#tag your favorite cult classics that you don't think get enough attention

[jules-tells-a-story]

i think the tv and film industry's obsession with making everything a huge, spectacular blockbuster with groundbreaking cgi and overly complicated stories, along with getting rid of anything that doesn't profit enough for them from their streaming services, has led to the death (or at least decline) of a beautiful phenomenon in movies and tv.

cult classics deserve to be appreciated. they deserve to get their place in the spotlight. some of my favorite pieces of media are ones that don't get a lot of media coverage or don't have big fandoms around them. with movies, there's "repo! the genetic opera," "little shop of horrors," and even with kids movies, there's "watership down" and "matilda," i loved those two as a kid. with tv, there's "doctor who," "buffy the vampire slayer," and once again, with kids oriented tv, you have "gargoyles." arguably, shows have an advantage since, if they get popular early on, they can continue making content, but with how picky people are with cgi nowadays, you wouldn't be able to make "smallville" in 2023 with the same budget it had in 2001 and have it fly, pun intended.

with books, you get lucky. you can't stream a book, you can't necessarily take back a text once it's out there (if history has proved anything), and people in the book scene love watching or reading reviews, hunting for the next underrated gem to gush about. there will always be people to love an unseen book despite (or because) of its flaws.

but that doesn't really fly in hollywood. nowadays, if something doesn't have the biggest budget or plans for a sequel, it's hardly noticed. the one big exception i've seen to this in the past few years is "skinamarink," but that may just be my bias since i linger in the horror community.

now, it seems like these sorts of low budget, big heart projects have moved to online spaces, especially in the horror scene. we have things like "the mandela catalogue," "daisy brown," "the walten files," "marble hornets," and "gemini home entertainment," things made by not that many people, maybe even just one person, but projects that get a ton of love all the same. hell, this community might even be seeing a breakthrough and helping these sorts of projects hit the mainstream with the upcoming "backrooms" movie. i really hope that this wave of smaller projects inspires more people to create what they love without fear of it being hollywood worthy, because let's be honest, lots of people aren't looking for hollywood worthy. people are looking for something that's heartfelt, something with spirit. people are looking for something that's good.