FirstWitch
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
Allison Davies
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
Logan
By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.
moonspinner55
Cheerful, appropriately unfettered documentary on exploitation, sexploitation and blaxploitation movies, from 1913's "Traffic in Souls" to the (would-be) grindhouse movies of the present day (Tarantino's efforts rightly looked upon as homages rather than the real thing). Elijah Drenner co-wrote, co-produced and directed this clip-heavy essay on the names, faces and posters behind the salacious, scandalous, shocking and sometimes successful grade-B features that played in rundown theaters on the bad side of town. Of the celebrity interviews, only directors John Landis and Joe Dante are knowing enough to give us a broad spectrum of the now-cult genre. Drenner loves showing off the title cards and advertisements of the movies his guests are talking about, but there's no exploration into the financing, production or box-office returns of these pictures. It's a facetious, shallow entertainment--which may be purely intentional, as it accurately reflects the sex-drugs-and-gore-infatuated features on display. ** from ****
PKazee
I really, really enjoyed this. At the same time, though entertaining and informative, it leaves one yearning for so much more. The clips from the films shown are usually VERY short, and quite often, they are not directly discussed by the commentators. Instead, they are used to "illustrate" a more general discussion of one of the sub-genres covered her (ie: pre-code; nudist camp, nudie cuties, etc). I look forward to someone expanding upon this introduction to provide us with a film exploring each of the sub-genres in more depth.Finally, I was pleased to hear John Landis refer to PASSION OF THE Christ as an Exploitation film, as that's exactly how I viewed it... with total delight, I must say. In fact, given it and APOCALYPTO, an argument could be made for Mel Gibson as the greatest Exploitation film director of the past decade... even if he does not exactly see his own films in that light.
Sean Lamberger
About as interesting as a loosely-related series of sparse conversations with cult-favorite directors is likely to get. The goal seems to have been the assembly of a "straight from the horse's mouth" oral history of exploitation at large in cinema, but none of the subjects could really nail down the outer limits of what the term meant. So, instead, it became a crash-course history of underground film, decorated at all corners with vaguely familiar old men reminiscing about their glory days. The narrative jumps all over the place, sometimes floating from the '20s to the '90s over the course of a single sentence - that's OK, though, because the sheer breadth of knowledge and a shared recollection of the crazy promotional stunts each film undertook to get noticed makes the journey worthwhile. It's also one hell of a Netflix recommendation engine.
BaronBl00d
American Grindhouse explores the exploitation genres from their inception with Thomas Edison all the way to now(though very briefly). Along the way we get candid, short interviews(more like blurbs) from the likes of John Landis, Joe Dante, Ted V. Mikels, and Herschell Gordon Lewis - just to mention a few. I found the approach, the interviews, and the clips to be very interesting though not much was given to any particular subject. Many faces that should have been on here are notably absent like Roger Corman and Quentin Tarrantino, but that in and of itself should not diminish this look at something that really only lately has received a bit more respect than it is generally accorded. I saw clips of films that I had no knowledge of and will now seek some of those titles out. This is a breezy look at the history of a side of film that gets ignored for having a reputation that the films are garbage. Some without a doubt are,but some are gems. I wish more time had been given to those films. Exploitation films when it is all said and done(can I lace any more clichés through this review?) have stood the test of time better than many, many "mainstream" films.
