Whatever your definition of cult is, my personal one lies somewhere around the lines that (a) I must really understand and love a strange movie, (b) my friends do too, and (c) the rest of the world just doesn't get it. At all. "My films are weird and scary and incomprehensible... and dats the way I likes it!"

"Gratuitous quote that you can read in this very same article here"

And when we take out rental space in this bipolar existence, we risk our immortal souls at the paradox that follows. On one hand, we live and breathe and eat this movie (although the new DVD discs cut up intestinal lining), and dearly want to convert the world to our way of thinking. An Evil Dead Missionary, if you will. It's only natural to want to share an experience you love with others that you (hopefully) love.

But then, if too many people start liking this movie, something really bad happens. It becomes popular. Quotes get rehashed to death on late night talk shows and in junior high locker rooms. It becomes the new measuring stick to which future generations of animal investigative movies get measured up to... "Well, it's no Ace Ventura, that's for sure!" Soon, it becomes a tired has-been, and to like it any further seems totally uncool.

This is the death cry that mainstream popularity brings to cult films. It's made me mad to realize that some of the treasured little strange films I loved alone have been savaged by a world feeding off the next quirky fad, and now I'm just left with the pieces. Sure, it's the same basic film, but it's changed somehow, too.

The Princess Bride... True love never dies, but even fuzzy feelings can turn into a dead horse whippin' fest

Take for instance The Princess Bride. A box office bomb on release, it picked up an enormous cult following it's VHS release. This is one of the first great cases of rental stores resurrecting a movie from the dead and giving it a second chance to find its audience. But over the years, after so many cable reruns and tape sales, there is not a person alive who hasn't seen TPB either with or without commercials. This bizarre love story has been reduced to quotables and mock imitations throughout the world, and what used to be a good sign of judgement on your behalf if you liked this movie is now just the standard. You have to like this movie. Everyone else does.

The true cult enthusiast, of course, never likes to go along with the popular flow. If it's mainstream, it ain't for me - this is their slogan. Therefore they switch loyalties almost nightly, depending on how obscure a film has remained, or how a groundswell has risen it to the public eye.

If you're like me, you probably caught the first Austin Powers movie on video. This was the greatest way to discover a movie, to have your friends usher you into their rooms and say, "I found this great movie you have to see!" And then I saw it and loved how insanely funny it was, and it became an instant cult must-see. It was built for cult, it's the perfect type of movie that you want to feel you're the only one who gets the great jokes.

We all know what happened with that one. Between the space of the first and second Austin Powers movie, the franchise popped into daylight and the media had a feeding frenzy. Overnight, Austin Powers imitations went from snicker-worthy to wince-inducing... the President was seen doing the Dr. Evil pinky thing... and Mike Meyers found himself forced into continuing the franchise (whether he wanted to or not), essentially destroying what uniqueness there was left.

Let's not forget other very funny cult comedies that have had their good name dragged through the stereotypical mud over the years. Blues Brothers - with a mandatory poster on every college room wall! Wayne's World - something this funny couldn't be cool for long, could it? This is Spinal Tap - why not use "This goes to 11" ad nauseam in every ad we see?

It might be extremely cool for a low-budget indie film to be the complete underdog and still win the public's affection, but it's a horrible thing as well. Low-budget indie cult films just aren't meant for world-wide popularity. Clerks was as cult as you got in 1994, raw humor and New Jersey appealing to about sixteen fanboys in the northern hemisphere. Yet with subsequent Kevin Smith releases, Clerks was forced into popularity and cross-examination, and failed to live up to high-budget standards.

The Blair Witch Project... From obscure to wildly successful to a has-been joke in 60 seconds

And what about Blair Witch? Oh my sweet holy angel of death. Blair Witch was perfectly poised for cult popularity - it had a cool little twist of an idea for a movie, it had a terrific web market, and horror always seems to find its little niche. Say what you will about the movie itself - and I have - if you're totally honest with yourself, you know that if Blair Witch had gone straight to video instead of become this Miss Universe of horror films, you would have judged it differently. A strange little low-budget horror film is given more leniency if it wasn't a critical darling; we can forgive its faults to admire what the filmmakers did original by it. But the second it gets $100 million during the summer, no lawyer in hell can keep the critical public from ripping it a couple new ones, solely because its popularity took it out of its protective niche and exposed it to a whole new set of standards.

I mean, heck, I'm glad when we get a convert who ends up loving some obscure little movie that I keep under my pillow at night. But we've reached an era in video and DVD rental that making a movie straight-to-video doesn't even protect it from losing its cult-ness somewhere down the road. This is also why good cultish ideas that get massive studio support prior to making also scare me... the pressure of a high-budget can force a filmmaker to screw up an original idea before it even gets off the launching pad.

Maybe I'm just grumbling about how the world is and there's nothing we can do about it. Sure. Maybe I'm also explaining why films on our site might be future cult, past cult, or even mainstream. All I know for certain is that the second the public picks up one of our beloved little cult classics in their vulture-like claws, we movie nomads pick up tent and start the journey again.

The next cult classic might just be in a video box on the next shelf...