Exploitation cinema, rated and catalogued

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Goyokin

1969 · Japan · Hideo Gosha · 104 min · cult

A samurai returns to stop the massacre he could not prevent the first time. Shot in real snow.

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519 films catalogued2974 posters 44 subgenres defined Cycle historiesTrailers, posters, and where to watch.

Tonight's double feature

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Double feature

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First feature

99 Women

1969 · West Germany/Italy · 108m

dir. Jesús Franco

Second feature

The Beastmaster

1982 · USA · 118m

dir. Don Coscarelli

Picked at random.

From the desk

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deep dive

Pinku eiga and the rules that shaped it

Pinku eiga is a Japanese trade category for cheap independent sex features, sized for small theatres and shot to fit Eirin's rule on what a body may show.

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Cycle histories

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Staff lists

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Nunsploitation ranked by blasphemy
7 films
Ranked from the merely sacrilegious up to Ken Russell torching a cathedral. The habit comes off in reel one either way.
Poliziotteschi starter pack
8 films
Italian cops who close cases by ignoring the courts and the paperwork. Start at the top, before the moustaches blur together.
Nastiest of the nasties
10 films
The tapes the DPP put on its seize-on-sight list. Prosecuting them in a country with ferries to France was the best advertising any of them ever got.

Nobody has seen these

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Bamboo House of Dolls

1973 · Hong Kong · 110m

Shaw Brothers takes on the WIP film. As strange a combination as it sounds.

The Twilight People

1972 · Philippines · 81m

The cheapest Island of Doctor Moreau ever committed to film, and one of the most watchable.

Alvin Purple

1973 · Australia · 97m

The sex comedy that funded the entire boom. Historically important, hard going.

Boardinghouse

1982 · USA · 98m

The first shot-on-video horror feature, blown up to 35mm and just as ugly as that sounds.

Human Lanterns

1982 · Hong Kong · 99m

A Shaw wuxia that turns into a slasher, with lanterns made of human skin.

Penitentiary

1979 · USA · 99m

Prison-boxing blaxploitation that out-grossed every indie of its year and got forgotten anyway.

Petey Wheatstraw

1977 · USA · 99m

Rudy Ray Moore makes a deal with the Devil to come back from the dead. Deranged and delightful.

She-Devils on Wheels

1968 · USA · 82m

H.G. Lewis hands the gore to a real biker gang. The acting is a crime; the piano wire is the point.

Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter

1970 · Japan · 85m

Meiko Kaji before Toei, leading a girl gang through Nikkatsu's coolest delinquent picture.

Stunt Rock

1978 · Australia · 91m

No plot. A stuntman and a prog band. Exists purely so Grant Page can work.

Tarkan Versus the Vikings

1971 · Turkey · 86m

A Turkish barbarian, his wolf, and the most beloved rubber octopus in world cinema.

The Burning Moon

1992 · Germany · 98m

Shot-on-video German splatter so homemade you can smell the garage. Ittenbach's Herschell Gordon Lewis tribute act.

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Phenomena

1985 · Italy · 116m

Insect telepathy, a Swiss boarding school, and a straight-razor chimpanzee. Argento off the leash.

Class of 1984

1982 · Canada/USA · 98m

Death Wish enrols at high school and the faculty loses.

Fist of Fury

1972 · Hong Kong · 115m

Bruce Lee kicks a 'No Dogs and Chinese' sign to splinters. The crowd never recovered.

Silent Night, Deadly Night

1984 · USA · 79m

The killer-Santa movie that got itself run out of cinemas in a week.

Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood

1985 · Japan · 42m

The fake snuff film that got Charlie Sheen on the phone to the FBI.

Nekromantik 2

1991 · Germany · 104m

Buttgereit's necrophilia sequel, prosecuted on arrival, and stranger than the first.

The Eternal Evil of Asia

1995 · Hong Kong · 89m

Black magic, exploding wizards, and a curse that turns a man's head into a penis. Cat III lost its mind.

Ebola Syndrome

1996 · Hong Kong · 98m

Anthony Wong versus the world, armed with a virus and no impulse control.

I Saw the Devil

2010 · South Korea · 141m

Revenge as a chew toy. Nobody in Korean cinema has been crueller for longer.

A Tale of Two Sisters

2003 · South Korea · 110m

Korea's classiest ghost story, and the one that actually rewards a rewatch.

Ichi the Killer

2001 · Japan · 129m

Miike hands out sick bags at the premiere and earns every one of them.

Trouble Every Day

2001 · France/Germany · 101m

Cannibal desire filmed like an art installation, and it will not hurry for you.

Banned somewhere

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A Bay of Blood

1971 · Italy · 84m

Bava invents the slasher a decade early. Friday the 13th copied two kills outright.

Anthropophagus

1980 · Italy · 87m

Almost entirely people walking around an island. Then two minutes of infamy.

Blood Feast

1963 · USA · 67m

The first gore film. Barely competent, historically unavoidable.

Braindead

1992 · New Zealand · 104m

Jackson before the trilogy. The lawnmower scene ends the argument.

Cannibal Apocalypse

1980 · Italy/Spain · 92m

Vietnam veterans as cannibals. Sillier and kinder than the jungle cycle.

Cannibal Ferox

1981 · Italy · 93m

Lenzi chasing Deodato with none of the argument. Real animal deaths, no defence.