Its hard to say anything about this film that hasn’t been said so this is more a review of my experience of watching the film, seeing as it is my first time of watching. Doing film studies at university and being a fan of cult movies as a genre, it was only a matter of time before watching this. Its like approaching the Star Wars of cult movies, you have to try and cut out the noise and make your own measure opinion on it. Bringing in outside noise always leaves you worse off as expectation is handed to you rather than decided through the film in question. This is important in relation to the film being a cult movie as the genre has two key elements that seem to both run opposing to one another. You have to feel part of a community that all share in these underground and subversive movies being made, but at the same time individual discovery is just as important and part of your own story. This is where the high expectation comes from this film, it has the community of a mainstream movie where you already know all about it before watching and therefore don’t have much individual discovery left over.
It included many elements to be expected: a Freaks (Browning, 1932) like community that comes together to be part of something bigger than mainstream society and preconceptions, and also the musical element that breaks the fourth wall and talks directly to the audience. It also included a few elements I wasn’t expecting too much. The film felt very claustrophobic in its enclosed story throughout. Theres no escape from the world where the outside lets you breath for a second, or even get a grasp on what the outside world would look like apart from this enclosed community. I’m glad they didn’t as the craving is something that brings more when it is quashed rather than being granted. You leave with more questions than answers and the hundred minutes in which it is set acts as a snapshot of time into their world.
Overall, when you look at the film from a solo perspective than it does deliver by being a fun and knowing tale of inclusion that uses the best elements of cult to delivers a knowing musical. Maybe its because its a musical or that it feels like you have to ignore the outside world to enjoy it, it feels like I need to rewatch it a few times to truly appreciate it. But again like theStar Wars franchise, it took me a few watchings to truly appreciate it. Here I feel the same is needed where the nuances and depth is appreciated in the more that you watch of it the more it becomes your own entity rather than those around you.