Past generations grew up in the "grind-house" world, but that world has fallen to the wayside of the megaplex. The trailer for the new Robert Rodriguez-Quentin Tarantino film, aptly titled "Grindhouse," describes it as "a theater playing back-to-back films exploiting sex, violence and other extreme subject matter." Their new film brings this house of the 1970s into the 21st century.
"Grindhouse" is chock-full of the different stories and genres that made up the exploitation film scene. Rodriguez's "Planet Terror" is equal parts Romero zombie film and '80s action extravaganza, whereas Tarantino's "Death Proof" mixes the vehicle/slasher/female revenge genres together into some kind of godlike puree. It's obvious that the exploitation films he grew up on have always influenced Tarantino.
The film "Jackie Brown" was not only his ode to great blaxploitation films of the '70s such as "Coffy" and "Foxy Brown," but it also revitalized the careers of its exploitation stars, Pam Grier and Robert Forester. "Kill Bill" borrowed heavily from grind-house films, such as the O-Ren Ishii character's style from "Lady Snowblood" and the Elle Driver character obviously derived from the eye-patch clad female from "Thriller: A Cruel Picture." The fake trailers featured throughout "Grindhouse" were created by some of the foremost genre filmmakers working today.
Eli Roth ("Hostel") helmed a trailer called "Thanksgiving," the only holiday not yet immortalized by a horror film. It's funny, it's scary, it's gory, and the trailer perfectly captures the trailers of the day. "Don't Scream" is a trailer by Edgar Wright ("Shaun of the Dead") that is a glorious homage to the foreign splatter films of the day.
Never one to avoid controversy, Rob Zombie does a take off of the Nazisploitation genre made famous by "Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS" with his trailer for "Werewolf Women of the S.S.," featuring his wife, Sheri Moon Zombie, and a cameo by a true "national treasure.
" Just because a film is a grind-house film doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. Here's a rundown of several exploitation genres and some of the select films of said genre:
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