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bocce
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 4:05 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 24 May 2004 Posts: 2428
my take on "exploitation" is hollywood taking on a contemporary cultural phenomenon and making it a parody of itself thru overexposure or a completely skewed point of view...

cases in point: the vaunted, youth oriented go-go california beach scene of the just pre-mid 60's; the slick spy phenonomen of the same period (you know it's exploitive when it invades television eg. I SPY and the don adams thing) and the badass black persona emerging as a viable cultural anti hero in the early 70's after decades of step n' fetchit or sidney poitier gentility.

ANIMAL HOUSE was a virtual tribute to the teen exploitation vehicle, a parody of the parody, if you will, made by and FOR those who were still of an age to have seen their youth trivialised by such classics as GIDGET GOES HAWAIIAN or BEACH BLANKET BINGO.

AUSTEN POWERS is the hyperbolic amalgam of all that was so far fetched and yet so entertaining about the bond and flint series and even such oddballs as CASINO ROYALE or OUR MAN IN RIO.

the black thing is a bit more complicated but still operates under the same principles... to somehow make a caricature of a more complex cultural identity, homogenise it and sell it to a relatively undiscriminating audience.
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Joe Vitus
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 4:18 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston
Does anyone remember Grave of the Vampire? A vampire rapes a woman in an open grave. She raises the child (who is a vampire; she suckles him with the blood from her breast rather than the milk) who in adulthood has a confrontation with the father. As a young teen, I thought it was really cool.

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Marc
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 5:35 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 8424
here's a great source of info on exploitation films:

http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/exploitation.html


some of the earliest exploitation films were "roadshows". A guy with a projector would pull into town, rent an auditorium, and screen cheezy documentaries on childbirth, drugs, prostitution etc. All under the pretext of educating the masses. In fact, it was just an excuse to nudity (childbirth) and depraved behavior. One of the most successful of the roadshow promoters was David Friedman. I have a bunch of his "roadshow rarities" at my shop. They're pretty tame by today's standards, but back in the day (the 1940s and 50s) they were considered shocking.
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Marc
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 5:36 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 8424
Quote:
In fact, it was just an excuse to nudity


In fact, it was just an excuse to show nudity
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Marc
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 5:51 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 8424
In the 1960s, when I was just a young sicko, I would take the bus from Virginia Beach to Norfolk Va. every weekend to see horror and gore flicks.
Norfolk, a port town, had a bunch of theaters that would show adult and exploitation movies. My favorite films were made by Herschell Gordon Lewis. I would eagerly await any film from his production company, Box Office Success Films. I'd make the 50 mile round trip to see flicks like BLOOD FEAST, 2000 MANIACS, COLOR ME BLOOD RED, THE WIZARD OF GORE, JUST FOR THE HELL OF IT, THE GORE GORE GIRLS....

Seeing these films in my formative years instilled in me an appreciation for the pleasures of low-budget over-the-top movies and eventually punk rock.
I love the "in your faceness" of explitation films and the cheap thrills of loud fast rock and roll.
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Marc
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:00 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 8424
a few of my favorite exploitation flicks:

BLOOD FEAST
WILD ANGELS
THE TINGLER
PSYCHO
FASTER PUSSYCAT KILL KILL
BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS
CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST
THE TRIP
GLEN OR GLENDA
FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN (IN 3D)
MANTIS IN LACE
SUPERFLY
PSYCHOUT
MONDO HIPPIE
PINK FLAMINGOS
WILD IN THE STREETS
BONE
MANDINGO
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lady wakasa
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:02 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 5911 Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
Is PSYCHO really exploitation, though? Or has it evolved beyond that because it's a Hitchcock film?

...Or does Hitchcock just have a thread of exploitation in all his films?
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Marc
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:11 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 8424
PSYCHO had an exploitive promotional campaign: NO ONE ADMITTED AFTER THE START OF THE FILM. William Castle made a career out of similar gimmicks. Hitchcock's DIAL M FOR MURDER also had an exploitive element: 3D. Many exploitation films had a gimmick.
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sioux
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 9:04 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 802 Location: philly burbs
marc - somehow I made it the whole way through Cannibal Holocaust. Never again....my stomach still turns.

When I was pondering exploitation films, two entirely different films came to mind, Suspiria, which might be considered strictly horror, and Big Bad Mama, which was a romp of a Corman film. It does seem to be a far reaching category.
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Marc
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 9:12 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 8424
sioux,

I was going to include SUSPIRIA on my list of favorite exploitation flicks, but it is so artful, so extraordinarily shot, that I think it transcends exploitation. It is horror.
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sioux
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 9:16 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 802 Location: philly burbs
marc - it still gives me nightmares.
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Marc
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 9:22 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 8424
Quote:
marc - it still gives me nightmares.


the scene in the room filled with razor wire is one of the most shocking things ever put on film.
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sioux
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 9:27 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 802 Location: philly burbs
great - you can just come rock me to sleep now.....
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Rod
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 9:51 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 Dec 2004 Posts: 2944 Location: Lithgow, Australia
The phrase "exploitation film" reeks of a caste system, promilgated by critics and studios. Some try, in Marc's fashion, to claim it and reverse its emphasis in the punk fashion, and it becomes an emblem of anti-social cool. It's a phrase we like to attach to the low-budget, the sleazy, the films that try to sell themselves by their promises of dirty thrills of sex and violence.

But personally, I prefer to use the phrase in its original meaning, as an insult, describing films where what they're being sold as is at odds with their supposed worth and claimed intention; but the original intention of the phrase, a kind of budgetary apartheit, is bullshit; a lot exploitation films these days are big budget, from the manipulative war porn of The Patriot and Pearl Harbor, to almost all contemporary action flicks, to the tawdry arcs of real-life telemovies like Lethal Lolita and Murder in New Hampshire.

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Nancy
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 10:11 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 4607 Location: Norman, OK
Marc wrote:
I just watched two of the most deliriously cheesy Turkish films:

THE DEATHLESS DEVIL
Colour, 1973, 84m. / Directed by Yilmez Atadeniz / Starring Kunt Tulgar, Mine Mutlu, Muzaffer Tema

TARKAN VERSUS THE VIKINGS
Colour, 1971, 87m. / Directed by Mehmet Aslan / Starring Kartal Tibet, Eva Bender, Seher Seniz


Oh, Marc, thanks for posting these titles. I've seen Turkish Star Wars and Turkish Star Trek and have been wanting to see more.

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