Essential Midnight Movies: 7 Cult Films to Worship If You’ve Got Plans to F*** with Hollywood, Too

There’s probably a classier metaphor I could use to describe the feeling you get when you realize you’re watching a real midnight movie and not some cheap imitation. And yet, like the famous censorship decision passed down by the 1964 U.S. Supreme Court — a notoriously feckless group that was somehow still more fun than our current justice system — I must say, “I know it when I see it.”

You can’t really tell someone they’re in a cult unless they’re ready to leave one, and you can’t really claim to have made a cult film until your movie behaves like that. From the ever-growing list of “genre” and “midnight” shorts competitions on the festival circuit, to the awe-inspiring grassroots campaigns that have followed feature indie triumphs like Mike Cheslik’s “Hundreds of Beavers,” bawdy counterculture has managed to stay explosive and hopeful even over the toughest times this year.