| Grindhouse |
Website Links For Exploitation |
Information AboutGrindhouse |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT EXPLOITATION FILM | |
| exploitation films | |
| film genres | |
| transgressive art | |
| zoosexuality in culture | |
|
Exploitation film is a type of film that eschews the expense of "quality" productions in favor of making films on-the-cheap, attracting the public by exciting their more prurient interests. "Exploitation" is the show business term for promotion, and an exploitation film is one which relies heavily on the lurid advertising of its contents, rather than the intrinsic quality of the film. Exploitation films feature forbidden sex, wanton violence, drug use, nudity, freaks, gore, monsters, destruction, rebellion and mayhem. Such films have existed since the earliest days of moviemaking, but they were popularized in the 1960s with the general relaxing of cinematic taboos in the U.S. and Europe. Since the 1990s, this genre has also received attention from Academic Circles , where it is sometimes called Paracinema . Ephraim Katz , author of ''The Film Encyclopedia'', has defined exploitation as: Exploitation films also covered events that occurred in the news and were in the short term public consciousness that a Major Film Studio may avoid due to the length of time of producing a major film. For example ''Child Bride'' (1935) addressed a problem of older men marrying very young women in the Ozark s. Other issues such as Drug Use in films like '' Reefer Madness '' (1936) attracted an audience that a major film studio would avoid to keep their Mainstream and respectable reputations. Several War Film s were made about the Winter War in Finland , the Korean War and the Vietnam War before the major studios showed interest. When Orson Welles Mercury Theatre Halloween 1938 radio production of '' The War Of The Worlds '' shocked many Americans and made news, Universal Pictures edited their serial '' Flash Gordon's Trip To Mars '' into a short feature called ''Mars Attacks the World'' for release in November of that year. Some Poverty Row lower budget B Movie s often exploit major studio projects due to fact that the rapid production schedule of making their films can take advantage of the publicity of the major studio to get an audience for their film and leave the slower bigger budgeted competitor to suffer reduced admissions at the Box Office . For example Edward L. Alperson produced William Cameron Menzies ' '' Invaders From Mars (1953 Film) '' to beat Paramount Pictures prestigious George Pal 's version of '' The War Of The Worlds (1953 Film) '' into the cinemas. Pal's '' The Time Machine (1960 Film) '' was also beaten to the cinema's by Robert Clarke's Edgar G. Ulmer film ''Beyond the Time Barrier'' (1960). As a result, many major studios, producers, and stars keep their projects secret. GRINDHOUSE CINEMA A grindhouse is an American term for a theater that mainly showed exploitation films. It is also a term used to describe the genre of films that played in such theatres. Grindhouse films are also referred to as "exploitation films." Grindhouses were known for continuous programs of B Movies , usually consisting of a Double Feature where two (and very often three) films were shown consecutively. Most of these films were made for Drive-in Theaters as second and third features. Since most large urban areas did not have drive-ins, these movies were shown in older theaters that formerly featured Burlesque shows which included " Bump And Grind " dancing, leading to the term "grindhouse." Beginning in the late 1960s and especially during the 1970s, the subject matter of grindhouse films was dominated by explicit sex, violence, bizarre or perverse plot points, and other taboo content. The 1980s Home Video market threatened to render the grindhouse obsolete. By the end of that decade, grindhouse theaters had vanished from Los Angeles ' Broadway and Hollywood Boulevard s, New York City 's Times Square and San Francisco 's Market Street . By the mid-1990s, they had completely disappeared from the United States. There remains much affection for the grindhouse era amongst some cinephiles. An example is the film '' Grindhouse '' (2007). One half of this double feature was directed by Quentin Tarantino ; the other by Robert Rodriguez . The films contain elements found in many grindhouse films. The two films are bridged by trailers for fictitious films that also fit into the grindhouse genre ( Sexploitation , Slasher Films , etc.). ''Grindhouse'' also features simulated film negative scratches and some clipped dialogue, to recreate the feeling that the print of the film is a worn and battered copy, which was often true of the prints of many films grindhouse theaters showed in their heyday. SUBCATEGORIES Exploitation films may adopt the subject matters and stylings of film genres, particularly Horror Film s and Documentary Film s. The subgenres of exploitation films are categorized by which characteristics they utilize. Thematically, exploitation films can also be influenced by other so-called exploitative media, like Pulp Magazine s. Black exploitation See Also: Blaxploitation Black exploitation, or " Blaxploitation " films, are made with black actors, ostensibly for black audiences, and about stereotypically African American subjects such as slum life, Drugs , and Prostitution . A prominent theme was African-Americans overcoming The Man through cunning and violence. Examples from the 1970s, when Blaxploitation was introduced, include '' Cotton Comes To Harlem '', '' Shaft '', '' Superfly '', '' Blacula '', '' Coffy '', '' The Mack ,'' and Melvin Van Peebles ' '' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song '', which is often credited with inventing the genre. Notable spoofs of the genre include Keenan Ivory Wayans ' '' I'm Gonna Get You Sucka '', Robert Townsend 's '' Hollywood Shuffle '' and Malcolm D. Lee 's '' Undercover Brother ''. Sex exploitation See Also: Sexploitation Sex exploitation, or Sexploitation films, are similar to Softcore Pornography , in that the film serves largely as a vehicle for showing scenes involving nude or semi-nude women. While many films contain vivid sex scenes, sexploitation shows these scenes more graphically than mainstream films, often overextending the sequences or showing full frontal nudity. Russ Meyer 's body of work is probably the best known example; the movie '' Showgirls '', and the films of Andy Sidaris are examples of recent sexploitation. Shock exploitation Shock exploitation films (shock films), are films containing content designed to be particularly shocking to the audience. These type of exploitation films focus content traditionally thought to be particularly taboo for presentation in film, such as extremely realistic '', '' Combat Shock '' and '' I Spit On Your Grave ''. Biker films 1953's '' The Wild One '', starring Marlon Brando, was perhaps the first of this subgenre that usually focuses on motorcycle gangs with plenty of sex and violence. But most of the films were made in the mid to late 1960s and early 1970s. Other biker films includes '' The Wild Angels '' (1966), '' Hells Angels On Wheels '' (1967), '' The Born Losers '' (1967), '' Satan's Sadists '' (1969), '' Nam's Angels '' (1970), and '' C.C. And Company '' (1970). Cannibal films See Also: Cannibal film Cannibal Film s, otherwise known as the Cannibal Genre , are a collection of graphic, gory movies made in the early 1970s on into the late 1980s, primarily by Italian moviemakers. These movies mainly focused on torture and cannibalism by Stone-Age tribes deep in the South American or Asian rain forests, usually perpetrated against Westerners that the tribes hold prisoner. Similar to Mondo Film s, the main draw of cannibal films was the promise of exotic locales and graphic gore. Like the jungle adventure movies (popular in the '50s-'60s) and the Mondo shockumentaries (popular in the '60s-'70s) that came before them, these movies were often released under various alternate titles by their distributors, often capitalizing on their more successful US inspirations. Cannibal films were very popular exploitation features in the 1970s and 80s, after Umberto Lenzi made '' Il Paese Del Sesso Selvaggio '', the first film to depict on-screen cannibalism, in 1972.1 In 1977, Ruggero Deodato made '' Ultimo Mondo Cannibale '', inspiring several other film makers to follow suit in a period known as the Cannibal Boom . This period would also see the most notorious film of the subgenre, Deodato's '' Cannibal Holocaust '' (an acknowledged influence on '' The Blair Witch Project ''), in 1980. After 1981, however, the cannibal boom had ended, and cannibal films were few and far between. The fad concluded in 1988 with Mondo film director Antonio Climati's '' Natura Contro '' (also known as '' Cannibal Holocaust II ''). Chambara films See Also: Chambara In the 1970s, a brand of revisionist, non-traditional samurai film rose to some popularity in Japan, following the popularity of samurai Manga by Kazuo Koike , on whose work many later films would be based. Films such as '' Lone Wolf And Cub '', '' Lady Snowblood '' and '' Hanzo The Razor '' had few of the stoic, formal sensibilities of earlier ''jidaigeki'' films such as those by Akira Kurosawa -- the new ''chambara'' featured revenge-driven antihero protagonists, gratuitous nudity, steamy sex scenes, gruesome swordplay and gallons of blood, often spurted from wounds as if from a firehose. Many of these films were subsequently released internationally -- sometimes in truncated form, as with '' Shogun Assassin '', an edit that combined the first two ''Lone Wolf and Cub'' films. Famous names at this time included Sonny Chiba , Shintaro Katsu , Tomisaburo Wakayama and Meiko Kaji . Kaji, star of the ''Lady Snowblood'' films, would further contribute to Japan's exploitation output by starring in the ''Female Convict Scorpion'' series, that country's answer to the Women In Prison genre. The influence of these films can still be seen today, both in Japanese films like the '' Azumi '' series and US films like '' Kill Bill '', whose plot and style pay homage to many of the aforementioned samurai films. Zombie films Zombie exploitation films are a collection of graphic, gory movies made in the early 1970s on into the late 1980s, primarily by Italian moviemakers and change it to include more over-the-top gore, less than logical story lines and nudity. Though zombie films had existed since the early 1930s, it wasn't until the late 1970s that the exploitation angle was worked into the zombie film. Most zombie exploitation was made by Italian film makers, following the success of George A. Romero's '' Dawn Of The Dead '' in its European release under the title '' Zombi ''. Around the same time of the release of ''Dawn of the Dead'', '' Zombi 2 '', by Lucio Fulci , was in the works. Though the film was written before ''Dawn of the Dead'''s release in Europe, the film was renamed to ''Zombi 2'' to share in the success of Romero's film. Unlike '' Dawn Of The Dead '', '' Zombi 2 '' incorporated several elongated scenes of nudity and even more quantities of gore, thus the zombie exploitation film was born. Several imitators and spin offs followed (including a '' Zombi 3 '' and '' Zombi 4 ''), bringing the European zombie craze to full steam (Fulci would again contribute with his films '' City Of The Living Dead '' in 1980 and '' The Beyond '' in 1981). In the exploitation viewpoint, one of the more notable of the zombie exploitation films is Marino Girolami's 1980 film '' Zombi Holocaust '', which combined the zombie movie with the Cannibal Movie . Mondo films See Also: Mondo film Mondo Film s, often called Shockumentaries , are quasi- Documentary Film s that focus on sensationalized topics, such as exotic customs from around the world or gruesome death footage. Similar to shock exploitation, the goal of Mondo films is to be shocking to the audience not only because they deal with Taboo subject matter (for instance, foreign sexual customs or varieties of violent behavior in various societies), but because the on-camera action is allegedly real. Though some Mondo films contain certain amounts of educational material, they choose to shock its audience. Examples of using this technique whilst exploiting nations in the news are the documentaries on Africa , ''Mau Mau'' (1955) and '' Africa Addio '' (1966). This can be seen not only in the way the films are shot, but also by the fact that some of the most shocking footage has, in actuality, been staged.2 The name "Mondo" itself comes from the first commercially successful film of this type, '' Mondo Cane '' (in Italian, this means ''Dog World'' or ''World as a Dog'', a title meant to imply that the world, as showcased in the film, is a brutal, nasty place). ''Mondo Cane'' was followed by a number of sequels and spinoffs, many of which were also produced in Italy. Mondo films continued to be major staples in exploitation film culture through the 60s and into the late 70s, when the style of the films began to change. While at first these films contained similar content of exotic and bizarre customs, in 1978, the film '' Faces Of Death '' took the focus less from worldly rituals and more on footage of human death. Since then, most of the Mondo films have been similar to Death Films , which, unlike their predecessors, are mostly comprised of genuine accident, suicide, and execution footage. Splatter films See Also: Splatter films A Splatter Film or gore film is a type of Horror Film that deliberately focuses on graphic portrayals of gore and violence. These films, through the use of special effects and excessive blood and guts, tend to display an overt interest in the vulnerability of the human body. Due to their willingness to portray images society might consider shocking, splatter films share ideological grounds with the Transgressive Art movement. As a distinct genre, the splatter film began in the 1960s with the films of Herschell Gordon Lewis and David F. Friedman , who became notorious for such work as '' Blood Feast '' (1963), and '' Two Thousand Maniacs! '' (1964). Spaghetti westerns See Also: Spaghetti western Spaghetti Western is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western film that emerged in the mid-1960s, so named because most were produced by Italian studios. Originally they had in common the Italian language, low budgets, and a recognizable highly fluid, violent, and minimalist cinematography that eschewed (some said "demythologized") many of the conventions of earlier Westerns — partly intentionally, partly as a result of the work being done in a different cultural background and with limited funds. Examples include Django , Death Rides A Horse and The Great Silence . Women in prison films See Also: Women in prison films Women In Prison Films are films that feature women prisoners who are tortured, humiliated, and forced into sexual situations by sadistic wardens and guards. In turn, the prisoners often hold a bloody revolt against their captors. Like Sexploitation , the main focus of women in prison films is high sexual content (while remaining softcore) or, like shock exploitation, torture and cruelty. Movies include '' Barbed Wire Dolls '' by Jesus Franco , '' Women's Prison Massacre '' by Joe D'Amato or '' Caged Heat '' by Jonathan Demme . Other sub-genres
Some exploitation movies cross categories freely. Doris Wishman 's '' Let Me Die A Woman '' contains both shock documentary and sex exploitation elements. DIRECTORS ASSOCIATED WITH EXPLOITATION FILM
OTHER IMPORTANT FIGURES IN EXPLOITATION FILM
SEE ALSO REFERENCES
EXTERNAL LINKS
|
|
|