Machete Maidens Unleashed!

source: Machete Maidens Unleashed!

Forget the modern movie with the name Grindhouse on it - this is the inspiration - or at least one of the big names in this genre - Roger Corman and just some of his awesome films - transitiioning from the "Drive in" theater and "Monster Movie" of the 50s/early 60s into the "Exploitation/Grindhouse" era later in the 60s into the 70s! Despite it's enshrinement of trashiness I give this a "Ten" for just that - it covers history of a big part of Corman's career, a movement in film history and a bit of American history - such as the US backed Marcos regime. I won't put a 'spoilers' notice because the title and description of the film tell what it is about - and it's the experience of watching that is the fun. On that note - this movie is perhaps NSFW - W being "Wallet"... You'll want to look up and watch - and might end up purchasing - a LOT of obscure and so bad they are good films. I'm particular to the Women in Prison ones such as "Women in Cages" but I now want to look up one film about Bat-people and another with a Tattoo like midget being a super-spy... It has lots of bits of film, interviews with the actors, scenes from the filiming, the history - it is a real fun time to watch. Only gripe is the DVD seems to force watching a ton of promos for other things the distribution company is pushing out.

I watched a couple of women-in-prison movies the other day. Both were made in the Philippines. This documentary goes behind the scenes to show why and how Roger Corman type films were made there. Cheap actors and lax safety rules made for an ideal situation for making low budget films. Blood, breasts, and beasts were the staples of films like Mad Doctor of Blood Island, Beast of Blood, The Big Doll House, Women in Cages, Black mama, White Mama,The Big Bird Cage, and the classic Vampire Hookers. We see stars like Pam Grier learning the craft in these cheap films. Part of a new wave of women as action heroes, which was new to moviegoers. The documentary was invaluable in understanding the background of filmmaking.

Taking us on a deliriously wild, rowdy, and often enjoyable whirlwind journey of the extremely crazy and colorful history of Filipino exploitation cinema, this energetic documentary covers everything from war films to women-in-prison sleaze to blaxploitation fare and martial arts entries, with fun detours on John Ashley, Weng Weng, Cleopatra Wang, and the movies of such local talent as Eddie Romero, Cirio H. Santiago, and Bobby Suarez along with the expected plethora of tasty gratuitous distaff nudity (done in the name of advancing feminism and female empowerment in motion pictures -- yeah, right!), excessive graphic violence, mucho explosions (the flagrant disregard for safety is quite openly addressed), and cheesy (far from) special effects. Various actresses who include Laurie Rose, Jayne Kennedy, Margaret Markov, Celeste Yarnall, Andrea Cagan, Marlene Clark, Marrie Lee, and Gloria Hendry honestly discuss working under the most deplorable conditions imaginable in a strife-ridden country under martial law and ruled by a fascist dictatorship (ironically, several B-flicks short there are about revolutionaries attempting to overthrow said dictatorship and were made with the full cooperation of the oppressive government!), New World trailer editors Allan Arkush and Joe Dante reveal the cunning trick of inserting an exploding helicopter into a trailer in order to make a shoddy film look and seem better than it really was, R. Lee Ermey openly admits that "Apocalypse Now" is a grossly inaccurate depiction of Vietnam, Roger Corman confesses he made movies in the Philippines because it was cheap to crank 'em out there, and we hear about the peak of this trend in the 70's and its eventual inevitable decline in the 80's. Of course, we've got such grindhouse luminaries as Jack Hill, Sid Haig, Brian Trenchard-Smith, and Chris Mitchum on board to relate delightfully loopy anecdotes on their misadventures toiling away on movies in this wacky third world country, plus noted cinematic historians like Pete Tombs and Danny Peary throw in their cents in for good measure. Jamie Blanks' funky-grooving score hits the right-on happening spot while the numerous clips from outrageously trashy exploitation movies are a total schlocky hoot to watch. Essential viewing.

After being left with an almost endless "must watch" list from watching Mark Hartley's fantastic doc about the Ozploitation film industry called Not Quite Hollywood,I was surprise to discover that a follow-up had been made about the Philippines film industry. The outline of the film: The documentary takes a look at the huge number of American and Australian B (and in Apocalypse Now's case A) movie film productions, that headed straight to the Philippines and made full use of the stunning locations and the super cheap labour (about $5 a day!.)At the same time,whilst all of the movie cameras were rolling,Ferdinand Marcos declared that the country was to enter martial law. View on the film: Although the opening of the film suggests that the doc is going to take a look at the Australian,US and Philippine films made during the era,I was sad to see,that with the exception of the always interesting Brian Trenchard-Smith, Ozploitation seems to have been completely left behind,so that the doc can instead focus on the US and Philippine film productions.Luckally the films that director Mark Hartley decided to focus turned out to some tremendous choices.For the first half,the film mainly focuses on the production of Blaxploitation movies,which along with allowing to show a number of the beautiful looking actresses being partly naked,also allows Hartley to show a number of thrilling action scenes that will have you rushing to grab a pen and paper right away.As the doc takes its focus from looking at "international" productions to mainly looking at the "local" Philippines productions,I feel that whilst this section of the doc offers a number of terrific production stories, (with the one about actor Weng Weng being a particularly fun and touching section)I feel that Hartley struggles to connect the movie productions and the social/political turmoil in the Philippines effect on the Philippine film industry in the same way that he had smartly done in Not Quite Hollywood.

A fast moving odyssey into the subterranean world of the rarely explored province of Filipino genre filmmaking. I love horror films and exploitation films and consider myself both a critic and historian (having now reviewed over 2000 films and written numerous articles). Yet, I must confess, I was not aware of the hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of films that were made in the Philippines. I knew about some of them, of course, but did not know just how huge the output was. Wow! This is one of the best documentaries I have ever seen on exploitation films (and I have seen my share). John Landis never disappoints, and some unusual suspects show up, too. R. Lee Ermey? Who knew?

This film is a documentary that celebrates trash cinema--specifically, the terribly cheesy American films made in the Philippines in the 60s and early 70s. Why did they go to this country? Simple--it was dirt cheap! So, cheap film makers like Roger Corman and Eddie Romero went there to create tons of terrible films--and the filmmakers knew it was going to be bad. There was no pretense--the films featured silly monsters, women in prison and the like. And, the films had tons of action, violence and boobies. Ultimately, however, there actually was a GOOD movie made there ("Apocalypse Now") and soon after this, the industry came to a halt due to violence and revolution...and ultimately the fall of the Marcos regime. So is all this worth seeing and celebrating? Well, it depends on you. If you occasionally LIKE to see a terrible film (such as "Black Mama, White Mama"), then you'll like seeing the documentary (that's me!). You'll relive trashy but fun films or get ideas for movies to rent (though only about half the ones mentioned in the film are available from Netflix). But, if you are sane, you'll probably just wonder why anyone would want to remember these terrible films! Overall, however, the film is worth seeing if you are the type who can appreciate it--and I sure did. Just beware...the film is violent and infused with breasts!

This documentary with it's (deliberately?) misleading title, gives viewers a brief overview of the Filipino cult cinema of the sixties, seventies and eighties. In a seemingly endless string of fragmented interviews (some of the edits so short that the subject's title is flashed for a fleeting moment), the film tries to draw an overview of this period of American/Filipino co-productions. Archival footage is interspersed here and there, and occasionally we are given context. Is it interesting? Yes, but as much as it is frustrating. For you will certainly find that the film never settles down from its opening moments. The pace of the film is that of one tempo, as if the editor was worried that we might lose interest, or as if the visual information was paramount and the factual information (something I'm more interested in than anecdotal) was a mere triviality. You will be bombarded with cuts and clips and cues for the duration of the film - it's an editing style borne from the free-to-air TV realm that transposes to the cinema with a terrible effect. Also, the relentless funk soundtrack (the staple to the C-Grade Grindhouse films) undermined the interviewees' comments, robbing them of any memorable moment and washing them altogether with the same colour. I can't help but relate the style of this documentary with American style 20-to-1 type shows, where the interviewees are there to provide colour to a proposed topic, not to provide any real insight. This is the films worst crime, for Filipino film-makers we are shown are outnumbered five-to-one by the Americans, yet the tiny grabs we are given with these eccentric characters were far more interesting and exotic. This film belongs on a commercial or pay TV network, but the limited audience and scope of the film will probably condemn it to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's schedule sometime in the near future. Wait for it then, for the cinema gives little to this difficult documentary.

I haven't seen the (as many say) superior "Not quite Hollywood" yet. But this documentary on another "movies on the cheap" documentary is more than watchable. The inclusion of some directors, who either only like sleaze or also have done those type of movies, is very welcome. John Landis in particular was funny as ever (though I heard complaints from other viewers, that he was "too negative" in their opinion), as are all the other directors. I also have to admit, that I haven't seen most of the movies on display here. And even if you are a fan, you have to admit that some of them are more than cheap ;o) Still nice to watch and enjoyable enough

This is a very entertaining look at a specific time and place in the history of exploitation film-making. It documents the rather strange scenario where the Philippines became a hotbed of psychotronic cinema production between the 60's and early 80's. While I haven't seen more than two or three films that were made under these conditions, it didn't stop the film from being interesting and entertaining. In fact, like many similar documentaries Machete Maidens Unleashed! is most probably a lot more enjoyable than the films it features. Instead we get many, many clips from these crazy films, so it's difficult to get bored. The films themselves range from the schlock horror of the 60's, via the women-in-prison flicks of the 70's to the martial arts action films of the 80's. It takes the form of the talking heads format where many of the participants tell us about their experiences working in the field. And perhaps unsurprisingly very different rules applied in the Philippines. There's a lot of humour in the presentation. No one is under any illusions about the seriousness of the movies, yet you will no doubt come away from this and have two or three new films you want to seek out. And I suppose with all that in mind, Machete Maidens Unleashed! has done its job.