50 Greatest Cult Movie Moments
Groovy
The Blues Brothers (1980)
The Moment: The ludicrously OTT car chase, which goes ploughing through a busy shopping mall.
Coolest Element: 103 cars were wrecked during the filming of this chase, a record that wouldn’t be beaten until 104 were totalled for Blues Brothers 2000 .
Dazed And Confused (1993)
The Moment: “Hey, are you cool man?” is the enquiry. “Like how?” comes the response. Gnarly, dudes…
Coolest Element: If there’s a more condensed example of slacker cool, we’ve yet to see it!
Trainspotting (1996)
The Moment: Renton experiences the pure undiluted horror of heroin withdrawal in this nightmarish cold turkey scene in which his bedroom becomes a prison.
Coolest Element: The mounting sense of dread that builds as the baby makes its way across the ceiling.
Videodrome (1983)
The Moment: James Wood explores his body, plunging a gun into a gaping orifice that suddenly opens up in the middle of his stomach.
Coolest Element: Cronenberg loves a spot of body horror, and this is one of the most indelible images of his oeuvre.
Heathers (1989)
The Moment: “What’s your damage?” sneers Heather. “Brad says you’re being a real cooze.”
Coolest Element: And lo, an eternally withering put-down was introduced into the popular lexicon.
Labyrinth (1986)
The Moment: Jareth performs the supremely surreal Magic, backed by an army of singing monsters. Enjoyably bonkers.
Coolest Element: All of Jareth’s scenes are pretty cool, but he really lets loose here. Seminal Bowie weirdness.
Blade Runner (1982)
The Moment: The beautifully shot, rain-sodden finale, in which Roy Batty utters the immortal words, “All those moments will be lost like tears in the rain… time to die.”
Coolest Element: Incredibly, the scene was ad-libbed by Rutger Hauer. Marvellous stuff.
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Tremors (1990)
The Moment: Our three heroes make a daring escape from a hungry graboid, using a handy pole to vault from rock to rock, without touching the floor…
Coolest Element: You could cut the tension with a knife. A highlight of the slow-burning opening of this superlative monster movie.
Easy Rider (1969)
The Moment: The opening scene, in which Henry Fonda and Dennis Hopper saddle up to the strains of Born To Be Wild .
Coolest Element: The whole damn sequence. Have a set of opening credits ever seemed cooler?
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
The Moment: Andy Dufresne swims through a river of shit before finally escaping the walls of Shawshank Prison for good.
Coolest Element: Dufresne’s Christ-like pose in the falling rain is guaranteed to get even the most hard-hearted cynic punching the air with joy.
George was once GamesRadar's resident movie news person, based out of London. He understands that all men must die, but he'd rather not think about it. But now he's working at Stylist Magazine.
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