Top Midnight Movies

As some of you may know i go to alot of midnight movies. Very obvious is my love of Rocky Horror, but there are others aswell. Midnight Movies are more than just a movie at midnight, it's an experience, it's a fun 2, 3 hour trip full of jokes laughing and sharing of ice cream. People dress up, people bring food, people shout shit at the screen. It's not just bad movies like the Room but great ones like Pulp Fiction. Now i've seen some films at midnight that don't belong in the call back world such as Midnight Cowboy but most are jsut great fun. So here is my top 25 midnight movies of all time, plus soem call backs added in! Rocky Horror not included, and not including midnight launches like The Dark Knight. BTW i've seen a few of these more than once, and a few more than twice, and a few well you get the idea.

1. Grindhouse
Well let's start by saying that grindhouse is over three hours long. Add in 15 after midnight for when they began to play the real trailers, those trailers lasted another 15 minutes, add in a 15 minutes intermission, add in another 15 minutes of real trailers.Didn't get out til 4ish, and it was worth it. Most midnight movies, people usually show up intoxicated of some sorts, and everyone here was pretty drunk, theatre was about 65, 70% full, and this was a year after the initial theatrical release. We were dancing, hugging each other, there was a male stripper, plenty of callback about Tarantiono's foot fetish & LOST, some of us running into the aisle to yell at the projectionist when the film reel "burned". Like minded individuals enjoying a great concept of a film. Unfortunately they played it again last year, but split the film up as Death Proof & Planet Terror.


2. Evil Dead 2
I've seen all the Evil Dead films at midnight, i'm a bigger fan of the first than i am the second, but Evil Dead 2 trumps it as a midnight movie. Not only did i win 3rd place in a costume contest but having a good portion of the audience discuss Citizen Kane, was something to witness. It's truly a trip to behold at midnight, i remember reading RipVan Ryan's blog on it from Bloody-Disgusting, saying he met a man seeing it on LSD, well i didn't quite go that strong(wish i did), i'll atleast say the pot made it a lil trippier than the sober mind. I even brought foreign exchange students with me who started doing call backs like pros.


3. A Nightmare On Elm Street
Just imagine as many sex jokes as possible, throw in some Degrassi and have a good RUN BITCH RUN. Seeing Elm Street on the screen was a treat, it just oozed a feel of the meaning of a midnight movie.


4. Clue
Clue is one of the most fun movies you can watch, see it at midnight at it's gold. People put together their own "clues" to figure out the film, it works so perfectly well, Tim Curry is the midnight god.


5. Fight Club
Frank N Furter might be a god, but EDDIE is close. I've seen Fight Club way too many times at midnight, the print we get usually has alot of sound pops, but i love the sound pops as it adds such a great feel to the films. Plus it's always classy to shout that you'd fuck Chloe.


6. Grease
Grease is the word, and it was almost like a sing a long, people dancing & singing to the songs, booing the shit out of Rizzo Plus Frenchy got to penetrate Sandy before Donny did.


7. The Goonies
Much like Fight Club i've seen ti way too many times, but it's such a fun film at midnight, very odd film too. I know alot of film fans who don't care for it, i think you had to have been a certain age to click with the film, and those who are that age, go to see it at midnight & pass containers of ice cream around for everyone to share. And Michael Jackson didn't come to Chunk's house, he came in his ass!


8. Donnie Darko
This is the ballad film, people go nuts during this film. People pull out lighters during Mad World, which alot of times leads to people lighting cigarettes but regardless the film is a must see at midnight.


9. Dazed & Confused
Speaking of smoking, the last showing of D&C was 4 years ago, i was still in high school and was surprised to see alot of the popular kids at the screening. Almost everyone was stoned, fuck people were smoking in the theatre, but the jocks & stuff is what got to me. Had Universal promoted the film right in 93, i think it would've been a HUGE success. Plus the soundtrack really got to the people in the audience.


10. Pulp Fiction
This is a film you can barely hear alot of times, everyone is cheering & clapping, laughing & shouting out lies of dialogue.
The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is The Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.
Imagine a whole theatre in unisin shouting that.


11. Poltergeist
Another halloween screening, this time minus the contest but i did get people to dance to thriller with me while i was dressed as nurse Joker. Halloween just lifted peoples spirits and seeing a horror classic was the cherry on the sundae. Warning though, don't shut the door or there will be incest.


12. The Room
I'm sorry if it's cliche, but i'm all about this flick right now, saw it for the first time at midnight, was blown away by it's awfulness, and it just gets better each time you see it. I own the dvd, but the midnight screenings are great. The one's here aren't quite how you see them on youtube, but enough people get into it and have a good time. Throw spoons, play football inches from each other, laugh at the random dialogue & say HI to everyone you see.


13. The Wall
I wet through an incredible journey with this film. I just sat back, made only one call back(i think) about the Shining, but just sat back & let the film explore my mind. I had seen it before, but in the theatre it opens your eyes & fucks your brain.


14. Office Space
The showing are still fun but once someone threw down a copy machine & destroyed it up front on the stage, blew my mind.


15. El Topo
Was a very very small crowd but such a great crowd, plus it's the forerunner for midnight movies. I had never seen it but after the screening i was a huge fan. It was so surreal & far out, that happened one other time but with a film i'd only seen the ending of before seeing it at midnight, The Apple. Alejandro Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain was screened almost 2 years later, and much like the Wall, it fucked my mind with it's religious undertones.




16. The Holy Grail
Let's just say the audience knows the dialogue.


17. Hedwig
Now this is another party movie, those who love it, love it good. Had another sing a long of sorts and brings out alot of the costume players.


18. A Clockwork Orange
Call back ratio isn't as high as it once was, but that doesn't stop me from dressing up as Alex everyone & while.


19. Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas
Very drug fueled audiences, people trip like crazy during this film.


20. The Big Lebowski
Much like Fear & Loathing, lots of drugs seem to have been taken before people entered, but it's another one of those "dialogue" films where everyone shouts the lines.


21. Superbad
Gay undertones & a theatre full of fake orgasms!


22. Kill Bill
I'm putting the volumes together cause i can. Just look at Kill BIll, how can it not be a midnight movie? Good old clap offs are always a sure thing. Plus you get a fucking cartoon!


23. The Excorcist
Alot were genuinely scared during this, which made it fun for those who love the film, people scaring each other, faking demonic rituals and what not, great fun.


24. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
There is no love like the loving that a grandpa give his grandson, plus Gene Wilder is the man.


25. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
This was the film that played at the end of my senior year that signified the end of school days, so many of us grew up with the Turtles so having it close the high school experience was terrific.


I want to mention trailer trash aswell! WTF is Trailer Trash you ask trailer trash is 2 hours of trailers, yeah that's right, wind range of genres & years, crappy films, kids movies, horror, comedy, you name it. Plus they played Changing Lanes, which is a local favorite for trailers at midnight, everyone knows the word to the trailer.


Honorable mentions
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Last House on the Left, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Zoolander, Blade Runner, Se7en, American Psycho, Night of the Creeps, Heavy Metal, Breakfast Club, Back to the Future, Shaun of the Dead, Black mama White Mama, Sisters, Requiem for a Dream, Velvet Goldmine, Brain Candy, Sin City, Silence of the Lambs, Psycho, Verigo, South Park, Beavis & Butthead, The Hunger, Spinal Tap, Mallrats, Bill & Ted, Suspiria, Beetlejuice, Eternal Sunshine, Terminator, Alien, Wet Hot American Summer, Dead Alive, The Ring, 12 Monkeys