Abstract

The “cult” film, and as a subset of this, the “bad” film, have been the focus of increased discussion and interest both in fan and academic circles over the past few decades. As Ernest Mathijs and Xavier Mendik reveal in their editorial introductions of the 2008 book “The Cult Film Reader”, since the 1980s there has been a vast increase in the numbers and types of films which receive the label of cult. 1 This growth reflects both an increase in the audience reception and identification with films as cult and the reflection of this cult viewership by a development of serious academic interest in the reading of various films as cult or paracinematic. Mathijs and Mendik’s collection of articles in the aforementioned reader highlights the most recent trend in this ‘cult’ phenomenon, attempting to discern a specific understanding of what falls within the classification of cult film. While the articles assembled in the collection reveal a multitude of approaches to the cult film, from the ontological to the phenomenological, the focus on intertextuality and genre to the cultural position and experience of the event, a central theme to the understanding of what produces a cult reading or cult fol- lowing of a film presents itself: namely, that such definitions of cult film rely on or assume the presence of a film object. Eco’s investigation of intertextuality in Casablanca takes as a given that the film object which is Casablanca exists in a recognisable form, 2 while Anne Jerslev’s retelling of the 1979 screening of The Big Sleep in Copenhagen assumes the fixed existence of Howard Hawk’s film. 3 In recent discussions of active fandom, which is often related to notions of cult film appreciation, Henry Jenkins’ arguments for textual poaching and fan production in relation to such cult objects as Star Trek assumes the presence of the film object as a fixed and complete centre around which the cult of fandom emerges. In short, and to cite another attempt at defining cult films, “’cult’ is largely a matter of the ways in which films are classified in consumption.” Whether viewed as a reading protocol or a set of definable textual characteristics, the classification of a film as “cult” occurs only with the understanding that it exists as a tangible film object. In light of this, the focus of this paper is contrary to previous understandings of cult. As I will endeavour to argue, Snakes on a Plane presents an evolution in both the classification of cult film and in the reading of cultural phenomena in relation to the creation of the cult film object. Through a discussion of the film’s fan experience and the development of the film object I will place the identification of the Snakes on a Plane cult not within the realm of consumption of a finished product or object, but rather in the realm of anticipation and highlight the way in which this location of the cult label resulted in the prefabrication of the cult film object