I don’t put forth much effort to hide the fact that I love genre films. I do this for several reasons, though primarily it is simply to weed out those who do not like them. I have no problem personally if someone doesn’t enjoy them, far too frequently genre films rarely attempt to cross over and gain new fans, but if someone doesn’t like genre fare I immediately know whether or not we will have somewhat comparable taste in movies. Genre films are the anchor in which all of my film interests are held together by, and I am rather proud of that.

Now my particular kryptonite of which I am powerless to resist are science fiction films. While Star Wars is probably primarily to blame, their certainly were plenty of other science fiction franchises indoctrinating my toddler brain. Since that time, if your film had a hint of futuristic technology, machines dealing with their own developing Artificial Intelligence, or even alien populated cantina bands I have probably already watched the film at one point or another.

Being a child of the 1980’s meant I was able to gorge on these types of films on a weekly basis, as the only genre seemingly more numerous was the one involving one or both of the two Coreys. But as I watched these movies, it became increasingly easy to forget just which movies I had watched as I rocketed through the genre. And all too often, I would watch a film I loved and then lose it to antiquity because I wasn’t making any effort to record which films I loved and which I didn’t.

This is the tale of one such relic, lost to the celluloid aisles, seemingly, forevermore.

(more…)

One of the real pleasures of running this site is it provides an easy excuse for me to continue searching out Ozploitation films. Ozploitation (a shorter, cooler term for the huge amount of films that fall under the umbrella of Australian exploitation cinema) is unique among exploitation film making for two primary reasons. The first is the sheer length of time in which Ozploitation were popular.

Starting in 1971, when Australia first introduced the R ratings, Ozploitation films quickly caught on and were made well into the 80’s. And while the “genre” took a brief rest during the 90’s, in recent years Ozploitation has once again reared its stylistic head to become one of the driving forces behind current Australian film making. While exploitation cinema was big for a time in the 70’s in the US, and various countries have dipped in the New Wave pool, that Australia has produced nearly two and a half decades of exploitation cinema is impressive to say the least. But what might be even more impressive, and surprising considering the quality, is that barely anyone has noticed. Which brings me to my second point.

Barely anyone knows anything about these films. Oh sure everyone and their mother knows Paul Hogan, Mel Gibson and Nicole Kidman, all three of which got their careers jump started by Ozploitation films. Directors like Peter Weir and Bruce Beresford have dabbled in the American mainstream with success, but outside of that small lot the exposure of Australian film making is surprisingly light. Let alone heralded.

Oh sure the occasional Mad Max film would catch the general publics eye, but compared to the now iconic look of blaxploitation films, Ozploitation isn’t even given a first thought, let alone a second. The same can be said when Ozploitation is compared to other 70’s exploitation genres like women revenge flicks, or women in prison flicks, or Nazi women prison revenge flicks. Or heaven forbid these Australian films had to go up against Mexican midget wrestling pictures. They simply weren’t even a blip on the public’s radar, which is a low down dirty shame.

As I’ve been researching Ozploitation films I frequently ran across the usual band of lauded suspects; George Miller, Philippe Mora and Brian Trenchard-Smith are all frequently mentioned as the best known filmmakers operating within the genre. But time and again I ran across a name who, despite his relative lack of notoriety, was routinely referred to as the best filmmaker in the genre. This man was considered so talented that he was even frequently compared to his more “artistic” contemporaries like Weir and Fred Schepisi. He is even referred to as the Australian Alfred Hitchcock, due in no small part to this director’s obsession with Hitchcock films, though for the purpose of this review I shall call him a poor man’s Alfred Hitchcock. The director’s name? Richard Franklin.

(more…)

The young people of today may not realize just how scary the word Satanist used to be here in the United States. You see, being a Puritanical society most people had a fear of God. But if there was one thing that could scare them even more then God it was Satan. And thanks to Hollywood hits like The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby those fears were suddenly rationalized in celluloid.

Yes those kindly old neighbors are trying to stealthily allow Satan to rape you in your sleep. And yes, the reason your daughter has started cursing and crab walking everywhere is because she is possessed by a demon. And yes, that scary blind man constantly sitting in that chair in the attic is guarding the gateway to Hell.
(more…)