Articles
One piece every week or two. A steady trickle beats ten essays followed by two years of silence.
- deep dive · 19 September 2026
Exploitation film examples, cycle by cycle
Exploitation film examples grouped cycle by cycle, from Freaks in 1932 to the video nasties, with the real dates, cut durations and censorship rulings.
- deep dive · 13 September 2026
The Exorcist was banned on video in Britain by one censor
It never appeared on the DPP's list of seventy-two prosecuted video nasties.
- deep dive · 12 September 2026
The grindhouse and where the word came from
What a grindhouse is: a continuous-performance theatre, the 1925 trade term behind the word, and how the programming got its reputation.
- deep dive · 15 August 2026
What is a cult film
Discover what makes a cult film: not a genre or budget, but a fate that happens after release when a film finds unexpected audiences and lasting cultural impact.
- survey · 9 August 2026
Blaxploitation, 1971 to 1975
Melvin Van Peebles caught gonorrhea on his own set, filed a workers' comp claim, and bought more film stock with the settlement. Four years later the studios had mined the audience out and moved on.
- survey · 9 August 2026
Banned, cut and confiscated
A Fulci print flown out of the country, an Australian rating that just means no, and a German court that filed The Evil Dead under criminal violence. Three states, three machines for making a film disappear.
- survey · 9 August 2026
Gut-munchers: the Italian zombie boom, 1979 to 1983
There was no first one. Argento recut Romero, Fulci forged the sequel, and Italy spent four years feeding the British censors.
- survey · 9 August 2026
Mondo: the shockumentary, 1962 to 1978
An Oscar-nominated love ballad, a beach of dying sea turtles, a murder charge beaten before the film even opened, and a monkey brain made of cauliflower.
- survey · 8 August 2026
The giallo, 1963 to 1976
A line of yellow paperbacks, a killer in black gloves, and Mario Bava building the American slasher a decade before Hollywood cashed the cheque.
- survey · 7 August 2026
Poliziotteschi: the Italian cop film, 1973 to 1980
A moustache, a Magnum, and total contempt for the courts.
- survey · 6 August 2026
Fantaterror: the Spanish horror boom, 1968 to 1976
Two cuts of every film, one for the censor in Madrid and one for the drive-in. Democracy killed the trick in two years.
- survey · 5 August 2026
Ozploitation: the Australian genre boom, 1971 to 1986
An adults-only certificate, a tax loophole, and a Melbourne doctor who knew what happens to bodies at speed. Australia's fifteen years of cheap, mean, brilliant genre film.
- profile · 4 August 2026
Meiko Kaji and the art of not blinking
Toei hired her to headline prison quickies. She built the most-copied performance in Japanese genre cinema out of about forty lines of dialogue.
- survey · 30 July 2026
The video nasty panic
A drill on a video sleeve, a prosecutors' hit list of seventy-two films, and a censorship law that was void for twenty-five years on a filing error.
- deep dive · 28 July 2026
Wake in Fright is not an exploitation film
It was lost for thirty years, found in a bin marked 'for destruction', and it is the best thing on this site.
- survey · 14 July 2026
The Italian cannibal cycle, 1977 to 1985
Eight years, a dozen films, one arrest, and a court appearance to prove the cast were still alive.
