10 Film Genres You Never Knew Existed

3. Mockbuster

Examples include: Extra Terrestrial Visitors (1983), Robowar (1988), Pirates of Treasure Island (2006), Transmorphers (2007), Titanic 2 (2010) From Snakes on a Train to Titanic 2; The Mockbuster is nothing but inventive. The cinema equivalent of a knock-off handbag you€™ve bought for your Mother€™s Birthday (Dolce & Banana) or a playful porno (The Hills Have Thighs); the Mockbuster is the piggybacking revision of any successful or big budget production. They often escape the hefty legal battles with larger production houses through releasing their films in countries where there are no licensing restrictions. Another potent justification is the notion that they are simply reinterpreting existing works of art; invoking €˜artistic licence€™ in their remakes, but you know - with CGI instead of art. More recently, the films are often derivatives of the original but the Mockbuster has a long lineage of movies now revered as cult classics, such as Fulci€™s Zombi 2 and the jaw-dropping spoof, Turkish Star Wars. One of the most well-known production houses of the 2000s is The Asylum. Alongside some of their original films (who could forget Sharknado or Nazis at the Centre of the Earth), the studio produced a mockbuster called Snakes on a Train. In the same way as the original was a viral sensation, this also grabbed the internet€™s attention as the poster depicted a pit viper swallowing a the train carriage. This was supposed to be a metaphorical image but as it interested investors, the plot was changed to involve a passenger inexplicably transforming into a gigantic snake and engorging the train. It's certainly an interesting practice. How many films have you seen where you'd like the story to be a little more like the trailer?