What is "midnight movie"

n. 1 (context cinema English) A B-movie, often in camp style and with a retro theme. 2 A low-budget film which has become a cult classic, referring in this sense to original tradition of showing such films at night. 3 (context dated English) A low-budget film shown on television after midnight, particularly but not exclusively in the US.

In the United States, a midnight movie is a B movie or cult film shown at midnight, either at a cinema or on television.

The practice started in the 1950s with local television stations around the United States airing low-budget genre films as late-night programming, often with a host delivering sardonic asides. As a cinematic phenomenon, the midnight screening of offbeat movies began in the early 1970s in a few urban centers, particularly New York City, eventually spreading across the country. The screening of nonmainstream pictures at midnight was aimed at building a cult film audience, encouraging repeat viewing and social interaction in what was originally a countercultural setting.

The national success of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the changing economics of the film exhibition industry altered the nature of the midnight movie phenomenon; as its association with broader trends of cultural and political opposition dwindled in the 1980s, the midnight movie became a more purely camp experience—in effect, bringing it closer to the television form that shares its name. The term midnight movie is now often used in two different, though related, ways: as a synonym for B movie, reflecting the relative cheapness characteristic of late-night movies both theatrically and on TV, and as a synonym for cult film.

Midnight Movie is a 2008 United States horror film from Bigfoot Entertainment in the horror/slasher genre directed by Jack Messitt and produced by Kacy Andrews.