Are we nostalgia junkies? Why do we like these movies?

[Archivist]

I was thinking about my liking for B-movies and how many of the seminal B-movies were made in the 70's and 80's.  I grew up watching many of these movies, like Attack of the Bee Girls, the Count Yorga series, The Ultimate Warrior, The Devil's Rain, every bad Ninja movie ever made, etc.

Whenever I watch a movie like that, I'm taken back to a 'simpler time' in which I didn't have much to worry about, just running around, going to cinemas with friends, or plopping down in front of the video to watch another B-movie.  Or wandeing the aisles of the video store with my mother or father, picking out some really cool flick like From Beyond (Barbara Crampton rules) or Xtro (scared the crap out of me) or Bloodsport.

Even now, if I find a cool B-movie from that era that I have not seen, I still get a twinge of those 'nostalgia' feelings.  And bad movies made in more recent times still give me that feeling because of a kind of association.

Why do you like B-movies?  Did you grow up watching them?  Are some of your favourite B-movies from the era in which you grew up?  Did you come into B-movies 'later in life'?

~Archivist~

[Ed]

I am pretty sure I have no personal nostalgia for the 70's (yes I did live through them).  I, personally, love the way these films are so unashamed to be what they are, movies.   There is no market niche targeting, or self-conscious pop-culture references, just moviemaking.  So many of these directors were so carried away with the joy and possibility of moviemaking.  They may be bad, but many of  them are timeless.  

I do like catching the mistakes, or the ironic groans of seeing bad science, or just the mad laughter of a rubber suit stomping cardboard landscapes, or flailing rubber tentacles at a scantily clad woman who trips and screams every 3 steps.
But for me its not really nostalgia at all.  I just have fun with these movies, something that doesn't happen on the mainstream cinema.
Ed

[Scott]

Good subject Archivist. I grew up watching Monster Movies and War Films in the 70's so it is part nostalgia for sure, but I think the desire to make a film ourselves makes B-movies interesting to us. Knowing that maybe even we could one day make a popular low budget film.

[peter johnson]

In my case I think it depends entirely on the film.
My favorite Bs are the ones made either before I was born, or too young to even watch movies:  Plan 9 & Robot Monster & most of the early 60's Roger Corman output.
So, no, I can't say that a yearning for a simpler time or any sort of childhood memory plays into my love of these, as I saw them for the first time much later in life, and just like them for what they are.  No "nostalgia" to it.
For good B movies -- by which I mean "B" in its original sense:  Not an "A" picture/not top-of-the-bill, but worth seeing as part of a double-feature anyway -- my very favorites are the films of Val Lewton:  Curse of the Cat People, Bedlam, etc. etc.  These films were made 20 or 30 years before I was born.
However, I DEFINITELY have fond, strong memories of just 20 years ago, trying to get my drunken buddies to dig "The Forbidden Zone" as much as I did --
So, as I said, it depends on the film --
peter johnson/denny crane

[Scott]

During our carefree childhood days we were able to see alot with all that leisure time and it's like music that we heard during our youth. We relive some of those feelings when remembering those times.

[Mr_Vindictive]

For me it's not really nostalgia.  I was born in the early 80s and never really watched too many bad movies as a kid, except for showings of Godzilla and the like on TV.  It wasn't until I was about 15 or so that I really started to delve into bad films.  I caught Evil Dead by chance at someone's house and I was hooked.  I started renting horror films left and right and found out that more often than not, the low budget films were considerably better than studio films.  This led to my love affair with films such as Evil Dead, Re-Animator, Phantasm, Dead Alive, etc.  

But for me, as I said, it's not really nostalgia.  I just love seeing what an inventive mind can come up with when they aren't being pressured to do what a studio wants.  I love the bad acting, terrible set designs, stock footage and my favorite - badly done mat paintings.

It's just that the films are a hell of a lot of fun to watch and take a few jabs at.  And luckily for us, people like Uwe Boll are around to keep the bad flicks coming.  :o)

[trekgeezer]

I like Menard love the 70's movies because they were movies made by directors who tried to say something and sometimes failed miserably. The studios pretty much gave them a free hand. All the movies during the 70's have an indie film atmosphere about them that I love. A lot of these movies I saw while in the Navy. It costs $.35 to go to the movie(although sometimes the screen was in the gym).

IFC runs a special they made every once in a while called A Decade Under the Influence about film making in the 70's. It's a very interesting program.

The rubber monsters and stuff I would watch on the late show and Saturday afternoon on Chiller Theatre. So I have to admit some nostalgia about the cheesy scifi movies.

I also worked at a Drive-In when I was going to school after the Navy. I saw a lot of Roger Corman's work.

[Fearless Freep]

Anybody wonder why we never see musical groups making it big that are along the lines of Rush or Yes or Kansas or Styx or.... bands witha unique vision and voice and willingness to try something different that actually made it big and were popular?

[odinn7]

Fearless Freep wrote:

> Anybody wonder why we never see musical groups making it big
> that are along the lines of Rush or Yes or Kansas or Styx
> or.... bands witha unique vision and voice and willingness to
> try something different that actually made it big and were
> popular?
>


Hmmm, I'm a little on the slow side...although I have no problem with what you posted, I can't seem to see where it fits in here and it's now hurting my poor little head trying to make a connection.

[Fearless Freep]

Hmmm, I'm a little on the slow side...although I have no problem with what you posted, I can't seem to see where it fits in here and it's now hurting my poor little head trying to make a connection.

Somewhere along the way. music exec.s realized they didn't need to search for or develop talent.  They just needed to use marketing surveys to determine what people wanted and could produce just that and use the radio stations to convince people that it was good and it was popular so that everyone should listen to it, etc...  In other words market research and producing a 'product' replaced development of talent and taking a risk.  Good for t he execs; bad for the art.

Same thing in movies.

[BeyondTheGrave]

Like Skaboi I was born in the 80s and their was no nostalgia for me. My grandmother had a well to do horror and B-movie collection like Dawn of the Dead and old Vincent Price films, That just got me hooked. So I enjoy old films not of my time.

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You can’t give it, you can't buy it, and you just don't get it!-Aeon Flux

[raj]

Growing up in the 70s, I have no nostalgia for that decade:  disco, gas lines, Jimmy Carter, stagflation, Watergate.  Still movies were fun, like Rollerball and Logan's Run.  Now they all seem to be about explosions and who's got the newest CGI.  The original Star Wars was fun because it was and adventure story first.  Movies seem to have lost that.

[The Burgomaster]

B-movies remind me of going to the drive-in as a kid in the 1970s.  I guess that's why I'm such a fan of 1970s horror movies.  I also love the "let's go to the drive-in" features on many of the "Something Weird" DVDs.

[dean]

rich andrini said<<<<<<<<,My grandmother had a well to do horror and B-movie collection like Dawn of the Dead and old Vincent Price films, That just got me hooked. So I enjoy old films not of my time.>>>>>

Man, your grandmother rocks!

One of mine just used to have an endless supply of disney films, the other didn't even own a vcr...

I too am a child of the 80's so I guess the whole nostalgia thing doesn't work for me.

B-movies for me are the rebels of the Hollywood system.  They can be tacky, over the top, stupid, crap, unbearable, badly made, but we still love them because we have some sort of chemical defeciency in our brains which make us love em!

Perhaps its a counter-culture sorta thing, like punks/goths, except we are counter-culture in terms of movie tastes: we are different from the usual movie going public.

But inevitably I'd say it's because we find humour in the silliest of things, enjoying B-movies for all their glory.  That and the whole 'if this can be made, anything can be' angle.

[renegadefury]

I'm an 80's guy myself and  love the 80's cheese the most. But for me it's not the nostalgia. It's just that these movies were willing to do thing all these assembly line Hollywood movies wouldn't even think about. So it's like a breath of fresh air, seeing a movie that explores wild imagination with what little material/budget there is, which ends up with hilarious results. I'd rather watch Bad Taste than Jurrasic Park.