B-movie

The term B-movie originally meant a film designed to be distributed as the "lower half" of a double feature[?], often a genre film[?] featuring cowboys or gangsters.

The term now generally refers to a low-budget movie with lesser-known (and generally considered lesser-talented) actors. Usually the films are very campy, with cheesy special effects and gratuitous nudity, sexuality and/or violence, the horror movie genre is especially popular. Often they are not even released in theaters, instead going straight-to-video[?]. They spawned a type of late night television show commonly called "Midnight Madness," where they are often shown back-to-back until the early hours of the morning.

Currently, certain production companies, such as Troma, specialise in deliberately producing low quality B movies. One of the classic producers of these films was the US company American International Pictures (AIP), founded in 1954 by James H. Nicholson[?] and Samuel Z. Arkoff[?], it's films include works by Roger Corman, Vincent Price and the early efforts of lesser figures such as Francis Ford Coppola, Robert De Niro and Jack Nicholson.

See also

• cult film
• Hammer horror