterly love, with two fantastic central characters, that surreally mixes martial arts and sci-fi trappings into a grounded family drama, Polite Society has all the right ingredients to become a fixture of playground conversations for a new generation of off-kilter action fans.

The Tales From Pandora’s Box Series 

Another proud cult film category is the so bad it’s good film. Tales From Pandora’s Box is a horror and sci-fi anthology trilogy with the same charm as The Room. The filmmaker clearly had big ideas for the stories, but a lack of budget and no care given to film production basics make the final products feel incredibly amateur. When the films feature an astounding amount of out-of-place nudity, hilariously bad dialogue, use of still images to transition between stories, the same actors popping up again and again, Windows Movie Maker transitions, and more, it’s impossible not to laugh a little. These films could definitely become Halloween roasting rituals for drunken friends.

Stopmotion

Cult films are also known for how they experiment with cinema as a medium. Stopmotion’s blend of live-action and animation is an unnervingly impressive reminder of how great smaller-budget genre films can be. Additionally, it has some hard-to-watch effects work, a layered story about the creative process and Aisling Franciosi’s outstandingly raw lead performance. While Stopmotion should be held in higher regard, it will undoubtedly become a future cult favourite.

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About Once Upon A Time In Uganda

A wild documentary that takes you into the heart of the action-packed filmmaking town, lovingly known as Wakaliwood. Set in the heart of Uganda, two unlikely friends, brick-maker Isaac and film nerd Alan, unite over their shared love of Chuck Norris and gonzo 80’s action flicks. With sheer determination and an outrageous sense of humour, they team up to create their own explosive movies, catapulting Wakaliwood to international stardom and bringing laughter and joy to millions.

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The Premise of the Show

The creators of GMD are Matthew Holness and Richard Ayoade (they took the show to the Edinburgh Festival and won the Perrier Award), who also star in it. It is essentially a tv show within a tv show, a supposedly resurrected 1980s horror show set in a hospital on the gates of Hell.

Matthew Holness played famous, successful (but perhaps terrible) horror writer Garth Marenghi. He has written a ridiculous number of bad books and made one tv show – Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, which Channel 4 were releasing amidst a drought of other TV programmes. Each episode starts with an introduction by Marenghi and throughout the show it will cut to Marenghi and other cast members talking about the making of the show. GMD is awash with glaring continuity errors, horrific acting and awful SFX.

The Cast

Matthew Holness plays Garth Marenghi playing Dr. Rick Dagless – Due to the size of Marenghi’s ego he not only wrote, directed and produced GMD, but he also starred in it. Dr Rick Dagless is an unconventional doctor, not only riding around the hospital in a golf cart and carrying a huge revolver and dabbling in the dark arts.

Richard Ayoade plays Dean Learner playing Thornton Reed – Dean Learner is Marenghi’s publisher and was involved in the production of GMD, a well-dressed, womanising idiot who cannot act. When playing hospital administrator Reed, Learner is unable to talk to other actors, delivers incredibly stilted dialogue and can’t work telephones. It is probably the best example of an actor doing intentionally bad acting in the history of acting.

Alice Lowe plays Madeline Wool playing Dr. Liz Asher – Comedy and horror superstar Lowe plays Madeline Wool, the only main cast member we don’t have commentary from as she, in the words of Dean Learner, is “missing and presumed dead, with the emphasis heavily on dead”. Liz is actually the first character in the show, looking for a job at Darkplace Hospital, and despite being a highly qualified doctor is regularly dismissed by the other characters. Liz bursts into tears and instantly her face is covered in running mascara, has various telekinetic and psychic powers, and graduated from Harvard College Yale, aced every semester and got an A.

Matt Berry plays Todd Rivers playing Dr. Lucien Sanchez – Berry has gone on to great heights but this was essentially his first part, which Holness and Ayoade had to fight for him to get. Todd Rivers is the only proper actor of the three cast members who provide commentary, nearly always seen with a drink in his hand and a misguided view of his own acting. Dr. Lucien Sanchez is a charming if buffoonish character, he knows some manner of martial arts (as he regularly breaks out into a karate stance) and is the possessor of the best hair on the ward.

The Show

In classic British sitcom style, one of the greatest sitcoms ever has a grand total of six episodes. Now dealing with the actual storylines – Darkplace Hospital is built on a portal to Hell and so weird stuff happens. People explode for no reason, doctors have Carrie-esque attacks of supervillainy and we learn broccoli is from space. A lot of the comedy comes from the “badness” of the show, the glaring continuity errors like Reed holding a bloody shovel one minute to a coffee cup the next and then back to shovel, the dialogue “I’ve got two words for you – tele kinesis”, the acting (which usually lands on Reed) and absurd outbreaks of action. There are a lot of guns on the ward, Marenghi has a revolver, Reed a shotgun and Sanchez has two pistols, a normal-sized one and a smaller one on his ankle which he uses to shoot the first one.

The Commentary

The episodes are broken up with regular interview segments from Margenhi, Learner and Rivers, sometimes interviewed together, sometimes separately. In these moments we learn about how the show was made and the bizarreness of the characters. In terms of production, we learn that it was mainly filmed in a garage, that the amount of slow motion in the show is because the episodes were running too short that anything without dialogue was considered for slow motion and that Marenghi wears lifts in his shoes and claims to be six feet tall. But perhaps the best moments of the whole are learning about these people and their ideas, often their ideas about themselves, Marenghi’s ideas on writing are fantastically funny, proudly saying he’s written more books than he’s read, and clearly considers himself to be a genius of the highest order. Any glimpse we get into Learner’s sketchy life is fascinating and occasionally troubling, his description of his job as a publisher is certainly illuminating, with decisions like does that book cover have enough skulls on? Or adding punctuation to Marenghi’s books but “not semi-colons; this isn’t Joyce,” or even making the paper thicker to make the book seem longer. Todd Rivers seems to have a life of a barely successful actor with a lot of bitterness towards the acting community, audiences and even his GMD colleagues.

Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace is like many cult classics cancelled too soon in that its cast go on to do more amazing, more famous work. Alice Lowe has been a comedy mainstay for years as well as starring in, and directing, a number of horror films, including Prevenge – the only serial killer revenge film where the killer is heavily pregnant. Richard Ayoade has made other shows as well as writing books and making films – Submarine and The Double are both great, as well as somehow becoming the host of The Crystal Maze (something which Dean Learner cites as a classic show that has come and gone). Matt Berry has starred in a number of classic tv shows in Britain, as well as most recently starring in What We Do In The Shadows. Matthew Holness probably has kept the lowest profile but did make the terrifying horror film Possum.

So with the release of a new Marenghi book now is the perfect time to seek out this brilliant comedy.

Also Read: The Ingredients Of A Cult Classic

Also Read: Matthew Holness: Possum, The New Silent Horror

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About Babylon

“Babylon follows the story of David, a working-class musician and black man in South West London. By day he works as a mechanic, at night David is a Mic controller at a local dance hall. The film centres around the racial divide of London in the 80s, the lack of opportunities available to black people and poverty. David loses his job, gets beaten up and charged by the police, forcing him to go on the run.”

Also Read: The Ingredients Of A Cult Classic

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Watch the full interview below

Also Read: The Ingredients Of A Cult Classic

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The Oxford Dictionary definition of a “cult classic” is; a film which has “enduring appeal to a relatively small audience” and exists outside of “mainstream” cinema. Cult films consist of an eclectic collection; there is no set genre which these wonders stem from.

During Hollywood’s formative years, there was not a great deal of opportunity for films to reach cult status with the quick turnover of productions. However, this began to change with the introduction of Midnight Movie screenings. These often featured films which were considered too shocking for mainstream audiences. “Freaks”, the 1932 MGM production, was one such controversial feature of the midnight screening.

However, the status of the cult film gained momentum with the development of distribution. Whereas before, low-budget, non-confirmative films had to rely on midnight screenings to reach viewers, home cinema allowed potential cult movies to reach a wider target audience. Television channels began to provide their own form of the “midnight movie”, showing films that didn’t cost a lot. (This is actually where I remember catching my first glimpse of The Rocky Horror Picture Show – a cult classic which is firmly cemented as one of my favourites!)

This access to films only increased with the creation of VHS. Now fans could pass on the treasures they had discovered to other, like-minded potential fans. If a movie had been banned then this only added fuel to the cult film fire. Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of A Clockwork Orange gained such notoriety when it was withdrawn, meaning that any rare copies of the film added a particular magic for the cult following it amassed.

Much like A Clockwork Orange, the success of the cult classic seems to lie in it having some sort of controversy attached to it. As previously mentioned, these films often appeal to a small, niche audience and tend to challenge the typical conventions instilled by Hollywood. Many productions have reached the dizzying heights of cult status due to their focus on extreme, and often taboo, subject matters. The aforementioned Clockwork Orange had such graphic depictions of violent acts that it was withdrawn in the UK for  27 years after comparisons were made in high profile crimes.

Another way that a film can become a cult classic is by being so bad that it’s good. Tommy Wiseau’s 2003 film The Room is one such offering- it has been described by critics as one of the worst films ever created.” As a result, it has gained a massive cult following. So much so, that another film was created just last year, The Disaster Artist, to celebrate just how bad it is!

But what of those hugely successful films which have followings around the world? The Star Wars and Harry Potter franchises have gargantuan fan bases and have stemmed a multitude of sub-cultures such as festivals, conventions and even theme parks. Do these productions warrant the title of cult classic? Or do they fall short somehow? And if so, why?

Perhaps it is because these films have become so commercialised that they cannot be given the title of cult classics. Those films deserving of the title do so because of the microcosm that is their fan base; that “have you heard of this film?” moment. Whether you have watched the big blockbusters or not, you’ve definitely heard of them which is not always the case with those movies that are deemed cult films.

Some critics argue that the term has lost its value with it now being attached to any production which seems to break away from convention or challenge the mainstream. But the real cult classics will stand the test of time; that’s what makes them a classic after all.

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