This past Saturday, I went to to Victoria's Free B-Film Festival and watched "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)". Once I got used to the slow pace, the old-school special effects and corny jokes were hilarious. The festival got me wondering how B-films originated...

Apparently, the term 'B-movie' was coined in the early 1930s to distinguish low-budget pictures from more expensive 'A-movies'. B movies were usually produced as the "lower half" of a double feature. Often, they were genre films; formulaic and campy, with cheap special effects, uninspired dialogue, and gratuitous nudity, sexuality, and/or violence (yea!).

B-movies were produced by "Poverty Row" companies (ex. Republic and Monogram), which specialized in cheap pictures. The movies' habitat was backstreet cinemas and small-town movie houses; both of these appealed to audiences in the Depression-era.

Along with delivering cheap thrills, B-movie-makers often incorporated social criticism, satire, and surreal commentary on American society into their productions.