American Grindhouse (2010)

Documentary on the history of American Grindhouse cinema. First, what is grindhouse? Well its actually a little hard to define, as the genera is amorphous, changes over time, and includes so many sub-genera's. Originally the term grindhouse was a reference to burlesque shows and theater, but the term has come to refer mostly to low budget exploitation films. What's an exploitation film? Well an exploitation film is just that, a film that attempts to gain financel success (however limited) by exploiting something, particularly something lurid or niche. Hence a grindhouse film can cover anything from porn, to horror, to Kong Fu. As of late a fair amount of tribute films to the genera have been made, such as Hobo With A Shotgun and Drive Angry. Anyway if its out of the main stream and the Hayes Office would have frowned on it, its probably a grindhouse movie. The documentary covers grindhouse film making from the silent days up to say the early 1980's, when the rise of cable networks and home video killed off most of the remaining grindhouse theaters in the country. This is a survey course film, you get introduced to a lot of significant grindhouse films and its array of talking heads contains many of the 'big names' from the genera, a surprising amount of whom would go on to some success in more mainstream Hollywood. Anyway I enjoyed it, but be aware its not family viewing, nor should it be. Interesting. **1/2

See also: Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream (2005)