Film

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films

A love letter to Cannon Films, the scrappy Israeli-run studio that flooded the 1980s with low-budget action, horror, and exploitation cinema. Exuberant, gossipy, and genuinely moving about why filmmakers and audiences adored these delirious, barely-solvent productions. Essential viewing for cult film devotees and anyone who wants to understand how the industry actually worked before the multiplex stranglehold.

TMDb rating3.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love behind-the-scenes chaos of low-budget filmmaking, where bold hustle and bad taste collide and the stories of mavericks chasing box office gold are more entertaining than the movies themselves.

Skip it if you want a tidy, analytical film history; this one leans on talking-head anecdotes and affectionate gossip, so the gleeful tone may feel more like fan nostalgia than rigorous inquiry.

What it asks of you: It runs about two hours of cheerful interviews and clips, moving briskly and loosely, with a tone that stays playful even when the business gets messy.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Overnight2003

Troy Duffy's descent from Irish bar to Hollywood pariah is documented with unflinching ruthlessness. You watch hubris corrode in real time. A masterclass in how the industry chews people up.

But Deeply uncomfortable and often mean-spirited. Duffy himself is insufferable, and the film doesn't soften the experience.

Overnight poster

Jodorowsky's Dune2013

A visionary director's impossible dream project, lovingly reconstructed. Gorgeously designed, heartbreaking about artistic ambition. Another outsider artist story told with real generosity.

But The actual film never existed, so you're mourning an abstraction. Some find that frustrating rather than moving.

Jodorowsky's Dune poster

Pumping Iron1977

Arnold Schwarzenegger before stardom, at the Mr. Olympia competition. Weirdly intimate portrait of ambition and ego. Great music, great body-drama, still darkly funny.

But Slow pacing and a narrow world. The bodybuilding subculture won't appeal to everyone.

Pumping Iron poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Under the Skin2014

Both are about the logistics of pulp dreams: Cannon sold spectacle through pure audacity and repetition; Glazel pursues it through silence and restraint. Different religions, same obsession with what cinema can do that nothing else can.

Jonathan Glazel's alien-abduction film stripped to pure mood and imagery. Scarlett Johansson hunting through Scotland in eerie silence. Hypnotic, hypnotized, almost plotless—cinema as texture and dread.

But Glacial pacing, minimal dialogue, no catharsis. Actively alienating by design. You sit with discomfort for two hours.

Under the Skin poster
More like this (5)

Muscle Shoals2013

How a tiny Alabama recording studio became the engine for American soul and rock. Same story as Cannon: scrappy underdogs, outsider vision, industry defiance. Beautiful and moving.

But Music documentary; if you're not into the era or artists, the emotional hooks won't land as hard.

Muscle Shoals poster

The Death of "Superman Lives": What Happened?2015

Tim Burton's unfinished Superman movie, never made, lovingly dissected. Cult filmmaking, impossible dreams, industrial failure. Gorgeous behind-the-scenes material and genuine sadness about art unmade.

But Obsessive niche interest. Requires some investment in Burton fandom to fully engage with the mourning.

The Death of "Superman Lives": What Happened? poster

Burden2018

A repentant white supremacist tries to rebuild his life in South Carolina. Deeply human, surprising, and morally serious. About transformation and how to live after you've been someone terrible.

But Heavy subject matter. The redemption arc won't convince everyone, and the film earns its darkness without flinching.

Burden poster

Tickled2016

A journalist chases the bizarre, secretly vicious world of competitive tickling. Starts as funny, becomes genuinely disturbing. Propulsive mystery-thriller wrapped around very strange subculture.

But Genuinely unsettling. The answer to the mystery is bleaker than you'll expect, and the tickling content itself gets grotesque.

Tickled poster

Possession1981

Cannon made trash that felt like art; Żuławski made art that feels like trash—violence, sex, screaming, no safety railing. The opposite aesthetic outcome, same willingness to cross lines that studio films won't approach.

Andrzej Żuławski's unspeakable horror-thriller about marital collapse, shot in Berlin. Isabelle Adjani losing her mind with erotic fervor. Fever-dream pacing, genuinely deranged, impossible to forget or categorize.

But Obscene. Conceptually disturbing on top of being visually grotesque. The plot dissolves into surrealism and body-horror. Demanding and punishing.

Possession poster

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