Many--possibly most--films that achieve cult status begin as box office failures, and then over the years start attracting groups of devoted fans. Some cult movies are very good, while others are so bad that they're good, and some are comic escapades, while many others fall into the categories of science fiction or horror. But all cult movies have one thing in common: they are films that refuse to die. Here are brief and fascinating illustrated profiles...

At the turn of the 20th century, minstrel shows transform into vaudeville, which slides into moving pictures. Hunkering together in dark theatres, diverse audiences marvel at flickering images. Redwood, an African American woman, and Aidan, a Seminole Irish man, journey from Georgia to Chicago, from haunted swampland to a "city of the future." They are gifted performers and hoodoo conjurors, struggling to call up the wondrous world they imagine, not...

"When nearly one hundred members of The Ark, a sinister apocalypse cult are found dead by poison at their isolated community in North Wales, those left alive are scattered to the winds with few coping skills and fewer answers. For twenty-three-year-old Romy, who has never known life outside the compound, learning how to live in a world she has been taught to fear is terrifying. Now Romy must start a new life for herself--and the child growing inside...

"A man's quest to find answers for those who are haunted by the past leads him deeper into the shadows in this electrifying novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Promise Not to Tell. Quinton Zane is back. Jack Lancaster, consultant to the FBI, has always been drawn to the coldest of cold cases, the kind that law enforcement either considers unsolvable or else has chalked up to accidents or suicides. As a survivor of a fire, he finds...

Junk film's thirteen essays explore the failures of specific works created between the 1940s and the 2010s. Each demonstrates a different kind of failure, from mixing incompatible genres (Cop Rock) to stacking a screenplay with sociopaths (Staying Alive). The book uses a few basic theses about bad film and television to unpack these failures. Importantly, it shows what students of film can learn from bad movies: how to make art that works via watching...

When a group of parishioners is burned to death in a German cathedral, the U.S. sends in the SIGMA force. The tragedy is more than a case of arson; someone has stolen the priceless treasure stored in the cathedral's golden reliquary: the bones of the biblical Magi, the legendary Three Kings.

The National Pyrotechnic Festival in Tultepec, Mexico is a site of explosive festivity unlike any other in the world. In celebration of San Juan de Dios, patron saint of firework makers, conflagrant revelry engulfs the town for ten days. Artisans show off their technical virtuosity, up-and-comers create their own lo fi combustibles, and teams build larger-than-life papier-mache bulls to parade into the town square, adorned with fireworks that blow...

Written and directed by a 24-year-old Francis Ford Coppola, Dementia 13 centers on the dysfunctional Haloran family as they converge at Haloran Castle to enact a morbid ritual in remembrance of Kathleen (Barbara Dowling), the deceased daughter of Lady Haloran (Ethne Dunn). Secrets shroud Kathleen's demise, and soon there is a mysterious interloper prowling the grounds with a big axe to grind. Engaging with sharp cinematography, Dementia 13 is a bone-chilling...

"In June 1993, a group of young guerilla filmmakers spent four weeks making Horror Movie, a notorious, disturbing, art-house horror flick. The weird part? Only three of the film's scenes were ever released to the public, but Horror Movie has nevertheless grown a rabid fanbase. Three decades later, Hollywood is pushing for a big budget reboot. The man who played 'The Thin Kid' is the only surviving cast member. He remembers all too well the secrets...

L.A. Sharknado survivor Fin arrives in New York as a massive storm begins to pummel the city. Just as Fin realizes this is no ordinary squall, tornadoes full of sharks appear on the horizon. Soon, no vehicle, building, or national monument is safe from the destruction, and Fin must make the perilous journey across town to rescue his family before they, and all of New York, are turned into chum.