Articles: exploitation cycle histories
These articles cover exploitation cinema one cycle at a time: where the Italian giallo, cannibal and zombie booms came from, what drove Ozploitation and blaxploitation, and how British censorship turned a shelf of video tapes into a legal panic. Each one links to the films it discusses.
Three kinds of piece: surveys of a whole cycle, deep dives on a single film, and profiles of people. If a term is unfamiliar, the glossary of exploitation subgenres defines it; for somewhere to start watching, try the curated lists or the double feature generator.
- deep dive · 24 October 2026
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.
- deep dive · 17 October 2026
The B movie and the double bill it was made for
A B movie is what an exhibitor took to get the A picture, a flat-rate second feature, and the 1948 Paramount ruling ended the arrangement.
- deep dive · 10 October 2026
Modern exploitation films after the drive-in and video
Modern exploitation films moved from the drive-in to the Palme d'or, the Academy Awards and streaming, and British censors still cut them today.
- deep dive · 3 October 2026
The best exploitation films and what makes a canon
The best exploitation films are picked by censors, restorers and polls before anyone ranks them. What that machinery leaves on the shelf.
- deep dive · 26 September 2026
Exploitation films of the 1970s, the boom and the bust
Exploitation films of the 1970s explained through the ratings gap, the drive-in double bill, the cycles that ran fast, and the censors who cut them.
- 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
The Exorcist passed uncut for British cinemas in 1974, then had no legal UK video release from 1988 to 1999 because one censor would not certify the tape.
- 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
Cult films and the audiences that make them
Cult status arrives after release, through late-night television, midnight bookings and VHS trade, as The Brainiac, Walking Tall and Patrick each show.
- 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 · 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 · 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.
- 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.