I think there’s a significant amount of people who need to find, buy, and read a copy of Roger Corman’s book before pressing Post on their takes about indie movies.
There’s also Robert Rodriguez’s “Rebel Without A Crew”, “The Six Day Horror Movie” by Michael P. DiPaolo, and many more. But there’s something special about Roger.
“IMDb credits Roger Corman with 55 directed films and some 385 produced films from 1954 through 2008, many as uncredited producer or executive producer. Corman also has significant credits as writer and actor.”
His indie movies were typically the B-movie variety, and were usually shot in days, not weeks or months, and made returns on budgets that most directors wouldn’t even get out of bed for.
He employed unknown actors and film crew, and was responsible for launching the careers of a number of movie stars (including de Niro, Stallone, Nicholson, Ladd, Hopper) and a large number of directors (among them Coppola, Cameron, Howard and Scorsese).
Whilst there seems to be a lot of excitement about recent breakout hits they’re not really upending anything, they do some of the distribution steps in reverse but the filmmaking is the same.
In fact, Backdoors doesn’t do anything different at all except for building the audience at the start of the process; it’s still a $10M movie with a known cast and the marketing, production and distribution might of A24 behind it.
And if you examine it closely, Obsession itself is essentially a remake of two classic episodes — “The Chaser” from The Twilight Zone, and “Loved to Death” from Tales of the Crypt, so what did it change if it’s not original storytelling?
Both Obsession and Backdoors still ended up being supported by traditional Hollywood networks.
As opposed to Iron Lung, made by another YouTuber, Markiplier, who financed it and distributed it himself.
Remove the crutch and would these two indie movies have made the same impact? That’s the real question. But nobody wants to ask it because it’ll destroy the myth.
To be fair, not only did these have massive followings before the films were released, so a guaranteed audience from Day One, they also are in a genre that has always been profitable, has an audience waiting for more, and can be done on little to no budget.
We’ve been here before — Blair Witch Project did what nobody thought possible and not only was a global phenomenon but created a movie genre in itself. Terrifier is also another more recent example, you might not like the extreme slasher horror of it but it exists.
When there’s a sci-fi hit, or action thriller done for $50k wake me up.
Until then, this isn’t news.
I wonder how Markiplier feels at the moment. He led the charge, did everything right except play the Hollywood game. Obsession and Backrooms still relied on a lot of old network support despite their current successes. Iron Lung was truly indie, even right down to distribution. Who deserves the praise more?
YouTube is awash with indie movies, movie shorts and short anthology series, like Dust that offers sci-fi genre short features, and independent filmmakers who already have their own award-winning films made for litte-to-no budget.
Hollywood isn’t dry of original material, that’s not the issue; it still wants to pick out the chosen few who will make the bean counters and shareholders happy. That’s the issue.
So, whilst we can and should celebrate Obsession and Backrooms, are they really changing anything at all?
Backrooms, Michael, Obsession, Project Hail Mary, Tuner, Passenger, The Drama, Fairyland, Devil Wears Prada 2, Power Ballad, Hokum, Sheep Detectives, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, The Magic Faraway Tree, Goat, Legally Blonde — 25th Anniversary, Moss & Freud, My Mother’s Wedding, The Christophers, Ciao UFO, Kokuho, Normal….
No, I didn’t randomly butt dial a bunch of words as a post — these are all the movies currently showing in my local cinema today. A heady mix of international, indie, blockbuster and acclaimed films.
And yet, you’d think that at this moment in time, only two films exist. Well, three if you count the one that’s constantly being used as a comparison for who is making more money on what budget etc etc
I have twenty movies to pick from this weekend, some I’ve never even heard of but their synopsis sounds intriguing enough to warrant a ticket to see one.
My point is, yes, it’s great to celebrate new talent, especially young talent who buck the trends and create monster hits because they know their audience better than Hollywood does and they know how to do it without massive financial backing. Yes, they’re upending the traditional model by building a rabid fan base for their work before going bigger.
But, in this trash fire economy, it’s a miracle that I have twenty movies to pick from at all.
That I have that range of choice to experience what others have imagined, written, acted, filmed and distributed.
And whilst it’s en vogue to jump up and down and pretend to be excited by Backrooms and Obsession to get your daily vanity metrics from LinkedIn, we’re ignoring the talent, whether they’re blockbuster or not, who have their dream project on the big screen right now.
Let’s not even discuss the “AI Movie” that made its way to Cannes, or paid its way as a PR exercise. A $500K movie that cost $400K in generative AI, where 90% of the production output was thrown away. Compare that to indie filmmakers making a $6K feature by themselves using their own skills and the idea of “AI democratising” movies is pure bullshit.
And now that Obsession and Backrooms are mainstream that opportunity is gone again. There will be thousands of copy/ paste attempts to capture that lightning in a bottle moments again, thousands of would-be YouTubers who will think they’ll have the next breakout hit by following in their footsteps, and the talent behind these two movies will no doubt be chewed up by the Hollywood machine as quickly as M Knight Shayamalan disappeared up his own ass after Sixth Sense.
Because that’s how it goes.
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