Specifically ones that ‘could’ be considered cheesy (I happen to like these two).
What do you fellas have?
The Omega Man was a late-night TV staple when I was a kid. It had Charlton Heston taking care of post-apocalypse business as only he could in the early '70s and, as a kid, The Family genuinely freaked me out.
Plus, Rosalind Cash was a groovy badass, so it was a much-watched flick.
Those are actually both based on the same book, Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, which was of course finally adapted under its own name with the Will Smith movie (which unfortunately completely wimped out on the book’s devastating and very challenging ending).
This is Romero’s cheesiest disease flick. The Crazies (1973). Good movie lacking the graveness of Night (1968) and the scope and complexity of Dawn (1978).
A movie my friend petitioned me to attend at a convention we went to in 2019. Alas I drove to Chick-fil-A and ordered a large Chicken Fingers and French Fries 20 minutes before and as that digested I watched this. What a mistake. It makes my pal laugh to this day. A bunch of Satan worshipping hippies antagonize the wrong little boy who presents them a meat pie to die for. Literally. A plague flick you can’t take seriously. But tell that to my stomach. I Drink Your Blood (1971).
Well, Panic In The Streets was my go-to when the pandemic first burst. But it’s a pretty good flick, with one of Dick Widmark’s best roles.
So, it doesn’t really fit the “pure cheese” desideratum of the OP. There are quite a few hammy moments, though: especially towards the beginning when Widmark makes the gravity of the situation understood before an adjudicatory panel.
The cheesiest angles of Panic in the Streets (1950) are Jack Palance and Zero Mostel. Mostel on his shtick and long suffering buddy of Jack routine and Jack by devouring the scenery with his mammoth personality and him so selling his character’s derangement it becomes farcical. Great Kazan picture nonetheless and Richard Widmark is excellent.
I completely forgot about those Crazies!
That one was put on trial on Reels of Justice, with Frank Dietz (AKA the underage cop from Zombie Nightmare) prosecuting.
ROJ-017: “The People vs. The Omega Man” with Frank Dietz (buzzsprout.com)
Watching ‘The Crazies’ tonight, will work my way down the list
“The Raven” with Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, and Jack Nicholson. Directed by Roger Corman! The poem is the first 5 minutes, then there’s lasers and magicians! It’s real goofy.
@tatertots jarred my thinking. One Corman deserves another. The Masque of the Red Death (1964). Vincent Price, Nigel Green, Patrick Magee. The definite 60s blight opus stuffed with decadence, depravity, and the mixing of Poe tales. One virtually tastes Ingmar Bergman amidst the larger than life flavor. Cheese and Sobriety blended into one. Recommended.
Saw this on The Movie Channel’s Slpatterday On Saturday double feature many years ago.
Which is the better Cronenberg, Shivers or Rabid? It’s a complete draw for me. Rabid has grander scope while Shivers is weirder.
Granted that’s a good movie, not cheesy in the least. Don’t mean to derail the topic.
@herrprofessordoktor Some of the sexual encounters and graphic depictions of mutation might be appraised as cheesy to the right younger audience. The Exorcist (1973) slams into to that by a few thirty somethings I know.