Exploitation Flick – Missile Test

Shitty Movie Sundays: Phoenix the Warrior, aka She-Wolves of the Wasteland

This movie has to be trash, right? One doesn’t go into a 1980’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi b-movie with a scantily-clad female cast and expect Shakespeare. In the days before the World Wide Web, a movie like this was about one thing and one thing only, and that was gratuitous nudity. It’s true. Movie watchers were shallow enough that for about three decades leading up to the widespread use of the internet, showcasing nudity was a core purpose of thousands upon thousands of substandard movies. Good for them!

Phoenix the Warrior is a little skimpy with the goods, though. Although the look and feel of this movie is lifted from Mad Max, in many ways this has more in common with a women in prison flick. Director and writer Robert Hayes (Dan Rotblatt shares writing credit) even managed to squeeze in a pseudo shower scene, but that’s about it. Hayes did the absolute worst thing he could do as the director of an exploitation flick: he relied on his skill as a filmmaker to see him through. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Phoenix the Warrior, aka She-Wolves of the Wasteland”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Bad, Black and Beautiful

Bad, Black and Beautiful movie poster Once upon a time, way back in the mid-1970s, some guy in Dallas, Texas, by the name of Bobby Davis, had some dollars in his pocket and a dream. That dream: to write, direct, and produce a blaxploitation flick. He roamed the lounges of Dallas, wading into a sea of nylon and leisure suits in search of the talent he would need to make his vision a reality. Days, nay, weeks, of production pass, and Davis overcomes all of the obstacles which stand in the way of auteurs the world over, and he gets his film in the can. Now, it’s official. Bobby Davis is a filmmaker, forever more. In celebration, and aware that all great artists leave the scene at their peak, he leaves his affairs in order, climbs the Reunion Tower overlooking picturesque Interstate 35E, and hurls himself into the void.

Most of that is bullshit, including Davis’s personal denouement (Reunion Tower wasn’t finished until 1978, three years after this movie’s release). But, sources on this dog of a movie are very thin. It’s known that there was a filmmaker named Bobby Davis, that he shot a film called Bad, Black and Beautiful in Dallas, and that he employed a cast and crew that, for the majority of them, had no experience before or after this film was made. If it wasn’t for the internet, this movie would exist only on crumbling VHS tapes and a handful of 35mm prints lurking in the backs of storage spaces. This is a movie that was well on its way to being lost, and it shows. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Bad, Black and Beautiful”

Shitty Movie Sundays: The Concrete Jungle (1982)

Women in prison flicks are among the sleaziest exploitation movies that cinema has to offer, possibly exceeded only by Naziploitation and nunsploitation. Women in prison flicks are all about the subjugation and humiliation of women, both through loss of personal freedom and sexual violence. There are only passing moments of redemption for this subgenre, as the victimized protagonist usually gets a small amount of justice at the end, but that’s only window dressing.

This is Shitty Movie Sundays, where every shitty movie, even ones that are badly dated, get a showing. It’s a fruitless endeavor to try and impose the morals of today on the past, so Missile Test says go ahead and watch the sleaziest of the sleaze, and feel free to ignore that twinge of guilt one feels when they find they actually enjoy it. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: The Concrete Jungle (1982)”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Tenement (1985), aka Game of Survival, aka Slaughter in the South Bronx

One of the best things about watching shitty movies is that it is far more likely to find a film that goes extreme compared to a Hollywood flick, or even compared to a Film with a capital ‘F.’ A good case in point is 1985’s Tenement, released under various other titles, from outsider filmmaker Roberta Findlay.

Findlay spent most of her career directing obscure exploitation films or smut, the smut usually under a male pseudonym. Late in her career she dipped her toes into more of the mainstream, her most well-known flick being Prime Evil. Having come from a world where anything could be put onto film, those sensibilities carried through into work that fell under the scrutiny of the censors at the MPAA. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Tenement (1985), aka Game of Survival, aka Slaughter in the South Bronx”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Caged Heat 3000, or, Nudity Is the New Black

Caged Heat 3000 VHS box Who doesn’t want a little sleaze in their life? If the dearth of this kind of movie in the 21st century is any indication, the answer is: not many people.

Existing halfway between some R-rated titillation and outright smut, Caged Heat 3000 is of a type that has little place in popular culture these days. It’s too raunchy for regular release, but not explicit enough to live on those websites we all pretend we don’t visit. Erotic direct-to-video releases are a victim of forty years of increasing social conservatism here in the States, and the internet, which can offer straight porn on demand. What an interesting dichotomy. Movies are becoming more prudish, while smut is more readily available than ever before, leaving the middle ground a barren wasteland for new content. That’s an oversimplification, but there is a lively debate online about the subject of nudity in film.

There’s no debate here at Shitty Movie Sundays. Gratuitous nudity is an important facet of the shitty movie experience, just as much as nonsensical plots, cheap sets, poor effects, bad acting, and all the other things that give the shitty movie fan their fix. We can gaze upon the lazy eroticism and shameless misogyny of a flick like Caged Heat 3000 and laugh. It also brings to mind the days before we were flooded with content, when Caged Heat 3000 might have been the best, or only, option available for a viewer looking to see a little skin. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Caged Heat 3000, or, Nudity Is the New Black”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Blue Money (1972)

Self-described cult cinema preservation and releasing company Vinegar Syndrome, on their sales page for Blue Money, describes the film as “a powerful, Cassavetes-esque examination of LA’s burgeoning hardcore [i.e., pornography] film scene.” I don’t agree with the ‘powerful’ part, which is one reason this flick makes the Shitty Movie Sundays cut, but describing the film as Cassavetes-esque is great shorthand. The way this film was written, shot, paced, and acted, is very much akin to one of the films of John Cassavetes, in particular Opening Night, with its look behind the scenes of a theater production. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Blue Money (1972)”

Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Eaten Alive! (1980), aka Mangiati vivi!, aka Doomed to Die

Oh, look, more cannibals! And rape. Lots of rape.

From 1980, writer/director Umberto Lenzi’s initial foray into the cannibal subgenre of horror might be the most exploitative of the bunch. It has everything that I’ve become familiar with during this year’s Horrorshow. There is cannibalism, of course, Stone Age tribalism, an impenetrable jungle, caucasians getting more than they bargained for, nudity, brutal depictions of violence, real animal slaughter, and rape. This flick is a little lazier than the others, as it lifts footage from earlier cannibal flicks for extra punch during gore scenes. Shame on any movie that can’t do all its heavy lifting on its own. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Eaten Alive! (1980), aka Mangiati vivi!, aka Doomed to Die”

Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: A Bay of Blood, aka Ecologia del delitto, aka Twitch of the Death Nerve, or, The Real Estate Market is Cutthroat

Mario Bava was one of the greats of horror cinema. Not just Italian horror, but horror in general. Horror junkies the world over celebrate his more famous films as essential to the genre. Like with all artists, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. By the 1970s critics had begun to fall out of love with Bava, and that shows with the negative reaction to A Bay of Blood upon its release in 1971.

Contemporary critics and fans were hard on A Bay of Blood, as Bava had moved on from atmospheric gothic horror and into exploitation. Funny enough, though, this film proved to be as much an influence on later horror films as any other movie he had made. Viewers with more than a passing knowledge of American slasher flicks will see some of that subgenre’s genesis in A Bay of Blood. As such, it’s a film that garnered a much better reputation before the decade was out. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: A Bay of Blood, aka Ecologia del delitto, aka Twitch of the Death Nerve, or, The Real Estate Market is Cutthroat”

Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Beyond the Darkness, aka Buio Omega

Holy jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! Whatever one’s expectations going into Beyond the Darkness, one of Joe D’Amato’s flicks from 1979, they will be exceeded. I went into this film knowing only so much as what was provided in a small blurb, and was left either speechless or exclaiming in shock, depending on what depravity D’Amato and company were putting on screen. This is that kind of movie, folks. Allow me to spoil some of it for you.

Working from a screenplay by Ottavio Fabbri, D’Amato constructed a film that is light on character development, light on exposition, light on plot, even. The purpose of the film is to shock — visually, sensually, what have you. It does that, but not in a way that is purely exploitative. There is some not-so-shallow stuff going on. That’s impressive for D’Amato, who could usually be depended upon to provide as much depth as linoleum tile. Maybe this was by accident, or maybe I’m reading too much into a film that’s just meant to be experienced, rather than scrutinized. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Beyond the Darkness, aka Buio Omega”

Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Jungle Holocaust, aka Ultimo mondo cannibale, aka Last Cannibal World

Three years before he made Cannibal Holocaust, filmmaker Ruggero Deodato gave viewers Ultimo mondo cannibale, released in the States as Jungle Holocaust. Many of the lessons Deodato learned making this film, he would later apply to his more notorious followup, including real animal slaughter. According to Joe Bob Briggs, so it must be true, the reason Deodato, and others, featured animal killings in their films was that it somehow increased box office in South and Southeast Asia. Who knows if that is true, as I imagine box office figures from 1977 Bangladesh or Kuala Lumpur are hard to come by. What I do know is that, if it is true, it undermines any artistic argument for including animal killings in a movie. Anyway… Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Jungle Holocaust, aka Ultimo mondo cannibale, aka Last Cannibal World”