For me it was my step father. From King Kong, to The Blob to Clash of the Titains to Creature from the Bklack lagoon, I remember many a weekend watching such gems. I can't remember my fVERY first B movie experience, but I do remember I was about 7 or 8 at the time. Might have been earlier but memory fails me.
I didn't really have an influence. My father and I used to watch these movies when I was young but it seemed that it was just because they were on. I kept going as I got older where he just stopped watching films like this. I guess it could be argued that he was my influence but I think I would've discovered them on my own anyway.
Xo are you saying that the love for B movies is innate?? Are we born with some kinf od mutant gene???
I think my family just felt that there was something wrong with me and I would eventually grow up.
I proved them wrong....I never grew up. (:
As I recall, when I was real little, my family used to frequent the drive-in a lot. For me, at the time, it was all about finding that nifty little gift in the Cracker Jacks that we'd always get for a night at the drive-in.
Hey, remember when those little surprises were worthless-but-cool litlle plastic thingies or stickers & whatnot? Nowadays, it's just a little sliver of paper with some dumb puzzle on it.
Anyway, we had cable from about '80 to '85, but I think what really did it for me was the divorce.
After that, it was all about staying up past my bedtime & watching whatever the hell was on, or going down to the video store & renting movies that my mother didn't approve of. This was back in the days before all these danged infomercials & talk shows & syndicated series & the like, so these new UHF stations really had to pad the time between all those old reruns with whatever they could get their hands on, particularly obscure old movies.
Sometimes they'd show some old baddie that we'd seen at the drive-in years before, or something that I'd seen commercials for that my parents wouldn't take me to, and I'd wax nostalgic, but most of the time I'd discover something that met my teenage interests in Blood, Breasts, Beasts & Bombs.
Now I'm just your typical all American mongrel with nothing better to do.
I'd say my older brother was a big influence. Of my older siblings, he was the one who was into sci-fi and cheesy old movies. If Godzilla was on, he'd be watching. Same goes for a lot of old comedies and B-movies. He was also the one reading SF and fantasy novels that I was already borrowing at a young age.
Then again, I'm not sure where he got it. My parents and other siblings don't particularly go for this sort of stuff. But then, Dave and I are both a bit different from the rest of the family.
The other influence would simply be growing up in the 80s, when all kinds of cheesy genre stuff was finding its way onto home video. My friends and I ate that stuff up.
My parents were big into sci-fi, adn they would go to any movie with a sci-fi aspect to it and take us a long. Decades later I realized most of it was trash...but I still enjoyed it.
mmm... Trash...
As a child of the 80s I guess there was alot of great 80s trashy movies which got me pretty interested in them. I was actually thinking of this exact same thing recently, and I have to say it's probably to do with my childhood favourite films, such as Masters of the Universe, The Mad Max film, Transformers, or just 80s cartoons in genereal and Gremlins in particular.
Reasons are as such:
Masters had crappy acting, absurd plot and was lots of fun. I spent the better part of two hours trawling through a video store's massive collection on sale, in New Zealand, because I could never find a copy quick enough in Australia and I 'had a feeling' I could find it there. For $2, I think I did pretty well, and as I was looking through all the movies, most of them terrible B-movies, I got to thinking how fun and interesting it would be to watch them.
Mad Max for similar reasons above [acting and plot etc] but I guess it was the whole low budget, post apocalyptic movie that really got me into the whole B-movie vibe. Great stuff really and the reason why I have such a soft spot for crappy post apocalyptic 80s films.
Transformers, not because it was neccessarily a bad movie, but because I thought it was brilliant when I was a kid, and then realised when I was older, how fragmented the plot was, and how much I loved it because of that. Simple really. Laid the foundation for some badly scripted plots in other films.
The Gremlins films, not because they would be classed as "B-movies" but because they had a very big sense of the absurd [the second one in particular]. I mean, I didn't really have as much overt access to B-movies specifically [like some of you seem to have had] such as horror-hosted TV shows and the like, so I guess my access to a similar type of film was fairly limited. I guess you could say the Gremlins films laid the groundwork for a love of silly things.
Also 80s cartoons because they were so crap they were good!
Anyways, I'm sure there's other reasons, but they were the ones that seemed to fit the mould the best for me.
My mother was my influence in movies, but not necessarily in B-movies (although, some of the movies that we watched on TV when I was a kid were B-movies).
I think I was mostly influenced by ads for movies in the newspaper. I remember reading the movie listings and seeing the artwork and ad campaigns for a lot of drive-in double and triple features and thinking, "wow, those movies look cool."
Since then, I have read a lot of books and magazines geared toward B-movies. As these gems of bad entertainment get released on DVD I rush out and buy them.
An old B-movie show that aired in my coutry called "Cine Zeta" (Z Cinema)
They showed all kinds of B-movies, presented by two sarcastic, humorous puppet ravens on a cemetary, who would later discuss the movie in their own raunchy way.
It was like Shock Theater meets Mystery Science Theater 3000, and it was my favorite show as a kid.
I'd honestly have to say that my grandfather was my main influence when it comes to B-Movies. My grandparents were the first people I ever knew to actually have a satellite dish. I'm not talking the small ones, I'm talking the uber-giant dishes you would see on occassion in the late 70s-80s. They had a descrambler box so that they could pick up most any channel.
I stayed with them many many many times during my childhood, especially when both of my parents were working. We'd usually watch old Godzilla films, or whatever kind of cheese he could find. He loved b-w monster movies. I'll never forget watching "Food Of The Gods" and "Empire Of The Ants" one summer afternoon with him. He also had a massive collection of comics from the 20s-60s. E.C. Comics, Amazing Stories, etc. All of them were mint condition, but unfortunatly disappeared after he died of lung cancer abotu ten years ago. I'd love to have those comics, not to sell, but to read.
Eventually, I went from creature features to the Evil Dead which was what really put me into films. From there, I went to zombie and slasher films, mainly just horror and that's where I've stayed.
To tell the truth, I have no influence when it comes to watching b-movies. It was just a natural progresssion for me.
My Grandmother (RIP). She used to buy Godzilla flicks for me all the time. She also had zombie flicks like Day of the Dead and Aliens movies which heavily influenced me.
I always would watch Godzilla when it was on, but didn't attach anything to it growing up. They were just part of the background TV of the 70's. Same with other sci-fi films.
One late night I was watching the 1949 "Mighty Joe Young" on TV when I was 10 or so. There was a book series about classic monster films, and one was about gorilla films, so when Joe was on I was really excited and stayed up late. My dad came down and told me how he saw it in the theatre on its first run, when HE was about my age. It started a great association for me, though he has had no truck with B-films afterwards. Then came Night Flight, Up All Night, Mad Movies, and finally MST3K sealed the deal for my adolescence/early 20's. In grad school/college I got hooked on Trailer Park and Joe Bob Briggs. But by then I was exploring the films on my own.
-Ed
Yeah, books helped a lot. I remember finding a book in the school library about classic science fiction movies. That was around 1982 or so, and the book was a few years old. It had some great flicks of the 50s and 60s, presented without the perspective given by late-70s sci-fi. Quite a good analysis of some that are favourites on this board, some that are widely-recognized classics, and some that are obscure even by our standards. I remember signing it out and reading it more than once. Made me aware of a lot of movies I would otherwise not have heard of. I've seen many of them, but I know there are still some in that book I've not been able to find.
Wish I had that book today. I can't even remember the title.
I read The Psychotronic Guide to Incredibly Strange Films and Michael Medved's Golden Turkey Awards in the same week --
I realized I was not alone --
Then I made a few of my own --
Then I found this website . . .
Hooommee . . . Hooommeee!!!
peter crane/denny johnson
I think my parents had a lot to do with it.
I watched the Star Wars movies and King Kong with my dad a bunch of times.
While my mom would take me to a mom and pop store called "Flix and Pix" and I would go to the Giant Monster Section and rent Godzilla, Gamera, Gappa, Guilia and Yongary movies (and for those last three just movie)
Went I rented Final Wars and Estroy All Monsters a few weeks ago, mom asked me what I got, I handed the movies to her. She looked and then said "My god! Havn't you seen everyone of these yet?"
I guess she remembers all those flix and pix visits.
Oh!!!! How could I forget!!!
Another influence would be going over to my grandparents house as a kid and watching whatever sunday arvo movie was on and films such as Willow, the Sinbad movies and Conan and an old childhood movie that I haven't watched since, Red Sonja [which I quite liked as well!]
How could I forget those!!! Great, great films!
I use to watch them as a kid by myself on a Saturday Afternoon, Saturday Evening, and maybe on a Sunday Afternoon in the mid-70's. As I got older I didn't think they were scary so I stopped watching them till the movie ED WOOD (1994) came out and I took a video production class around the same time. This reintroduced these films for me with a different point of view than the scare factor. Also you have the element of "if they could make this film then I can make films also".
Film is a kind of study for me all I need is some good equipment and I think I can manage the rest.
My dad. I first saw King Kong Vs. Godzilla at the long gone East Side Drive-In. As Dad worked days, Mom nights, and as dad and i liked the same "Weirdness", my first sight of G was as he rose out of the sea, and i dropped behind the front seat!
Dad died in 83. Wish he could have seen the movie collection i have now.
I had a little barbarian phase back in the day. Around the time I use to watch V. I also watched Doctor Who (Maybe because my name is Leila (pronounced Leelah) hehe. My momo HATED all that stuff and din't understand why I liked it. she told me I would realize how stupid they are when I got older...hmmmm, 30 now and still waiting...lol
My mom got me into watching old monster movies when I was like 4 or 5. We'd watch Dracula, the Wolfman, Frankenstein, stuff like that. She always made me know they were only pretend so I was never really scared of that type of monster movie. When I was in elementary school, I use to have a friend spend the night every friday or saturday night and we'd stay up late watching whatever monster movie was on. Then in the 80's when I was a teen, I had the luck of having an inlaw that owned a video store so I could get whatever movie I wanted for however long I wanted. He liked horror and b-movies too so I saw many obscure movies I'd never have the chance to see otherwise. If the movie really sucked it was no big deal as I wasn't out any money on it.
Have to say during the 70's and 80's drive-ins played a big part too. The only two movies that my mom made my dad drive out on were Last House on the Left and Mark of the Devil. She pretty muched liked everything else including The Exorcist which was really scary watching on a drive-in screen (I spent most of that movie sitting on the floorboard in the backseat so I didn't have to see it...hehe).