Archive for the ‘Exploitation Marathon’ Category

  • 01 Oct

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    Weekend of Trash VIII

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    The Weekend of Trash is back for its eighth incarnation after a longish gap (backstory and previous write-ups can be found here – I, II, III & IV, V & VI & VII). We actually had another one in-between VII and VIII, but I never wrote it up – sorry! Anyway, we started early on the Friday this time and didn’t go anywhere on Saturday other than to the pub for lunch, so we crammed in nine films into an altogether great weekend. Only three of these were on VHS I’m ashamed to say, and we fit in more modern releases than usual, but all films had their trashy aspects in some way or another, so here are my thoughts and plenty of clips and trailers for your enjoyment.

    Forgive the brevity of the reviews – I’m a busy man and most of these are films that don’t require analysis, I’ll let the trailers and clips do the talking…

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  • 22 Apr

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    Weekend of Trash VII

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    The Weekend of Trash is back (backstory and previous write-ups can be found here – 1, 2, 3 & 4, 5 & 6). The guys visited me for the first time, saving me the trip down to Bristol. We didn’t all get together until the Saturday, but I snuck in a trash-classic on Friday to make up for it. There were no horrors this time around, but we got plenty of action films watched which is fine by me.

    The reviews are a bit brief because I’m ultra busy, but I’ve included plenty of clips and trailers for your enjoyment. Lets have a look at what we watched:

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  • 08 Nov

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    Weekend of Trash VI

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    After struggling to organise a weekend we were all available to get together, we finally gave in and a cosy three of us met up at Justin’s place to enjoy the 6th (recorded) Weekend of Trash (back story and previous write-ups can be found here – 1, 2, 3 & 4 & 5).

    After the last marathon’s criminal lack of VHS titles and inclusion of far too many ‘classy’ and known titles to be truly called ‘trash’, we went all out this time, with 3 tape titles and only 1 known-ish film (maybe 2, I’m not sure how well known Grand Duel is).

    I’m afraid my time’s a bit restrained at the moment so my write-ups will be a bit brief compared to usual, but I’ll still include trailers and concise thoughts on the merits (and otherwise) of each title.

    Friday Night

    Kindred

    Directors: Stephen Carpenter, Jeffrey Obrow
    Screenplay: Stephen Carpenter, Jeffrey Obrow, John Penney, Earl Ghaffari & Joseph Stefano
    Starring: Rod Steiger, Kim Hunter, David Allen Brooks
    Year: 1987
    Country: USA
    Duration: 91 min

    (2.5/5)

    Kindred is an 80′s creature feature about a scientist, John (David Allen Brooks) whose mother (also a scientist) tells him to burn all of her notes and drops a hint that he might have a brother that he wasn’t aware of. Unfortunately it begins to look as though (and the cover gives this away) John’s brother isn’t quite fully human and might not be full of ‘brotherly love’.

    It’s a very dumb film and it’s ropey script makes for a rocky first half, but it actually picks up later on and became quite a fun watch. The presence of five screenwriters was always a sign towards a clunky uneven story (why do we never go back to the evil scientist’s basement full of crazy mutants!?) but at least one of the writers knows that the film works best when it doesn’t take itself too seriously and throws in a couple of witty lines. The main draw though are the make-up effects. The practical monster and mutation effects aren’t realistic, but they’re pretty damn cool at times, especially when one woman sprouts gills!

    The Trailer:

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  • 21 Apr

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    Weekend of Trash V

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    We broke the rules a little for our latest movie marathon (back story and previous write-ups can be found here – 1, 2, 3 & 4), for once we didn’t watch anything on VHS (accidentally more than anything – we had a bunch on our shortlist) and there were a couple of classic and decent titles that shouldn’t really be labeled ‘trash’. Nonetheless, everything we watched was a genre film of some sort and we certainly had a lot of action, horror and exploitation on the menu. It was a mixed bag in terms of quality, era and subject matter too so read on to find out how it went.

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  • 29 Dec

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    Weekend of Trash IV

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    TrashVHS

    I trekked over to meet up with ‘the guys’ last weekend for another one of our movie marathons (previous write-ups can be found here – 1, 2 and 3) and this session certainly didn’t disappoint. Easily our most purely exploitative lineup, this time round we watched no modern or respected cult genre offerings, we stuck solely to long forgotten titles from 70′s and 80′s, unearthing a few trashy classics along the way.

    As ever, and especially with a list of films like these, the scores relate more to the enjoyment factor rather than their quality so read on with an open mind…
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  • 06 Nov

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    42nd Street Forever: Volume 1

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    42nd Street Forever 1 DVD CaseHello everyone. It’s been a while.

    Since I last posted on Row Three, I’ve spent a lot of time exploring the wild, crazy world of what’s commonly known as “Grindhouse”, or exploitation, cinema (both terms seem a bit overused nowadays, don’t they?). To this end, I purchased a series of DVDs, released by Synapse Films, titled 42nd Street Forever, which are essentially a collection of trailers from the Grindhouse era (starting in the late 60′s on through to the mid 80′s). It’s a terrific series of DVDs, and I really have a lot of fun watching them. So, as a way of kinda slipping back into things here on Row Three, I thought I’d devote some time to covering each volume of the 42nd Street Forever collection.

    Volume 1 contains over 2 hours of trailers, covering a wide range of genres and sub-genres. Needless to say, many of these trailers stretch the boundaries of good taste to their absolute limit (there’s plenty of nudity, graphic violence, and a whole lot of what we’d today term “political incorrectness” packed into these trailers). But let’s be honest: that’s what makes them so much fun!

    Now, instead of me just droning on about the various trailers in each series, I thought I’d take full advantage of all the internet has to offer by presenting a few of them, just to give you an idea of what you’d be in for if you chose to check Volume 1 out.

    That said, I guess I better start off with the following:

    Warning: the trailers presented in this post are of an adult nature, and contain violence, nudity, and sexual situations. By clicking READ MORE below, you are confirming that you are of a proper age to view this material, and are not easily offended by blah blah blah blah blah).

    Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get started:

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  • 30 Jul

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    Weekend of Trash III

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    TrashVHS

    With my wife-to-be over in her home country of Finland for a week I took it upon myself to get the boys round for another one of our regular ‘trashathons’ last weekend (check out my previous write ups here and here). For the uninitiated (or those who can’t be bothered to look up those two links) these weekends involve pulling out our lowest budgeted, most breast, explosion and blood filled crappy VHS and bargain-basement DVD’s we can find and subjecting ourselves to their ‘pleasures’ for two nights and a morning. We usually squeeze in a couple of classier modern genre films too that haven’t received the widest of releases.

    This weekend really delivered the goods I must say. There were no straight up classics, but pretty much all of them did exactly what they said on the tin, which is more than can be said for a lot of exploitation flicks – most make better trailers than they do films.

    As usual don’t take the star ratings too seriously – I’m generally going on entertainment value over quality.

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  • 10 May

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    Exploitation Marathon: Humanoids from the Deep (1980)

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    We all have our guilty pleasures. I know I have a good number of them. For instance, I’ve been known, on occasion, to kick back to the gentle harmonies of Mr. Barry Manilow. Also, whenever I’m channel surfing and happen upon The Brady Bunch, I immediately stop my search. Well, it looks as if I now have another guilty pleasure to add to the list: the Roger Corman’-produced 1980 horror fest, Humanoids from the Deep. It’s shabby, and more than a bit rough around the edges, yet I really got a kick out of it.

    All hell’s broken loose in the normally peaceful fishing village of Noyo, where a mysterious rash of violence is paralyzing the community. Long-time resident Jim Hill (Doug McClure) sets out to investigate the cause, while the town’s most prestigious businessman, Hank Slattery (Vic Morrow) believes he already knows what’s happening, laying the blame for the recent violence at the feet of the local Native American population, including Hill’s good friend, Johnny Eagle (Anthony Penya). Unbeknownst to them all, however, is that the true source of the hysteria is a mass of mutated sea monsters that have swarmed into the nearby river system. But these creatures, the result of a failed scientific experiment performed on salmon, are interested in more than just mass destruction; they’re also after the female population of Noyo, not to kill or eat them, but to use them as mates.

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  • 26 Apr

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    Exploitation Marathon: Cannibal Apocalypse (1980)

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    It was April of 2007, right before the release of the Rodriguez/Tarantino double-team known as Grindhouse, that I decided my knowledge of exploitation cinema was not all it should be. By that time, I’d seen a number of Pam Grier’s early films, and even had a few Roger Corman DVDs in my collection, yet overall my experience with this particular slice of movie history was pretty dismal, to say the least. So, in an effort to give myself a ‘crash course’ in Exploitation cinema, I did a little on-line research, reserved a few DVDs through Netflix and Blockbuster, and spent an entire weekend watching nothing but the best that the Grind Houses of yesteryear had to offer.

    The final tally was 12 films in 2 days, and many of the movies I watched that weekend, such as Vanishing Point and the first two entries in the Lone Wolf and Cub series (Sword of Vengeance and Baby Cart at the River Styx), impressed me so much that they’ve since made their way into my ever-growing DVD library. It was a fun weekend, one I won’t soon forget.

    In fact, it was so much fun that I’ve decided to turn it into a yearly happening. I’ve just now put the wraps on my 2nd Annual Exploitation Weekend, squeezing in another 12 films in a two-day period. As with last year, I had one hell of a good time.

    Over the course of the next several weeks, I’ll be writing up reviews for some of the movies that made up this 2nd Annual Exploitation Film Festival (any suggestions for a better title would be greatly appreciated). The first in the series is Antonio Margheriti’s 1980 horror film, Cannibal Apocalypse, one of two cannibal-themed movies, along with Cannibal Holocaust, in this year’s line-up. Yet, despite the similarities in their titles, each film takes an entirely different approach to the subject at hand: where Cannibal Holocaust presents dining on human flesh as a way of life for a primitive culture, Cannibal Apocalypse gives us cannibalism as a disease, transmitted from one living creature to another in much the same manner as rabies.

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