YMMV / Doctor Strange (1978)

• Harsher in Hindsight: The film's ending reveals that Morgan le Fey somehow survived the punishment she received from the evil entity that employed her and is now living on Earth as a self-help guru, with the strong implication that her followers have formed a Cult around her. This film was released in September 1978, a little over two months before the Jonestown massacre in November of the same year. In fact, it's more than likely that Le Fey's cult was a reference to cults like the Peoples Temple (mixed in with the New Age self-help fad at the time), as at the time they attracted some attention for receiving some celebrity endorsements.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The plot of the movie, about Strange having to defend a woman from an antagonistic female sorcerer across various dimensions, bears more than a passing resemblance to the plot of the MCU film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. This even extends to things like Strange using his powers to mess with a street artist at the end of this film mirroring Strange using his powers to mess with Bruce Campbell's cameo as a street vendor in Multiverse of Madness, and The Stinger of the latter film introducing Clea to the MCU after the 1978 film featured her, albeit the MCU one is a much more comics-accurate version than the non-powered human that appears in the 1978 film.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • A lot of jokes have been made about Doctor Strange's actor Peter Hooten bearing an uncanny resemblance to pornstar John Holmes in this film, together with its disco/funk-inspired soundtrack sounding like porno music. In fact, this is perhaps one of the few reasons the movie was known before its resurgence in popularity after the 2016 film about the character.
  • Internet reviewers also noted the resemblance of one of Strange's fellow doctors to Christopher Reeve's Clark Kent, which was released later that year. This made it an unofficial 70s DC/Marvel crossover.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Clea Lake is played by Anne-Marie Martin (credited as "Eddie Benton" here), years before she became famous for her roles as Wendy in Prom Night and especially as Dori Doreau in Sledge Hammer!.
  • While she was certainly already known at the time this film was made for Play Misty for Me, Jessica Walter would become much more well-known for later generations thanks to her roles as Lucille Bluth in Arrested Development and Mallory Archer in Archer, evoking this reaction from modern viewers.