GRINDHOUSE RETROSPECTIVE
Temples of Perversion
Temples of Perversion
It only took a postmodern Tarantino & Rodriguez b-movie double bill, and the underground movies of the 60s and 70s as well as the sleaze theaters that featured them suddenly seem to be on everyone’s lips. The 13th Athens International Film Festival -Opening Nights- members of the programming department get their hands dirty and offer you a selection of the best (or the worst) of grindhouse classics.
Contrary to popular belief, ‘Grindhouse’ does not refer to a film genre, but rather to a peculiar brand of movie theaters that flourished in the US from the 60s to the mid-80s specializing in the non-stop ‘grinding out’ of exploitation films. Tucked away in the heart of the inner cities, housed in the sorry remains of 30s and 40s movie palaces, grindhouses catered to the needs of a very particular clientele. From dawn till dusk hookers, junkies, pimps, bums, peeping Toms and lonely men with dubious tastes would be lining up to buy cheap tickets and enter the houses of sleaze to carry out fishy business dealings or to find a safe outlet from oppressive family life, away from prying eyes.
For almost 24 hours a day grindhouses scooped out ladleful upon ladleful of pure, uncontaminated sleazefest: shocking pseudo-documentaries and mock snuffs, bare-breasted lovelies and harcore porn, cannibal feasts set in exotic locations, women’s prison revolts and Nazi S&M parties, zombies and bloodsucking lesbians, spaghetti westerns and orgiastic nuns, sadistic gang bangers and psychedelic trips ? nothing was too much or to extreme for the grindhouse aficionado.
The main aim of blaxploitation, sexploitation, nunsploitation, dyxploitation and all other variants of exploitation films was to deliver a blow to social conventions, taboos and all sense of good taste - in one word, to provoke. Ultraviolence, sex and horror (in any combination) were the necessary ingredients of any self-respecting grindhouse hit.
By the early 80s grindhouses had brought to the public some of the most extreme, violent and shocking movies in film history. But nothing lasts forever, and grindhouses, having fulfilled their iconoclastic purpose, gradually came to an end. As with the lucrative porno industry, the advent of the video age signaled the demise of grindhouse. However, sleazemeisters found an easy home in video continuing to corrupt willing younger generations from the privacy of their homes; thus grindhouse evolved into the infamous video nasties of the 80s and was subjected to strict censorship. The restoration of city centers was the last nail in the coffin: the reconstruction of Times Square saw the crème de la crème of grindhouses pulled down in clouds of dust, while the LA authorities, perhaps in a gesture of atonement, decided to convert the houses of abomination into houses of the Lord. However grindhouse influences remained a strong undercurrent in mainstream cinema; today, only contemporary homages like Deathproof and Planet Terror are left to remind us of grindhouse one-time glory.
This year, the 13th Athens International Film Festival gets down and dirty, and brings you a selection of classic grindhouse abominations including Rugero Deodato’s "Cannibal Holocaust", Russ Meyer’s "Supervixens", Guerdon Trueblood’s "The Candy Snatchers", Jack Hill’s "Coffy" and Norifumi Suzuki’s "School of the Holy Beast".
Contrary to popular belief, ‘Grindhouse’ does not refer to a film genre, but rather to a peculiar brand of movie theaters that flourished in the US from the 60s to the mid-80s specializing in the non-stop ‘grinding out’ of exploitation films. Tucked away in the heart of the inner cities, housed in the sorry remains of 30s and 40s movie palaces, grindhouses catered to the needs of a very particular clientele. From dawn till dusk hookers, junkies, pimps, bums, peeping Toms and lonely men with dubious tastes would be lining up to buy cheap tickets and enter the houses of sleaze to carry out fishy business dealings or to find a safe outlet from oppressive family life, away from prying eyes.
For almost 24 hours a day grindhouses scooped out ladleful upon ladleful of pure, uncontaminated sleazefest: shocking pseudo-documentaries and mock snuffs, bare-breasted lovelies and harcore porn, cannibal feasts set in exotic locations, women’s prison revolts and Nazi S&M parties, zombies and bloodsucking lesbians, spaghetti westerns and orgiastic nuns, sadistic gang bangers and psychedelic trips ? nothing was too much or to extreme for the grindhouse aficionado.
The main aim of blaxploitation, sexploitation, nunsploitation, dyxploitation and all other variants of exploitation films was to deliver a blow to social conventions, taboos and all sense of good taste - in one word, to provoke. Ultraviolence, sex and horror (in any combination) were the necessary ingredients of any self-respecting grindhouse hit.
By the early 80s grindhouses had brought to the public some of the most extreme, violent and shocking movies in film history. But nothing lasts forever, and grindhouses, having fulfilled their iconoclastic purpose, gradually came to an end. As with the lucrative porno industry, the advent of the video age signaled the demise of grindhouse. However, sleazemeisters found an easy home in video continuing to corrupt willing younger generations from the privacy of their homes; thus grindhouse evolved into the infamous video nasties of the 80s and was subjected to strict censorship. The restoration of city centers was the last nail in the coffin: the reconstruction of Times Square saw the crème de la crème of grindhouses pulled down in clouds of dust, while the LA authorities, perhaps in a gesture of atonement, decided to convert the houses of abomination into houses of the Lord. However grindhouse influences remained a strong undercurrent in mainstream cinema; today, only contemporary homages like Deathproof and Planet Terror are left to remind us of grindhouse one-time glory. This year, the 13th Athens International Film Festival gets down and dirty, and brings you a selection of classic grindhouse abominations including Rugero Deodato’s "Cannibal Holocaust", Russ Meyer’s "Supervixens", Guerdon Trueblood’s "The Candy Snatchers", Jack Hill’s "Coffy" and Norifumi Suzuki’s "School of the Holy Beast".
