B Movie Bonanza

a “B movie” is something almost completely non-existent in today’s terms – publishers nowadays refuse to even invest in a project unless it’s a guaranteed blockbuster which is why so much of what’s currently on the screen is so excessively formulaic

“back in the day”, studios risked their budgets and tried out new ideas in the hopes of winning the box office – so you ended up with blockbusters as well as imported films and art/indie films and complete flops – but you ended up with a larger chunk of films sitting in that “in between” area, not blockbusters but also not obscure art house flicks – the stuff that was entertaining and fun and a good night out with friends, stuff that was so bad it was hilarious, stuff that didn’t hit immediately but developed a cult following later, stuff that filled the drive-ins on Friday nights, stuff that became the basis of in-jokes in Monday morning classes

It's a low-budget commercial film. The name comes from the fact they used to be exclusively shown as the second half on a double feature with the first half being the "A" movie, similar to how records had A sides and B sides.

Here's a good straightforward example; https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0389790/

It comes from how movies used to be shown in theaters. The double feature was much more common and between movies there would be cartoons, short films, and news reels. So one ticket would get you a theater experience all day pretty much. Pairing movies usually meant one higher profile picture and one with a smaller budget. The second smaller film is the B movie. Smaller budgets meant more genre pictures with lesser known actors. So you get cheap sci-fi and monster movies mostly but the term B movie just refers to its lesser standing. It's like the opposite of Oscar bait.

Mars Attacks was a big enough Hollywood production, I don't think it's a B-movie at all. It's a cult classic, and it intentionally uses B-movie aesthetics for comedic purposes, but it's not a B-movie.

And John Carpenter is such a skilled auteur that even his low-budget classics are considered top-shelf movie magic. Not B-movies at all. They're A-movies that shaped the horror genre.