Cult and Exploitation Trash.

[Valeyard]

There's no better timepiece than cult movies. They capture the era they were made better than a lot of other types of movies, I think. Let's talk about trash, be it morally bankrupt or under the radar, or both.

We had a conversation in chat the other day about Pam Grier. Coffy is the shit. I'll always have a measure of love for the Bird Birdcage, though. As fun to watch as she is attractive.

 

[Lazgistics Supervisor]

I'm in agreement with the first paragraph. Cult and exploitation movies are usually made with making a quick buck in mind, spot course they reflect their time periods better than more timeless films.

Gotta show some love to Andy Sidaris. He knew what his audience wanted even better than Lloyd Kaufman.

 

[Valeyard]

Herschell Gordon Lewis ftw.

 

[CookieMueller]

"Morally bankrupt" eh? Clearly (if you know where my name comes from) I'm a John Waters fan. Female Trouble is one of my top ten favorite movies of all time. His later stuff is mainstream but his early shit is pure trash. I love it.

 

[KingPK]

I have way too many exploitation trailer collections than I should but I just can't find myself actually watching these movies all the way through. I'll just appreciate them through MST3K, Rifftrax and Best of the Worst.

 

[Valeyard]

John Waters is the answer to any question, really.

I have way too many exploitation trailer collections than I should but I just can't find myself actually watching these movies all the way through. I'll just appreciate them through MST3K, Rifftrax and Best of the Worst.

A of times I have to go in relatively cold, because at least then I know something's going to surprise me. But then there's stuff where I just NEED to see it because it sounds so fucking weird. The Sinful Dwarf, for instance. That title immediately had my interest.

 

[strummer]

Never realized Divine died a week after the release of Hair Spray (while shooting an ep. of Married with Children). That's like... really damn sad

 

[CookieMueller]

Divine was, for sure, about to become a mainstream success. I wonder how big he could have gotten. It predates RuPaul's success by a few years. Divine did a lot of things - taking acting roles as man and a woman as well as singing and a fun stage show that mixed comedy with music. It's an amazing life story with a sad ending.

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

Divine was supposed to be cast as the woman in the dream on the airplane at the start of Freddy's Dead. There were a lot of crew members who worked on John Waters movies working on the picture to help keep costs down.

 

[CookieMueller]

Ah, that explains why I saw the son of a Dreamlander listed as the propmaster of Freddy's Dead. And don't ask how I know/retained this information.

 

[Valeyard]

I actually remember that and feeling let down it wasn't just a straight up Waters' Nightmare movie.

 

[Valeyard]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0Q7Mq8OXaM

I was digging this fuck outta.

 

[Valeyard]

One day I might be able to watch more than seven minutes of August Underground. That's the only series that I don't fun or funny out all these things

 

[Valeyard]

Anyone accidentally have more than one copy of something? Thanks to public domain box sets I get given, plus MST3K, I think I have at least five copies of the Killer Shrews. Feelings are mixed.

 

[Valeyard]

Race With the Devil or Road Games?

 

[Super Leather]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0kp4QfNlF8
I'm going to enter Robert Altman's obscure surrealist dark comedy Brewster McCloud into the discussion here. I don't want to reveal too much of the story, but Bud Cort (from Harold & Maude) plays a weird loner kid who lives in the Houston Astrodome and has been working on building a pair of wings that will allow him to fly. Shelley Duvall makes her film debut as the love interest who causes Brewster's downfall. This was supposedly Altman's favorite and it is as bizarre as one would expect from such a film. Good example of a cult film reflecting the time period too; I feel like it is necessary to have a good understanding of what late '60s/early '70s American culture was like to appreciate Brewster McCloud.

 

[Super Leather]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4G7jwVJRnc

Strait-Jacket is low-budget drive-in fare from 1964. Saw it on TV one afternoon over 30 years ago and it freaked me out. I downloaded and watched it for the first time since then a while back and found it thoroughly enjoyable. Directed by William Castle of the original House on Haunted Hill and 13 Ghosts. Written by Psycho's Robert Bloch. Joan Crawford masticates the scenery and other cast members include Leif Erickson, George Kennedy, and a young Lee Majors.

 

[Valeyard]

I remember seeing Brewster McCloud on TCM Underground a long time ago. I should revisit it. Advise everyone to watch TCM Underground, anyway, if it's still around. Good primer for a lot of things cult and horror.

I'll watch anything William Castle. Throw in Joan Crawford and Lee Majors and I'm painfully down.

 

[Valeyard]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CULMu2qt6qQ

It isn't even that good. I feel misled.

 

[Valeyard]

The original Last House on the Left is one of the very few movies to really bother me. I think it's the radical tonal shifts that fuck with my brain, making the fucked up parts more fucked up. Still, though. I need to shower after watching it.

 

[Valeyard]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjQP_eaFVuU

I don't know what I was expecting. I hadn't actually seen the trailer before now (have seen the movie), but holy shit. Masterful.

Movie itself is everything you expect, with the day-for-nights and Count Freddie Mercury and all the garbage you can make for probably $500. The only issue --real actual issue-- I have is that it feels like it completely exploits a visibly impaired and near-death Lon Chaney Jr (in his last movie). Maybe they were trying for some "Ed Wood doing favors for Bela Lugosi" thing, but it's fucked up and feels really wrong watching him just waste away, an icon like him.

 

[Valeyard]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7eUWh9sI7k

Oh yes.

 

[Valeyard]

The weird epidemic of movies trying to be cult movies has to stop. It doesn't work when you're actively trying to do it, movies just fall into it. I can appreciate the intent, to a degree, but it's so forced. Impetus for this is how, while I enjoyed Hobo With a Shotgun, it was absolutely trying too hard to be one of those movies.

Unrelated but I got a friend of mine to watch Salo on a long flight from SF to St. Louis and they haven't spoken to me since. Personal sleaze victory.

 

[Valeyard]

I love Freaks the more I see it. The "One of us!" dinner is one of the most iconic movie moments to me. I'm a big proponent of the crueler villains getting the exact punishment and ending they have coming (a MAJOR problem a lot of these movies have, to say nothing of "real" movies, for lack of a better term), fucked up as Freaks gets. 9/10 on the Ramsay Bolton revenge scale.

 

[Valeyard]

The original Last House on the Left is one of the very few movies to really bother me. I think it's the radical tonal shifts that fuck with my brain, making the fucked up parts more fucked up. Still, though. I need to shower after watching it.

I've got this cunning plan to watch this sooner than later because it isn't like I'm able to do a lot more, but I figure it's something to write about somewhere.

It also has one of the best trailers ever, in my opinion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W9KPhmYYtg

 

[909]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYRE_cqeEuM

 

[Valeyard]

Oh shit. That's the stuff dreams are made of. All that and Peter fucking Cushing in a Hammer movie.Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

 

[Lazgistics Supervisor]

The weird epidemic of movies trying to be cult movies has to stop. It doesn't work when you're actively trying to do it, movies just fall into it. I can appreciate the intent, to a degree, but it's so forced. Impetus for this is how, while I enjoyed Hobo With a Shotgun, it was absolutely trying too hard to be one of those movies.

I both agree and don't. Most of what we get is Sharknado crap, but Hobo With a Shotgun is such perfect grindhouse pastiche that I can't say a bad word about it. Also, Turbo Kid would fall under this umbrella, and that's one of the most routinely entertaining movies I've seen in years.

Unrelated but I got a friend of mine to watch Salo on a long flight from SF to St. Louis and they haven't spoken to me since. Personal sleaze victory.

You BASTARD.

 

[Valeyard]

I really like Hobo With a Shotgun, but it just tries way too hard in just enough ways. I think a big problem I have --and it's just a product of the times more than anything-- is that it's just too well made for what it's going for. It just feels too modern from a film-making sense. I'd make the leap to loving it if it wasn't made in glorious HD and surround sound and all that. I don't hate it, I like it a great deal. It's hard to explain, but it seems like it's made more to capture a modern post-Tarantino audience than to make money by being what it really is. That's a horrible explanation, but it just feels really off.

Salo Friend still isn't talking to me. All I did was make a suggestion. Criterion Release! They're never wrong!

 

[NoCalMike]

Does The Greasy Strangler fall into exploitation?