An Introduction
As a sci-fi nut, it probably comes as no surprise that I like Science Fiction B-Movies, so today I thought I would talk a little about them. Not necessarily specific movies (though I’ll take a look at a few examples), but what makes a B-Movie, and what is the attraction? If you have a love of Science Fiction B-Movies yourself, you’ll understand a lot of this, but some of you may just come away scratching your head…
I won’t go into any depth about where the term ‘B-Movie’ came from, instead I will explore what it means to me, and possibly other sci-fi fans (if they agree!). As a quick description:
“A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not an arthouse film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature.”
Just check out the Wikipedia entry if you want more detail. The term is most commonly associated with low-budget 50’s movies (usually horror and/or science fiction). Although I love a lot of 50’s B-movies, almost all early science fiction movies fall into the ‘B’ camp, due to the disregard most studios held for science fiction. They were almost always made on a shoestring. I want to talk more about late 70’s, 80’s and 90’s B-movies, and what constitutes a B-Movie these days.
For me, you can divide them, into three main categories:
Type-1) Movies that have an interesting idea, made with passion and creativity, that simply lack the budget (and often the skill) to make it big.
Type-2) Movies made directly to cash in on big Hollywood releases.
Type-3) Movies with mid-to-large budgets that effectively echo the sentiment and style of a Type-1 B-Movie.
Let’s go in reverse order, so we can leave the best till last…
Type-3 B-Movies
Examples of Type-3 B-Movies are ‘Waterworld’, ‘Lifeforce’, ‘Independence Day’ or even ‘Battlefield Earth’. They’re big (or at least medium) budget films, but their core stories are not pretentious or high-brow. They usually have an interesting premise, but they’re essentially all-out fun made with a lot of passion and creativity.
You could describe a lot of modern blockbusters as just explosive fun, but I would argue they don’t necessarily fall into the Type-3 camp, because all-too-often they are specifically produced to be money-making, soulless effects extravaganzas that are visually well made and well acted (Too many superhero movies would match this description). There’s nothing ‘B’ about such movies.
Technically speaking, Type-3 movies aren’t truly B-Movies, but there is enough in their DNA to give them honourary B-Movie status.
Type-2 B-Movies
I’d say there are more of these now than there have ever been, with CGI effects becoming so accessible to even low-budget films, but that doesn’t mean they’re getting better. You only need to look at the awful, mindless stuff churned out by the Syfy channel and studios like Asylum Films (Megashark Versus Giant Octopus, Snakes on a Train, Abraham Lincoln Vs Zombies, A Princess of Mars, the list goes on).
Of course, these types of films have always been around, and a lot of the worst B-Movies from earlier decades are not much better. Sometimes they can have cheesy comedy value, occasionally they can be good (even great), if a director and/or writer who wants to make something of themselves ends up trying to do the best they can with a dubious foundation.
Probably the most infamous producer of these kinds of B-Movies is Roger Corman. What I would argue, however, is that in his early days, Roger Corman pictures often tried to be their own thing, whilst only somewhat echoing the movies they were created to cash in on.
One of the best Roger Corman examples is ‘Battle Beyond the Stars’, a charming space-western created to capitalise on the success of ‘Star Wars’, but taking its inspiration from another Akira Kurosawa film (‘Star Wars’ was somewhat inspired by Kurosawa’s ‘The Hidden Fortress’. ‘Battle Beyond the Stars’ took its lead from ‘Seven Samurai’ which itself was effectively remade as the classic western ‘The Magnificent Seven’). As such, ‘Battle Beyond the Stars’ is still its own film and, by luck, many of the people involved were using it as a way to get into bigger and better things, so there’s a lot of quality work involved. A number of the effects artists are now top people in Hollywood, from the Skotak brothers to James Cameron (who designed the notorious ‘spaceship with breasts’). Even the wonderful and adventure-filled soundtrack was effectively the breakthrough piece for James Horner (If you don’t know some of these names, honestly, where have you been? If you need to, slap your own wrist for not knowing, then go and check them out on IMDB).
To a lesser extent, Corman’s ‘Death Race 2000’ is a good example of a cult B-Movie with some interesting ideas, that was made to capitalise on the big budget flop, ‘Rollerball’ (Both films received modern remakes which amusingly echoed their progenitors. ‘Rollerball’ turned out to be another flop whilst ‘Death Race’, by Paul Anderson and starring Jason Statham, proved enough of a success to spawn several direct-to-DVD sequels).
Another 80’s example would be something like ‘Critters’, made to cash in on ‘Gremlins’, but actually turning out to be a great fun sci-fi movie that spawned a pretty good sequel, and two ultra-low-budget direct-to-DVD sequels (‘Critters 3’ even starred a very young Leonardo DiCaprio! I’ll bet he doesn’t like being reminded of that, even though it probably includes some of his best acting…).
Some of you may point out that there have been a lot of movies that were only green-lit due to the success of, and similarity to, big budget hits. But I’m only including direct cash-ins. For example, I wouldn’t put ‘Saturn 3’ in here because of its surface similarities to ‘Alien’, or the many, many films influenced by ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘Alien/Aliens’, that are still very different films.
Unfortunately, the examples above are more the exceptions that prove the rule, and modern ‘cash-in’ movies are more likely to be awful and mindless. Perhaps it’s just me, but very, very few of the modern low-budget B-Movies seem to be made with any heart and soul. They’re just there to fill a gap in the schedule, or gain notorious success through sheer absurdity.
Type-1 B-Movies
Now this is where things get really interesting. These are the films that tend to cause heated debate, because they’re often so easy to criticise and dislike but, for some, contain just the right ingredients to create loveable classics despite the flaws.
For me, a Type-1 B-Movie is something that has a few really interesting sci-fi ideas (sometimes verging on the absurd), and has its heart in the right place. I try to look past the lack of surface polish, the occasional (sometimes frequent!) bad acting and ropey effects, to the weird and wonderful core. There’s a magic to these kinds of B-Movies, because you can feel the individuals behind them, doing their best to bring their dreams to life, even if they stumble in the process.
The budget and quality of Type-1 B-Movies can vary wildly. From shoestring budgets to those nearing mid-range. From directors who went on to bigger and better things, to those who were never seen or heard of again. It’s difficult to describe why they’re so enjoyable sometimes. With the best, it’s because there’s a charm to them, a soul, that big-budget blockbusters can often lack. I’ll fire off a few examples to give you an idea what I mean.
Let’s start with a really low budget film, ‘Moontrap’. This stars Walter Koenig (‘Star Trek’ and ‘Babylon 5’) alongside Bruce Campbell (The ‘Evil Dead’ movies). There’s no denying its budget constraints and occasionally dodgy acting (from co-stars, not the leads), but I love it. There are some great ideas that always spark my imagination, from an ancient astronaut discovered in stasis on the moon, to robots that use human body and machine parts to build larger bodies with which to attack. What more can you ask from a movie? Given the budget, it also has some great effects (for the time) as the creators owned their own effects company.
Then there’s ‘Millenium’, with Kris Kristoferson (Blade) and Cheryl Ladd (Charlie’s Angels). Ever wondered what would happen, if pollution made future generations sterile, and they had to use time travel to steal fertile people from the past just before they ‘died’ in tragic disasters? It’s silly, it’s cheesy, but add mutant-cyborg future rulers, sympathetic robot helpers, 80’s effects, and you get a wonderful, charming romp that is surprisingly quite thoughtful.
Or how about ‘Cyborg’, with Jean-Claude Van Damme (‘Timecop’, ‘Bloodsport’), battling villains (all named after guitars) who want to control the cure to a deadly plague, in a post apocalyptic future?
Or ‘Fortress’, where population control has made breeding without a license illegal, so our hero and heroine get sent to an underground prison. There, the android warden censures their dreams and uses inmates to create killer cyborg guards, whilst the prisoners have explosives in their intestines that will be triggered if they try to escape…
How about ‘Moon 44’ (oddly enough, from the director and writer combo who went on to create ‘Universal Soldier’, ‘Stargate’ and ‘Independence Day’) with a future in which corporations are strip-mining moons and using prisoners, due to their expendability, to pilot defence helicopters against rival company drones, with young navigators who hate them? (It also has an awesome soundtrack by the late Joel Goldsmith, son of Jerry)
Or maybe ‘Robot Jox’, set in a future where wars have stopped, and countries do battle for land by pitching their best warriors against each other in giant mech-suits.
In ‘They Live’, you might even run into a drifter who discovers sunglasses that allow him to see our alien masters, who use hypnotic mind control to live secretly amongst us as the ruling elite, and hide their subliminal controlling words on every billboard, in every magazine, even on your money…
But What About…
There are some movies that are definitely approaching B-Movie status, but I don’t think they quite qualify. For example, apart from his more low-budget films like ‘They Live’, I would find it hard to include John Carpenter’s ‘Escape from New York’ on the list. It certainly wasn’t a big budget film, but for the time it wasn’t low budget either, and is still quite highly regarded. ‘They Live’, on the other hand, was lower budget and although it has cult status and is loved by fans, is certainly not as widely regarded (though one of my personal all-time favourites). On the other hand, John Carpenter’s more recent ‘Ghosts of Mars’ possibly just edges into the region of being a more contemporary B-Movie.
Then there are films that are on a knife edge. Where, for example, would you classify ‘Solar Warriors’ (‘Solar Babies’ in U.S.), or ‘Saturn 3’? Both films with good actors, reasonable budgets (for their time) and quality production, but very close to being B-Movies. I don’t think I would class them as such, as their quality just edges them out of that categorisation, but they’re so close I could change my mind based on the time of day or direction the wind is blowing. Honestly, I’m changing my mind on ‘Solar Warriors’ as I write this.
There are other grey areas, too. How do you classify low budget but extremely well made, serious science fiction movies? I don’t believe they can be classed as B-Movies, because there is one main feature that defines a B-Movie. You have to be able to look at it, and know that it’s not high art. You know, in your gut, that the vast majority of people will never see it as a ‘great’ movie, even in the cases where it’s a success. The only ones who will see that ‘greatness’ are you and your fellow B-Movie fans… Think of ‘Moon’ or the more recent ‘Midnight Special’ (which was effectively a good but not great remake of John Carpenter’s Starman). Those films, and a few like them, despite being low-budget, are far too slickly made, well acted and critically rated to consider B-Movies. If you disagree, let me know!
In Conclusion
By listing just a few films, I’m trying to give you an idea that, despite the budgets, acting and direction, science fiction B-Movies often have more imagination and ideas than any number of big budget movies, be they special effects blockbuster, ‘gritty’ thrillers or ‘hard-hitting’ dramas.
The beauty of B-Movies, is that every fan will have their own take on what is and isn’t good. Some would look at my list and groan, whilst having favourites for which I would return the favour. More often than not, however, I would bet that the common trend throughout B-Movie fans, is that the films they enjoy are the ones that speak to them with ideas that intrigue, unusual characters that they empathise with, and a passion to put dreams into reality. They’re never soulless, and there’s often a sense of fun that overly-serious films lack.
The amusing thing for B-Movie fans, is that we know the films we enjoy are often terrible (or are at least seen that way by others), but we love them anyway…
Do you agree or disagree? What are your favourite Science Fiction B-Movies?
All work is the © copyright of W.D.Lee and/or the respective companies, individuals or organisations to which the work is related. No infringement is intentional. No reproduction or copying is permitted without express permission.
