One of my favourite documentaries of last year was easily "Not Quite Hollywood", which looked at the little known exploitation sub-genre known simply as Ozploitation, which director Mark Hartley proved to clearly be a huge fan of, as his documentary not only looked at the random and frequently insane films which made up the genre, but clearly showed a love for these largly forgotten movies, while in turn inspiring me to run the "Ozploitation Season" here on the blog and starting what has since been an on going love for exploitation films of our Aussie cousins.
Now he is back and once again turning his attention to another obsure aspect of cinema history, with the little known Filipino genre films of the 70's and 80's, with his latest documentary "Machete Maidens: Unleashed".
The Philippines was in the 70's and 80's the ultimate playground for exploitation film makers, thanks largely to cheap labour, non existant health and safety aswell as exotic locations all in one handy location, while the films which came out of these shoots were nothing short of memorable from monsters and jungle prisons, to blaxploitation and kung fu hybrids, as Hartley has once again raided the archives to find the most random and obscure films he can, to truly provide another indepth look into yet another aspect of the obscure cinema he clearly adores .
Once more Hartley has assembled a great list of interviewees once again including Judy Brown (The Big Doll House), Marlene Clark (Night of the Cobra Woman), Roger Corman, R Lee Emery, Joe Dante, Eddie Garcia (Black Mama, White Mama) and Sid Haig (The Woman Hunt) aswell as numerous other actors, directors and producers who made the films, all getting a chance to tell their story of the part they played in these frequently random films.
Hartley is currently touring with the film and I urge you all to give it a look, as this is one documentary, I'm really keen to check out, especially if it makes it over here, to these rainy UK shores, so don't be surprised if you see a season of Filipino genre films being reviewed here in the near future.
In the meantime you can also show some love over on the Facebook page.
this is one of the things i just couldn't fit in to my fantastic fest schedule. it sounds great. i can't wait to see it.
ReplyDeleteI love his first film, so really got high hopes for this one and with a bit of luck, it might actually make it over here. Personally it's just how random some of these films are and the potential of coming away with another list of movies to hunt down, which I'm looking forward to the most, I know that was certainly the case with the first film.
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