Sci-fi & fantasy ‘B’ movies
A ‘B’ movie is a low-budget commercial movie that is not an arthouse film. In it’s original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicised, bottom half of a double feature. Nowadays the term B movie continues to be used in the broader sense it maintains today. In its post–Golden Age usage, there is ambiguity on both sides of the definition: on the one hand, the primary interest of many inexpensive exploitation films is prurient; on the other, many B movies display a high degree of craft and aesthetic ingenuity.
Whatever your own conception of what a ‘B’ movie stands for, whether it be ‘budget’ ‘bad’ or ‘bonkers’ the plethora of new and old films that fall into this category continue to hold a fascination for those who see them, either as pure entertainment, nostalgia, or curiosity value.