An even more explicit (in more ways than one) exploitation update on THE SEARCHERS than Paul Schrader’s HARDCORE, sending a Montana cowboy behind enemy lines in search of his sister, a runaway turned to the Skid Row sex trade. Where TRACKDOWN differs from Schrader’s strange bit of sleaze autobiography is it follows poor Betsey as she’s used and abused by pimps and johns alike, before falling under the care of a high class madam (Anne Archer!) who still can’t keep…
Sincerely insane (not to mention insanely sincere) South Philly DEATH WISH companion piece from Dino De Laurentiis and Lewis Teague (sandwiched in-between ALLIGATOR and CUJO) wherein Tom Skerritt plays an Italian grocery store owner (I know, right?) fed up with certain elements infecting his neighborhood. After his mom is dismembered in a robbery (I KNOW, RIGHT?), he screams profanity at a bunch of folks, rounds up a gang of the toughest dudes in Fishtown, and starts patrolling the streets themselves,…
While this has rightfully garnered a reputation as a right wing, gun nut power fantasy ("propaganda for private gun ownership and a call to vigilante justice", according to Roger Ebert), it's fascinating to engage with just why this became fifty-three-year old Charles Bronson's biggest hit in America, after toiling away in bit parts before becoming a major star in Europe working with the likes of Alain Delon and Terence Young. Paul Kersey is easily Bronson's most recognized role, arguably because…
A feature length Wikipedia entry that never really makes a case for why you should watch Joe D’Amato’s movies, instead acting as a eulogy of sorts for a dude who was obviously beloved by everyone who worked with him (even if he hated making porn and Rocco Siffredi is introduced like some sort of big dicked Dracula at the end). Couldn’t help but be reminded of the Tony Jack gag from THE IRISHMAN, as Joe simply faded away from the world, leaving nothing but friends and a lot of cinematic misdeeds behind after he ed.
[Source: Severin Films Blu-ray]
Slightly insidious Times Square sleaze melodrama wherein a corrupt reporter (Christopher Reeve, here the anti-Superman) invents a sadistic pimp in order to pen a condescending "lifestyle" story and keep his job at a legacy magazine (that's definitely, 100%, totally not The New Yorker). Where he slips up? The details run too close to flesh peddler "Fast Black" (a bloodthirsty, Yoo-hoo swilling Morgan Freeman) who's currently on trial for accidentally killing one of his girls' Johns. Fits with the rest of…
“The only right a racist has is to eat shit!”
Vile Mexican true crime horror transmission that’s jam packed with one ugly incident after another. Fascist tough guy telenovela cops, KKK rapists, shotgun shoot outs, suffering child brides, extended torture sequences, drunken psycho guitar sessions, and a maniacal cult leader named “Dave”. Makes Rene Cardona look like Orson Welles by comparison, yet is such a thrillingly pure work of trash exploitation that you come to ire it’s poquito peso production…
Skeevy, humid rednecksploitation cousin to POOR PRETTY EDDIE, where an unwell woman finds an ally in a deranged backwoods inkeeper who feeds his (super noisy) pigs human flesh. Really only for true heads who’ve seen everything, yet still inventively directed enough to warrant crossover appeal with wannabe nu-grindhouse students/auteurs. A true oddity.
Sunshine State splatter that's really a rumpled police procedural/divorce melodrama with a gooey creature feature about a voodoo god lopping off domes and collecting souls happening in the background. Shockingly well directed - sporting crane shots, handheld follows, and plenty of bleached, shadowy Miami location work - and featuring a heartfelt central partnership between former Clint Eastwood hippie, Kay Lenz, and Florida exploitation lifer, Wayne Crawford, that you actually get invested in as they dig deeper and deeper into this…
Gnarly, unpleasant sleazecore that's closer to a West Coast MANIAC/HENRY or VICE SQUAD than anything else; sweaty, grimy, and populated almost entirely by concrete urchins and death merchants that you really want to get away from. Another one of those low rent exploitation pictures you can practically smell.
Lost and found '70s Blaxploitation outsider DIY art that's in the tradition of DOLEMITE - one specific dude spilling his brain onto the screen without a budget or filter - yet becomes an ego trip that has more in common with Duke Mitchell's MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE or unfinished weirdo masterwork GONE WITH THE POPE. Where Mitchell was crudely responding via cinematic GODFATHER diss tracks that represented the true "warts and all" Italian American experience (in all its unhinged, racist, misogynistic…