We're your streaming home for the best in B movies, horror gems, cult classics, and the movies people protest against you watching. In a time where there's a constant complaint against the content of films, with demands for everything to be politically correct and family friendly, we're making a stand to keep all the booze, boobs, and blood that you love just a click away. After all, everything great in movies starts with a B!
The term "B Movie" originated in the 1930's during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Double features, playing two movies at a cinema together, became common practice. The pair of films would usually include a larger budget production teamed up with a low cost second feature that would play first. All of the major studios eventually developed second units they called "B Units" which were made to answer the demand for creating these films.
A limited number of prestigious venues in major cities would premiere "A" movies by themselves and hold them for short runs. Then they would go onto other venues where they'd be paired up with "B" movies. The "A" movie typically received all of the attention including critic reviews, publicity, and advertising while the "B" movies rarely received anything outside of their name on the marquee and any local advertising the theatre might do. Many small cinemas and grind house theatres would rarely receive an "A" movie, if at all. This helped to create an even larger perception in difference between "A" and "B" movies.
Due to the Hollywood Antitrust Case of 1948 and eventually the popularity of television which had skyrocketed by 1955, the demand for "B" had died off. Studios were no longer allowed to hold a monopoly over theatre ownership and had to sell off the majority of those assets. Independent of studio ownership, theatres could now play "A" movies from any studio they could acquire them from. Meanwhile, TV was significantly impacting ticket sales across the nation, leading to many theatres closing their doors.
The double feature concept had all but died. Only Drive-Ins, a dying breed in their own right, held onto the double feature concept. They would continue to pair a now often older, cheaper film with the current newest movies out to increase value in order to compete with the Megaplexes. These are the large, multi-screened cinemas many of us still go to today. Much like when malls impacted downtowns, these Megaplexes caused many one and two screen classic theatres to go out of business.
Today, the term B movie has a wider and often varying usage based on the perspective of the individual. Most often it is used to describe lower budget movies not released widely in theatres. These are films created outside of the major studio system as they focus more on blockbusters in order to make sure enough people will leave their TVs and streaming devices to see a movie. Others will use it to describe genres of film like sensationalistic exploitation films best known for their popularity in the 70's and the beloved 80's horror camp.
Our take is a broad and much more loving one. To quote Wikipedia, for us it means a "lively, energetic film uninhibited by the constraints imposed by more expensive projects and unburdened by the conventions of putatively serious independent film."
Whatever your definition, we strive to be the streaming home for those movies. We stand firmly behind the belief that all films, regardless if they're a "so bad its good" or "so shocking its appalling (to others)" deserve a place to be saved and seen. Likewise, the fans of such movies (us) deserve a place to do so.
Welcome home my fellow B movie lover. You've finally found your hive.