NEW YORK – The (film) geek shall inherit the earth.

And that may include you, for geeks in the cineplex and behind the cameras are a growing horde.

“Society in general has sort of been more permissive about being geekish anyway,” says Harry Knowles, the Head Geek of aintitcool.com. “People sit around wearing Steve Jobs buttons, you know, ’cause they worship at the almighty Apple.”

They also seek out the obscure and relish the one-upmanship of knowing more cinematic arcana than you.

“Ilsa, SheWolf of the SS,” “Death Race 2000,” “The Black Gestapo,” and “Cannibal Holocaust” never appeared on major magazine covers back in the day. But “Grindhouse,” the trash-film paean from directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, got big buzz once it hit theaters last weekend.

Critics and mainstream media focus on movies that have a distributor and a release date. “But because of the ‘Net and the permissive editorial nature of it, we can champion films before they’ve ever been picked up for distribution and get people excited about them way in advance,” Knowles says.

The buzz is already moving onto “Hot Fuzz,” a British cop comedy due out in two weeks.

But for now, a film geek like Chris Scaiano of New York was intent on “dragging” his wife to “Grindhouse.” He likes movies that borrow from what he enjoyed watching as a kid.

“We saw really bad movies growing up, but that’s what we liked,” he says. “I just want to go to a movie that’s usually around 90 to 95 minutes long, and just want to be taken away – with no message involved.”