of two short exploitation flicks - say, one about zombies and another about anything that also featured gratuitous amounts of sex, blood and extreme productions. But Rodriguez, the famed director of such films as "El Mariachi" and "Spy Kids," stuck the idea away in his mental file for years, as he went on to other projects. Then one day he was showing friend and fellow sleaze-movie fan Quentin Tarantino his latest film, "Sin City," when he happened to mention the double-bill idea.
He already had a half-finished script for a horror movie called "Planet Terror" in his drawer, so when Tarantino became excited by the idea, Rodriguez told him "'you should do one of the films, and I should do the other.' And that's how it started." The result is "Grindhouse," oozing onto screens across the country Friday.
stars Rose McGowan and Freddie Rodriguez, paired with "Death Proof," a serial killer/car-chase movie directed by Tarantino and headlining Kurt Russell. The directed by a few of Hollywood's top horror filmmakers, including Rob Zombie the S.S.
") and "Hostel's" Eli Roth. often were relegated to double bills in the seediest of venues. "Grind house movie houses," says Irv Slifkin, author of "Groovy Movies: Far-Out Films of the Psychedelic Era.
" "The movies themselves were low-budget genre pictures that often offered extreme elements of sex, violence and profane language. In short, And that's exploitation with a capital 'E.' Soft-core sex films, horror and blaxploitation, women-in-prison opuses - you name the down-and-dirty genre, and it played at a grind house somewhere in America.
With titles like "The Swinging Barmaids," "Grave of the Vampire," "Chinese Hercules" and "Ilsa, She Wolf of the S.S.," these movies announced exactly what their content was and "What I like about them is the showmanship," Rodriguez says.
"I was inspired by these movies when I first saw them, and it was 'Wow, I want to be a "Grind house movies were not socially accepted; they were for outcasts," says Michelle Clifford of sleazoidexpress.com, a Web site devoted to exploitation films. Adds her partner Bill Landis: "On 42nd Street, the audience for these films was composed of shiftless New Yorkers, urban escapists ducking jobs, school and wives; vice workers taking a break and curious retirees with nothing to do.
" "They sold these pictures on sex, violence and extreme subject matter, and to me they all fit into that area of extreme subject matter," says Kurt Russell, who used to watch grind house movies at California drive-ins and with his date. "It's the kind of stuff where you did a lot of oohing and aahing at what you were seeing on the screen," he adds. Sure, there were plenty of poorly dubbed Chinese martial-arts flicks, insanely featured bad acting to complement their gory excesses.
But exploitation films from this era were also a proving ground for directors like Ron Howard, Martin But there was something more. In their pure transgressiveness, their willingness to tackle subjects the majors didn't want to touch, grind house "They were taboo-shattering and of an extreme nature," Slifkin says, "offering stuff you'd never see in mainstream films, like cannibalism, torture and kinky Yikes! That seems pretty extreme on the face of it, but let's face it - yesterday's no-no is today's multiplex hit.
And if anything, Hollywood is creeping closer to the exploitation model every day. "Ninety percent of Hollywood movies are exploitation movies," claims Clifford. "And in the last Hills Have Eyes 1 and 2,' and 'The Last House on the Left' is due for a remake.
The times caught up to exploitation. Even reality TV shows like 'Survivor' or Slifkin also sees a political angle to this. "There's a reason these films are being remade," he says.
"People want to see extreme things they're not supposed to see, and a correlation can be drawn between the daily horror stories from the Middle East being reflected in these films, to the Vietnam War, when the grind house era and its movies flourished." Yet beyond politics and psychological explanations, there's another impulse that draws us to the grind house - we want to have fun; to sit in the dark, sheer pedal-to-the-metal, no-holds-barred aspect of these pictures. They are "They're just fun to watch," adds Russell.
"And I hope the young audience understands these are participation films. You participate with your howling and your groans. You're there to have a good time.
" Want to check out the creme de la crud of grind house flicks? Here are a karate gangster spoof, which is as funny as it is amateurish. Check out that rhyming rap routine!
Believe it or not, a remake starring Charlie Murphy and The Big Doll House (1971) - Women in prison! Shower scenes! A tagline that runs "Their bodies were caged, but not their desires.
" Plus Pam Grier. What's not to like? Truth!
" Or something like that. Utterly cheesy, with an amazing, aging cast of The Last House on the Left (1972) - Repulsive, disgusting, sadistic film girls to death. Not only horror-meister Wes Craven's first movie, but - hoo-ha!
- actually based on the Ingmar Bergman classic "The Virgin Spring." Who says grind house directors ain't got culcha?
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