That's Exploitation!

by Patrick Bromley At a time when things are dark, I'm finding solace in the weird shit. If you've visited our site any time during ...

by Patrick Bromley

At a time when things are dark, I'm finding solace in the weird shit.

If you've visited our site any time during the last few years -- in particular during the month of June -- you probably already know that I love exploitation movies. Starting in 2013, we even began devoting an entire month to watch and celebrating them. #Junesploitation was born. Next to Scary Movie Month, it's probably my favorite time of year, created because selfishly even if no one participated I would still get to watch action and horror and kung fu movies for 30 days.

In a recent email exchange with Cait Cannon (hi, Cait!), we were talking a little about exploitation and she asked if it was something I had always been into. Truth be told, I had never really given it much thought until she asked. I've mentioned before that 2007's Grindhouse was a turning point for me because a) it actually codified a certain kind of movie of which I had an awareness but not a concrete understanding and b) the experience of seeing it in a theater (many times) was one of the best I've ever had, so I immediately went down the rabbit hole in the hopes of recapturing that feeling. But I also know that I haven't only loved exploitation movies for the last decade, because I grew up loving a certain kind of schlocky horror and action movie and was obsessed with Troma and would make it a point to watch USA Up All Night every weekend, sometimes crying quietly to myself when I fell asleep and missed the 2am feature (something young people today don't understand, what with their DVRs and their instant streaming and their time shifting and their iPods and their Timberlands and their Hypercolor and their funky bunch). I have always been drawn to exploitation movies. I just didn't know that's what they were.

During the last few weeks of 2016 and the first week or so of the new year, I've watched almost exclusively exploitation movies -- minus the occasional awards screener or movie I'm reviewing, it's been nothing but drive-in classics and grindhouse nasties. Some of the reason for this, I think, is because I'm having a bit of a rough go of it these days and want to escape into films that don't ask much of me, but rather give of themselves to offer all the stuff that's fun about movies: fast cars and sleazy sex and revenge and violence and a bunch of cool shit. Exploitation reduces cinema to its basest elements -- the elements it can quite literally exploit -- and delivers an experience of purity, of visceral thrills. Pretentious as it may sounds, there is something more honest about exploitation than most other movies.

But I think there's more to it than that, and it's something I've talked about in conversations with both Doug and Erika in recent weeks. I think I may have gotten to a point where I've seen enough movies that it takes a different kind of experience to give me a thrill. I've watched a handful of awards-bait titles and totally competent indies of late and haven't been moved in the slightest. This is not the fault of the movies; this is entirely on me. I'm a tougher sell now. Doug likened it to a person who has had so much sex that now he or she needs to be tied up or choked to finish. It's a dirty metaphor and not completely applicable to me (I have never had sex), but the comparison is apt: I can watch a sweet, gentle movie about young love that's well-directed and well-acted and feel mostly indifference, but the next night will see 1983's Julie Darling, a violent and deranged thriller in which a teenage girl visualizes herself in bed with her own father, and be blown away by it. Julie Darling gets me excited about cinema in a way that other movies don't. This might say something more about me than it does about cinema.

Many of these movies are not great. They seldom need to be. All they need to do is entertain, and the majority of them are unashamed to be entertaining. They'll offer a crazy performance or an outrageous idea of a cool, transgressive visual and it's enough to get me through the rougher patches. A movie like House at the Edge of the Park is totally repellent, but the insanity of David Hess and his never-ending death scene make it a must-see. Superchick is pretty dull, but lands in a place that helps compensate for the brainlessly episodic '70s storytelling that precedes it. Then there's something like Stephanie Rothman's Terminal Island, which is genuinely terrific throughout. It's the kind of gem that makes it worth working through a dozen other half-successful -- or entirely unsuccessful -- exploitation movies. It's the kind of movie I'll keep searching for as I continue to go further and further down the rabbit hole of exploitation. In the meantime, here are a few of the highlights of the last few weeks:

The Beach Girls (1982, dir. Bud Townsend)

There were so many teenage sex comedies released in the early '80s. I've long carried the belief that Bob Clark's Porky's was the movie that started the trend, but the movies had already been playing drive-ins since days of the "cheerleader" comedies of the 1970s. But Porky's was released in 1982, which was really the flagship year of the subgenre's mainstream popularity: in addition to Porky's there was Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Last American Virgin, Spring Fever, Homework and, of course, The Beach Girls were all released that year. How I had never seen The Beach Girls until now is a shame I will have to carry for the rest of my (admittedly numbered) days. It is gloriously stupid in every single way, violating every standard of gender and racial sensitivity we possess nowadays. It has giant floating bags of weed and campfire sing-a-longs and fucking pirates and pizza men and lots and lots of sex and/or sex-adjacent humor. This is the kind of movie where if there aren't 100 kicking-in-the-balls jokes, it feels like there are 100 kicking-in-the-balls jokes. Also, Ducky v. Ginger really should have replaced the age-old Betty v. Veronica debate that's been taking place in pop culture since the 1960s. The Beach Girls is the sort of idiot fun I enjoy way too much sometimes.

The Police Connection (1973, dir. Bert I. Gordon)

Exploitation icon and "giant monster" movie enthusiast Bert I. Gordon (Food of the Gods, Empire of the Ants) directed this oddball police procedural starring weird Chuck Conners as a guy who is disgusted by the direction society is taking (like an early iteration of Michael Douglas in Falling Down) and takes out his frustrations by blowing up anyone who wrongs him. Equally weird Neville Brand (Eaten Alive) plays the sexual deviant who could possibly identify him to the cop working the case, played by Vince Edwards (Space Raiders). A lot of this one feels like a TV movie only sleazier or more violent, but there's just enough of that '70s grit and some genuine oddness to make it its own thing. Even if I didn't enjoy the whole thing -- which I did -- the movie would be worth it just for the final two minutes.

The Unholy Rollers (1972, dir. Vernon Zimmerman)

Claudia Jennings. Nothing more needs to be said. She was a force of nature, whose every movie is worth seeing just because she is in it (most of the ones I've seen so far -- and I think I've seen most of her filmography at this point -- are really cool, which helps). That she died in a car accident at age 29 isn't just a tragedy of a life cut short, but of an exploitation icon who had so much more to give. This one exists mostly to cash in on the popularity of roller derby, but Jennings gives it the spark that she brings to everything and creates a character who doesn't give a fuck. The movie is a celebration of not giving a fuck.

Alice Goodbody (1974, dir. Tom Scheuer)

I'm not especially a fan of sexploitation movies, but here we are with the second sexploitation title on this list. I also was not aware of Colleen Brennan, who later became a famous adult film star but who here (acting under the name Sharon Kelly) is charmingly daffy was a diner waitress who is offered the chance to be an extra in a historical epic, Julius Caesar, Crowd Pleaser, by sleazy Myron Mittleman (Daniel Kauffman). As Alice continues to climb the ranks of Hollywood -- sleeping with members of the cast and crew and each time getting a bigger and bigger part -- she is also the victim of a series of accidents on set, each one pushing back the production and giving her more time to bed another crew member. Yes, it's gross, but it's also very clearly a satire of the Hollywood casting couch and done in such a strangely sweet, sex-positive way that it doesn't feel nearly as sleazy as it actually is. That's due in large part to Colleen Brennan's winning performance and in part due to the period: post free-love, progressive in terms of women's rights. Alice isn't really being taken advantage of because she's more than a willing participant -- she's the one who's really in control. I love that the film makes every new partner a weird deviant or an egomaniac or a whatever. The major laughs come at the expense of men. The movie also has a genuinely great punchline.

I'll be checking in from time to time to talk about what crazy shit I've been watching of late, and of course recommendations of your favorite or most outrageous exploitation movies are always welcome (better yet, send them right to me and I'll make sure I write them up. Bribery!). The stuff other movies wouldn't dare do. That's the stuff that makes cinema exciting. That's exploitation.