American Grindhouse

2010
Directed By Elijah Drenner


SYNOPSIS

Robert Forster narrates this documentary tracing the history of exploitation films from the early days of film, to it's eventual death at the hands of porn, and it's influence on modern movies.

MY THOUGHTS

A great intro to the much-maligned and practically forgotten genre of exploitation films.

Exploitation films got their name because they had some content (usually sex and/or violence) that could be exploited to get people into theater seats. These cheaply made movies would find their audience in grimy, dingy, open all day/night theaters called grindhouses.

American Grindhouse covers the gamut of the subgenres of these films from titillating films of the silent era... to drug and prostitution films of the 1930's... to the monster, juvenile delinquent, nudist, burlesque, and teen beach movies of the 1950s... to the drug and biker films of the 60's... to the blaxploitation, Nazisploitation, extreme gore, women in prison films in the 1970's.

These films were mostly made far from Hollywood... yet many were able to influence Hollywood in a big way. The documentary is told in a very entertaining and fast paced way using dozens of clips of both the indie films and their Hollywood spawn.

American Grindhouse primarily uses exploitation film fans (and mainstream directors) John Landis and Joe Dante for interviews. They and the other interviewees (mostly filmmakers of these 'classics') all have a strong passion for these movies that are far from artistic masterpieces. They know they're not discussing high art and have a lot of fun. No snobbish film critics pop up with long-winded diatribes to slow the whole thing down.

One of the film's few flaws was to completely forget Roger Corman, the king of B-movies of the 50's, 60s, and 70's. They show a few posters of his films, but since he is still very much alive, his insight could have been fascinating. It's a glaring omission.

If you already consider yourself to be an expert on grindhouse films, you probably won't learn much new here.... but American Grindhouse serves as an excellent Exploitation 101 course for the newbie.