50 Fun Facts About Cult Classic Movies

Which actor's first film role was the alien scientist Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show?

Tim Curry had already played the part on the London stage. The 1975 musical went on to become the longest-running theatrical release in film history.

Which cocktail does Jeff Bridges's slacker hero the Dude drink throughout the Coen brothers' The Big Lebowski?

White Russian orders surged after the 1998 comedy, in which the vodka, coffee liqueur and cream drink is the Dude's constant companion. The film also inspired Lebowski Fest, a fan gathering launched in Louisville in 2002.

Which objects do fans hurl at the screen, in tribute to a framed photo, at showings of Tommy Wiseau's The Room?

Spoons fly whenever an unexplained framed picture of one appears on a table in Johnny's living room. Fans also toss footballs and shout along, much as Rocky Horror crowds do.

What kind of animal costume does the mysterious Frank wear in Jake Gyllenhaal's 2001 film Donnie Darko?

A rabbit costume with a monstrous face hides Frank, who warns Donnie that the world will end in 28 days. The film earned barely $500,000 in its first run before finding its audience on video.

Which product does Brad Pitt's character Tyler Durden sell for a living in David Fincher's 1999 film Fight Club?

Soap salesman Tyler meets the film's narrator on a business flight. The movie fell short of studio hopes in cinemas, then found its following on home video.

Which professional wrestler played the kindly strongman Fezzik in the 1987 fairy-tale adventure The Princess Bride?

André the Giant had just had major back surgery, so he could not lift his co-stars. When Fezzik appears to carry Robin Wright, she is actually hanging from cables.

What do servants bang together to mimic hoofbeats for the horseless knights in Monty Python and the Holy Grail?

Coconuts were a money-saver: the film's small budget ruled out real horses, so the knights mime riding while their servants clop the shells together behind them.

In the rock mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, the dials on Nigel Tufnel's special amplifier go up to what number?

Eleven, one notch past the usual ten, gave English a new idiom for pushing anything beyond its limit. Christopher Guest played the proud guitarist.

Which red desk item does the mumbling Milton refuse to give up in Mike Judge's 1999 comedy Office Space?

A stapler in red did not exist in Swingline's range, so the film's prop was custom-painted. Fans asked for one so often that the company began selling a red model in 2002.

Which rock star played Jareth, the villain who steals a baby brother, in Jim Henson's 1986 fantasy Labyrinth?

David Bowie also recorded five songs for the film, but Jareth's crystal-ball tricks were not his. Juggler Michael Moschen performed them blind from behind the singer's back.

Which filmmaker sold much of his comic book collection to help fund his 1994 debut, Clerks?

Kevin Smith shot the comedy in the New Jersey convenience store where he worked, on a total budget of $27,575. He later bought the comics back.

In which US state is the 2004 comedy Napoleon Dynamite set and filmed, around the small town of Preston?

Idaho lawmakers passed a resolution praising the film for the attention it brought the state. Star Jon Heder was paid just $1,000 for the lead role.

Which actor plays sole survivor Ash Williams in Sam Raimi's 1981 cabin-in-the-woods horror The Evil Dead?

Bruce Campbell and his friends shot the film in a remote Tennessee cabin. A rave review from horror author Stephen King helped it win a wide release.

Which director's zombie film Night of the Living Dead slipped into the public domain over a missing copyright notice?

George A. Romero lost the copyright when the distributor changed the title and left the notice off. Made for about $100,000, the film earned more than 250 times its budget.

Which director's first feature, Eraserhead, took years to shoot before becoming a midnight-movie hit in the late 1970s?

David Lynch kept running out of money, and donations from friends including actress Sissy Spacek kept the surreal production alive.

In which city did John Waters shoot his notorious 1972 midnight movie Pink Flamingos, starring Divine?

Baltimore is where Waters and most of his cast and crew grew up. Art students nicknamed his paint-heavy homemade look the Baltimore aesthetic.

Which composer does gang leader Alex adore in Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film A Clockwork Orange?

Beethoven is ruined for Alex when the music accompanies his aversion therapy. After reports of copycat violence, Kubrick had the film withdrawn from British cinemas.

Which singer-songwriter composed and performed the music for Hal Ashby's 1971 black comedy Harold and Maude?

Cat Stevens scored a slow burner: the romance between a death-obsessed young man and a 79-year-old woman failed on release and took until 1983 to turn a profit.

Which Brooklyn neighborhood is home turf for the gang fleeing the Bronx in the 1979 film The Warriors?

Coney Island sits at the far end of New York from the Bronx, where the gang is framed for the murder of a respected leader and has to fight its way home.

Which horror star died before Ed Wood made Plan 9 from Outer Space yet appears through leftover silent footage?

Bela Lugosi, the screen's best-known Dracula, had been filmed for an unfinished project, and a body double filled in for him. A 1980 book crowned the result the worst film ever made.

Which musician funded the 1987 British comedy Withnail and I through his company HandMade Films?

George Harrison had set up the company to rescue Monty Python's Life of Brian, and it later bankrolled this tale of two unemployed actors in late-1960s London.

Which actor played Lord Summerisle, leader of a pagan Scottish community, in the 1973 folk horror The Wicker Man?

Christopher Lee was a Hammer horror regular who wanted to break free of his monster image, and the film grew out of his meeting with screenwriter Anthony Shaffer.

Which director turned up in person to accept his Worst Director Razzie for the 1995 flop Showgirls?

Paul Verhoeven collected the prize himself as his Las Vegas drama took a then-record seven Razzies. It has since been re-evaluated by some critics as a satire and has a dedicated fanbase.

Which author's 1968 novel about hunting rogue androids became Ridley Scott's science fiction film Blade Runner?

Philip K. Dick died shortly before the film opened, but he was shown a 20-minute effects reel and was pleased with it. His novel is called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Which future Oscar winner had his breakout role as Wooderson in Richard Linklater's 1993 film Dazed and Confused?

Matthew McConaughey was an unknown when he was cast, like most of the ensemble. The film follows Texas teenagers on the last day of school in 1976.

Katsuhiro Otomo's 1988 anime Akira takes place in a futuristic rebuilt version of which city?

Tokyo is destroyed in 1988 in the film's backstory, and the action unfolds decades later in the gang-ridden metropolis that replaced it. The film helped open Western audiences to anime.

Which country produced the 1979 low-budget action film Mad Max, starring a young Mel Gibson?

Australia's accents and slang were dubbed over by American voice actors for the US release. The film's earnings against its tiny budget set a Guinness record for profitability.

Which masked killer, partly inspired by murderer Ed Gein, stalks victims in 1974's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre?

Leatherface is named only in passing, by a hitchhiker who turns out to be his brother. The low-budget shocker was banned in several countries.

Which studio agreed to finance the 1982 computer-world adventure Tron after several rivals rejected its storyboards?

Disney backed one of the first films to make extensive use of computer-generated imagery, yet its groundbreaking visuals earned no Oscar nomination for effects.

Which board game inspired a 1985 ensemble comedy that reached cinemas with different endings at different screenings?

Clue went out with three different solutions to its mystery, and each screening showed just one of them. A box-office bomb in 1985, the film later developed a cult following.

In and around which city do John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd wreck dozens of police cars in The Blues Brothers?

Chicago saw so many crashes that the 1980 comedy held the world record for the most cars destroyed in one film. Its heroes began as a musical sketch on Saturday Night Live.

What does the drifter Nada put on to see the disguised aliens in John Carpenter's 1988 film They Live?

Sunglasses turn the world monochrome and expose subliminal orders to consume and conform hidden in the media. Wrestler Roddy Piper played the drifter who finds them.

Where is the American research station that a shape-shifting alien invades in Kurt Russell's 1982 horror The Thing?

Antarctica cuts the researchers off as the creature absorbs and imitates them one by one. The film found its cult following later, on home video and television.

Which Monty Python member directed the 1985 dystopian satire Brazil and battled Universal over its ending?

Terry Gilliam took out a full-page ad in Variety urging the studio's chairman to release his version after executives insisted on a re-edit with a happy ending.

In which Scottish city is Danny Boyle's 1996 film Trainspotting, based on Irvine Welsh's novel, set?

Edinburgh appears only in the opening chase. Almost everything else was shot in Glasgow, where the cast and crew worked out of an abandoned cigarette factory.

Which pop star sings the theme song of 1985's The Goonies and is seen performing on a television in one scene?

Cyndi Lauper's cameo shows her singing a song that was not completed until after filming. The adventure follows children in Astoria, Oregon, hunting for a pirate's lost fortune.

Which actor battles huge underground worms called Graboids in the 1990 desert monster comedy Tremors?

Kevin Bacon plays a handyman in the isolated town of Perfection, Nevada. The film underperformed in cinemas, then built a cult following through video rentals.

Which creatures menace a vacationing family in the notoriously bad 1990 horror Troll 2, which contains no trolls?

Goblins was the film's original title, and American distributors renamed it to pass as a sequel to an unrelated 1986 movie. The monsters' town, Nilbog, is their name spelled backwards.

Faye Dunaway plays which Hollywood star as an abusive adoptive mother in the 1981 film Mommie Dearest?

Joan Crawford's daughter Christina wrote the memoir behind the film. Audiences found it so melodramatic that Paramount began marketing it as an unintentional comedy.

Which English new wave band took its name from the villain of Jane Fonda's 1968 space adventure Barbarella?

Duran Duran borrowed the name of the scientist Durand Durand, who has built a weapon that could destroy humanity. The group formed in Birmingham in 1978.

Which film critic wrote the screenplay for Russ Meyer's 1970 cult satire Beyond the Valley of the Dolls?

Roger Ebert took five weeks off from his newspaper job to write the script. His future television partner Gene Siskel gave the finished film zero stars.

Which director's surreal western El Topo sparked the midnight-movie trend at a New York cinema in 1970?

Alejandro Jodorowsky's film regularly sold out for months at the Elgin Theater. At John Lennon's request, its score was re-recorded and released on Apple Records.

Which reggae singer stars as the criminal Ivanhoe Martin in the 1972 Jamaican film The Harder They Come?

Jimmy Cliff had acted only in school productions before taking the lead. The film and its soundtrack played an important part in introducing reggae to audiences beyond Jamaica.

Which future star has a small role in Roger Corman's 1960 The Little Shop of Horrors, shot largely in two days?

Jack Nicholson had appeared in only two films, and he played the part as oddly as he could because Corman had not wanted him. The role later became a selling point on home video.

Which actress, who offered to work for free to win the part, plays Veronica Sawyer in the teen satire Heathers?

Winona Ryder took the role against the pleading of her agent, who feared it would ruin her career. The film failed at the box office before building a devoted following.

Which director of the 1931 hit Dracula made Freaks, a drama cast with real carnival sideshow performers?

Tod Browning saw MGM cut the film heavily without his consent, and Britain banned it for over 30 years. Rediscovered in the 1960s, it became a midnight-movie regular.

Which punk band appears as itself, idolised by student Riff Randell, in 1979's Rock 'n' Roll High School?

Ramones were a second choice. Roger Corman originally wanted Cheap Trick or Todd Rundgren, but schedule conflicts ruled them out, and one of the film's actors suggested the band.

Which author lent Johnny Depp his own clothes for the 1998 film of his book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?

Hunter S. Thompson also shaved the actor's head himself to match his own baldness. Depp had spent four months living in the writer's basement, studying his habits and mannerisms.

Which actor plays Patrick Bateman, a New York banker with a double life as a killer, in 2000's American Psycho?

Christian Bale was director Mary Harron's pick, and she was fired when the distributor wanted Leonardo DiCaprio instead. After DiCaprio left the project, she was rehired and allowed to cast Bale.

Which food company financed 1971's Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory in order to promote a new candy bar?

Quaker Oats had no experience in the film industry and paid for the picture to sell a Wonka Bar. It earned little in cinemas, then won its following through television airings and home video.