If
you weren't lucky enough to frequent a certain type of picture-house
of the 60s, 70s and early 80s, you've lost your chance to experience
the true Grindhouse effect in all its filthy glory.
The
next best thing is the Grindhouse Trailer Classics collection!
This
feature-length collection of cinematic previews has it all - nudity,
ninjas, violence, sexual deviancy, samurai, sadism, exploitation,
drug-use and cult favourite, John Saxon! As you'd expect (perhaps
even demand), dirt, scratches and clicks blight the video and audio,
enhancing the sense of decay and depravity. The colours are as garish
and vibrant as they ever were. And the majority are voiced by the
instantly recognisable basso profundo of Paul Frees.
Leading
your clammy, shaking hand in to this wonderful, lost world is critic
and cult-film expert Kim Newman. A gloriously enthusiastic and
informed voice in the obscure and esoteric, even Newman is a neophyte
to some of the weirdness here. Additionally, his passionate
explanation of Grindhouse can be found in the extras section of the
disc to help define the experience for the uninitiated.
Nucleus
Films have curated a museum of the very strangest previews you will
perhaps ever see. To find fault with these trailers on grounds of
quality or content would seem a little churlish. These films are no
less valid for not being “art-house” or “worthy”. In a lot of
these trailers many you'll find a subversive aesthetic missing from
most contemporary cinema. In an age when film-makers were pushing
boundaries of acceptability, a cinema of fun and excess grew and
flourished.
I
find an amateurish but passionate film more interesting than a
technically perfect, safe piece. What isn't exciting about beautiful
Cannibal Girls pick-axing victims to the sound of bells ringing to
warn patrons of excessive destruction and eroticism? You'd peek
wouldn't you? Superchick may be something of a male fantasy, but
isn't an ass-kicking woman more invigorating than a passive,
screaming victim? Aren't budgetary constraints the mother of
invention? Dogs trained to rob banks? I fear some of these trailers
may be superior to the films they are selling!
Admittedly
there are some troublesome trailers here for modern sensibilities. A
film about the first black CIA recruit tackles racial politics of the
time whilst still portraying other black characters as hoods and
pimps. Nazi Love Camp 27 risks treating the holocaust as sexual
fantasy, though seems to have an admirable budget compared to other
films here. And rape seems to be a recurrent narrative device, always
used as a prime motivator for revenge and violence on the
perpetrator. Whether this in any way excuses its use is up to the
viewer.
Grindhouse
Trailer Classics 3 is released on December 5th through
Nucleus Films. Personal favourites include Linda (possession, nudity,
crazy make-up and crabs!), Black Mama/White Mama (inter-racial
revenge violence meted out by some of the feistiest women you'll ever
meet) and the very curious The Doberman Gang. This extensive and
impressive assortment achieves the original intent: to titillate and
excite the viewer into seeking out the full feature. Treat yourself
to a trip back in celluloid time to a cinema filled to bursting with
degradation, sleaze, deviancy and excess. I guarantee there are
things here you simply won't experience anywhere else. And that can't
be a bad thing.
