I thought Id start a post specifically for everything anything to do with grindhouse aka Exploitation cinema. You can talk about any Exploitation genre here, from Blaxploitation to spaghetti westerns to kung fu to women in prison films to Gore movies. What are your favorites? Which ones do you reccomend?
DOLEMITE: Starring Rudy Ray Moore
I watched this film last night, its a pure grindhouse movie. Wow. You can see the Boom Mic hanging over a scene in one shot! The acting is terrible, the kung fu looks like the kind of fake kung fu you did when you were a kid (kicks that dont come close to the victim). Yet for some reason, I really like the movie. I think its the fact that its so bad its good. You can definitely tell this movie was made for inner city grindhouses while you watch it. Its one of the most popular of the blaxploitation genre as well. The dialogue is hilarious. Rudy Ray Moore says some of the best swears Ive ever heard. He says “Motherfucker” better than anyone else in movies too. Oh yeah, check out his cartoony pimp clothes. 
FOXY BROWN
Pam Grier is so hot in this, oh my lord. If you wanna see a kickass Blaxploitation movie, get this one. The first half of the movie is kinda slow, but then the second half is just pure action and fun. Look for Sid Haig as the Airplane Flying dude. He played the Judge in Jackie Brown.
Foxy kicks ass in this and takes names. She goes undercover as a prostitute. Holy Mandingo, the outfits she wears made my pants come undone. lol.
Antonio Fargas aka Huggy Bear from Starsky and Hutch plays her scumbag brother. She gets so pissed off in the movie she even shoots him!
Wait until you see the scene where a lesbian tries to push Foxy around. Foxy bitchslaps her with a barstool.
I still like Coffy more than Foxy Brown, because it was faster getting to the action. But Foxy is definitely a good Blaxploitation genre film starring the “Godmother of Them All” : Pam Grier.
Damn, Foxy Brown came on the UPN earlier today. I had planned on watching it, but the channel is just static for some reason.
I’m not quite the blaxploitation aficionado, but it definitely seems like the kind of thing i could get into. personally I’m more into the gore and kung-fu genres than anything else at the moment, but Blaxploitation looks to be right up my alley.
I’m pretty sure my video store has Foxy Brown on vhs, and they might have Coffy as well. If so, I’ll give them a look.
same here, lets pay our video store clerks a visit.
THE MACK (1973) Starring Max Julien
Okay, if you wanna see a genuine Blaxploitation PIMPIN movie, get this one. In my opinion The Mack is cooler than Superfly. Max Julien plays “Goldie” a newly released ex con back on the streets of Oakland. Goldie was thrown in jail by two corrupt local cops and as soon as they find out Goldies out of jail, theyre on him like flies on shit. Meanwhile Goldie visits one of his old partners from the days before he got thrown in the big house. He gives Goldie some cash to get his business rolling again. What business is Goldie in? PIMPIN baby. Goldie is the smoothest hustler in Oakland and in no time, Goldie is back with a full cartel of hustlers and hoes workin under him. The cops are tryin to get him, The other pimps are out to get him but he wont fool around with them. Goldie plays it cooler than cool. Look for an early appearance by Richard Pryor as “Slim”, Goldies funny partner in the pimpin business. Also starring Roger Mosely (Magnum PI) Carol Speed (Abby) and Don Gordon (Bullitt).
NOTE: This is the film Drexl is watchin in True Romance on the TV. “Up there on the screen is a lady with her breastesses hangin out…”
Newly released on DVD (2 disc Platinum series)
Evil Dead Trap ( 1988 )
Don’t let the title fool you, this flick has nothing to do with Sam Raimi’s films. This is a Japanese gore film. I imagine the title was changed to Evil Dead Trap to cash in on the popularity of the Evil Dead films. Anyway…
About half the film plays out like a lame slasher, nothing really new except for the violence. The ending though, is completely insane, and makes no sense at all. The violence in the film for the most part, isn’t anything new either, but two scenes in particular stick out.
The first scene takes place about five minutes into the film. In the scene a woman has her eye punctured in what has to be the sickest eye gouge i’ve ever seen. It makes the eye vs. splinter scene in Fulci’s Zombie look like an episode of The Smurfs. Everything is shown in extreme close up, as the knife enters the eye, and as the liquid from inside oozes out. Then if that’s not enough, the guy with the knife pulls it upward slicing through the girl’s eyebrow. Just typing this out makes me uncomfortable thinking about it. Sick stuff man. The second death scene is actually pretty cool. In it a woman sits down at a bench against the wall. Then three giant blade like objects come from out of the walls and floor and stab her like a pin cushion. Not quite as sick as that eye thing, but pretty inventive. The rest of the deaths are fairly average, but there’s still a couple winners.
Other than the cool deaths, the film works much like one of Dario Argento’s Giallo’s. Even the music in the film sounds exactly like Goblin. It actually sounded like one of Goblin’s scores i’ve heard before, but couldn’t place it. The imdb didn’t have them listed as anything so i’m not sure if it was my imagination or just a complete rip off. Anyway, everything works like Argento until the very end when from out of nowhere one of the most bizarre and utterly strangest endings i’ve ever seen occurs. I won’t go any further, but it’s just weird man. I didn’t understand what the hell had happened, but i still had fun watching it.
I reccomend the film if you enjoy bizzare films, or just gore films in general.
THE STREETFIGHTER (1975)
This is the film that got me into Sonny Chiba. I saw clips of it in True Romance and I knew I had to get it. Sonny Chiba plays Terry Tsurugi a assassin for hire. If Bruce Lee was a badass, Chiba is like the anti-Bruce Lee. This film is pure Exploitation kung fu. slashed throats, eye gouges, punched out teeth, cracked skulls, ripped off balls, torn out throat flesh. In other words, its AWESOME!
If you wanna see Chiba at his meanest, you gotta get this one. Theres some really cool Grindhouse characters in it too including Junjo the kung fu master (Terrys nemesis), Ratnose (Terrys little pain in the ass sidekick) The blind sword guy (this guy cant see but hes a terror with his sword, which doubles as his walking cane!). Its 100% pure Grindhouse Japanese 70s kung fu. I highly reccomend it to fans of cult films and chopsocky flicks. A+ for Grindhouse filmmaking.
COFFY (1973)
"Her name’s Coffy…and she’ll CREAM you!!"
Okay, if Foxy Brown was a kickass Grindhouse film, COFFY has to be the most asskicking one of all. Its my personal favorite Blaxploitation film of all time.
Pam Grier is COFFY, a sexy nurse who goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge to get back at the drug dealers who got her sister hooked on heroin. I know I know, the premise is very simple, BUT Pam Grier’s vengeful personality mixed with her natural sexiness drives this movie over the top! She goes incognito as a trashy hooker to get the two dealers who sold heroin to her little sister. In a timely fashion, Coffy lures them with her sexy voluptuous body and they take her back to their apartment. Once they are into the lovin’ mood, Coffy whips out a sawed off shotgun and blows one of the pimps heads off, EXPLOITATION STYLE! Then she takes care of the other dude by shooting him up with a lethal dose of SMACK!
Coffys not satisfied with that though. She wants to find out who the big man is behind the drug dealers around her hood. So she finds out, its a pimp named KING GEORGE (Robert Doqui). King George is a pimpin prince (check out the cheeseball pimp suit he wears in this, he makes Dolemite look tame!) Coffy goes undercover as a prositute to infiltrate his organization and take out his entourage. Theres a catfight between Coffy and a white ho in this film that is so cool. Coffy puts razor blades in her fake afro, and next thing you know, theres blood everywhere.
This film is the definition of Exploitation. It has everything, especially the over the top-cartoonish violence that just gets your adrenaline going.
This was the film that got me hooked on the Blaxploitation genre. I reccomend buying the DVD, its one of those great flicks youll wanna watch again and again.
8) 8) 8) 8) 8) out of 5 for Great Grindhouse Filmmaking
I’ll give another little review, so Vic doesn’t feel too lonely in here 
Well, I’ve been watching a lot of Kung Fu films here lately, so I’ll post about one of my newer faves.
Crippled Avengers/Return of the Five Deadly Venoms ( 1978 )
Despite the alternate title, this film is not a direct sequel to Five Deadly Venoms. It does feature all five of the original venoms, but the story has nothing to do with it.
The film begins with a group of men breaking into a temple. Once inside they find that the man who owns the temple, whom they are trying to kill, isn’t there. They do find the man’s wife and son though. So, they decide to kill them both. They do this by chopping off the woman’s legs, and the boys arms. The woman dies immediately but the son lives. The armless boy’s father arrives right after the dismemberment and kills the assassins with his “Tiger Strike” kung fu (in only three strokes as well). After this the father consoles his son by promising that he will have a blacksmith mend him Iron arms and that he will practice kung fu until he is invincible. We then skip forward a few years and see that the father has fulfilled his promises. The son now has a set of iron arms (that even shoot darts), and his kung fu skills are unmatched. Only thing is the father seems to have gone a little power mad since his son is the most powerful throughout the land. Everyone in town fears them and he uses this to his gain. Also, instead of having his son kill his opponents like a nice martial artist, he has them crippled.
So, through various events the old man cripples four innocent men, each with there own disability. One man becomes blind, one man looses his ability to hear and speak, one man looses his legs, and one man has his head so badly squeezed that he becomes an idiot. Now the four men must band together and with the help of the “Idiot” man’s master, they practice kung fu utilizing what ability’s they still have to take down the evil man and his iron armed son!
This is exactly why I love Chang Cheh’s films. The gimmick like plot devices. Five Deadly Venoms had the poisons, The Kid with the Golden Arms had the Chi Saw gang (among others), Flag of Iron had the Spearman and the Flags, Chinese Super Ninjas had those insane Ninja battles, and Crippled Avengers has the five crippleds. The gimmicks aren’t a bad thing, it’s a lot better than your average Master Killer style rip off, and they lead to some hella cool fight scenes.
My favorite of the crippled styles would be the guy with no legs. When he begins his training he has a pair of iron legs made and in one scene he kicks through a guys stomach and his intestines spill out. Just awesome! I would have to say this film is probably my second favorite film in which the Venoms team up. The first being Five Deadly Venoms of course. Still, Crippled Avengers is a damn fine flick and stands up well to most any other kung fu classics. I highly recommend it.
I take it this is not the same movie as “Crippled Masters” ? I’ve seen the trailer of that one on a special movie Night of Bad Taste, and it was simply hilarious…lots of amusingly awful trailers in the event, like “The Clones of Bruce Lee”, for instance
Nope, very, very, different Crippled Avengers takes it’s self a little more serious.
I recommend Crippled Masters too though, hillarious flick.
Those sound like some kickass Kung Fu flicks!
The kung fu genre is one I really would like to get into more. I only have a few in my library right now, mostly Bruce Lee and Sonny Chiba films. Im really looking forward to collecting the Shaw Brothers classics when they start being released on DVD this December.
Yeah, i recomend just about anything Chang Cheh made. His films are always fun, even when they’re insanely over the top.
I remember reading about the Shaw Brothers films being re-released a while back. I would kill to get Five Venoms and Master Killer on a fully restored dvd, perhaps with the original audio track too. That would rule. Because 98% of the shaw bros. films i’ve seen on dvd are completely terrible in quality.
[quote]Yeah, i recomend just about anything Chang Cheh made. His films are always fun, even when they’re insanely over the top.
I remember reading about the Shaw Brothers films being re-released a while back. I would kill to get Five Venoms and Master Killer on a fully restored dvd, perhaps with the original audio track too. That would rule. Because 98% of the shaw bros. films i’ve seen on dvd are completely terrible in quality.[/quote]
The thing thats funny about this resurgence of Shaw Bros films is, how many of them I saw as a little kid on Black Belt Theater. I probably saw a bunch of the best ones, but it was so long ago I cant really remember them. Thats why its so cool theyre finally gonna re-release the films remastered on DVD. Im pretty sure they will be releasing Five Deadly Venoms, Five Fingers of Death, One Armed Swordsman and all the best ones from the Shaws library in a really good format. What better time to start watching them again, we got Kill Bill coming out next year, so all the Shaw Bros flicks will definitely get us all primed for it.
I’m gonna be outta town for the next couple of weeks. Have a nice, happy Halloween…Oh yeah, back to topic…
TPV, If you can, try and check some of these rentals out (They’re quite easy to find at most Blockbusters, At least in my neighborhoood) They should fill you in and hopefully bring back some Black Belt theater moments 8)
Chinese Super Ninjas
Masked Avengers
Kid with the Golden Arm
The Magnificent Butcher
Bells of War
Master Killer (Starring Gordon Liu)
Shaolin & Wu Tang (Liu again)
[b]Ferocious Monk from Shaolin
Dirty Ho
Return of the one-armed boxer
Five Deadly Venoms
Wu Tang V Ninja (A fun review on this can be found at Teleport-city.com)
Duel to the Death
Hey, thanks for the info Laydback. All those sound great.
I bet my fucking ass there is tons of grindhouse movies out there without proper dvds.
would be great to have those on Rolling Thunder - damn I wished that company would wake the fuck up and release some good stuff!
just updated the Rolling Thunder page a little. A few links and reviews and stuff. I will buy a bunch of RTP DVDs next week, I think.
Pretty cool stuff, keep sending in what you know about these movies!
If you wanna learn more about the Grindhouse experience, be sure and check out the book, Sleazoid Express for the whole nine on these classic pieces of lovable trash that dominated for years at the famous theater down on 42nd street.
Most of the movies that played there are available for home viewing. But there’s still a few that are missing in action.
Examples:
Hammer of God(aka Chinese Boxer)-Have you seen this one, Pants? It’s said to be Jimmy Wang Yu’s most violent film.
Fight for your Life-The book says that this vicious flick got the most reaction from the Grindhouse crowd. According to BLUE UNDERGROUND’s site, they’ll release it soon.
And some factoids on the classics that played at the theaters:
The Streetfighter was so famous for playing there that the nickname for nickel bags of weed (“Chiba”) had originated
here.
Among the genres that get covered:Sexploitation,Giallos,revenge,blaxpo,martial arts,Slashers,cannibal,shockumentaries,etc…You name it, it gets covered. So if you’re a fan of these type of classics, don’t hesitate to pick this up for a nice little reading.
I’ve started my Blaxploitation History Month early.
So far:
Truck Turner - Loved it.
Foxy Brown - Dug it.
Black Mama, White Mama - Mildly dissapointed.
The Mack - easily the best so far. The first I’ve enjoyed on a serious level.
Shaft - Not what I was hoping for.
Coming up tonight - Coffy.