American Grindhouse is a 2010 documentary directed and produced by Elijah Drenner. The film made its world premiere at South by Southwest

South by Southwest

South by Southwest is an Austin, Texas based company dedicated to planning conferences, trade shows, festivals and other events. Their current roster of annual events include: SXSW Music, SXSW Film, SXSW Interactive, SXSWedu, and SXSWeco and take place every spring in Austin, Texas, United States...

 on March 13, 2010.

Overview

The documentary chronicles the history of the American exploitation film

Exploitation film

Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...

 from the days of Thomas Edison to contemporary films of the 21st century. The film features exclusive interviews with John Landis

John Landis

John David Landis is an American film director, screenwriter, actor, and producer. He is known for his comedies, his horror films, and his music videos with singer Michael Jackson.-Early life and career:...

, Joe Dante

Joe Dante

Joseph "Joe" Dante, Jr. is an American film director and producer of films generally with humorous and science fiction content....

, Jack Hill

Jack Hill

Jack Hill is an U.S. film director, noted for his work in the exploitation film genre. Despite this, several of Hill's later films have been characterized as feminist works.Hill was born in Los Angeles...

, Don Edmonds, Fred Williamson

Fred Williamson

Fred "The Hammer" Williamson is an American actor, architect, and former professional American football defensive back who played mainly in the American Football League during the 1960s.-Football career:...

, Allison Anders

Allison Anders

Allison Anders is an American film and television director. Anders has directed many independent films, on which she frequently collaborates with fellow UCLA film school graduate Kurt Voss.-Biography:...

, James Gordon White, Larry Cohen

Larry Cohen

Lawrence G. "Larry" Cohen is an American film producer, director, and screenwriter. He is best known as a B-Movie auteur of horror and science fiction films - often containing a police procedural element - during 1970s and 1980s...

, William Lustig

William Lustig

William Lustig , also known as Bill Lustig, is an American film director and producer who has worked primarily in the horror film genre.-Movie career:...

, Herschell Gordon Lewis

Herschell Gordon Lewis

Herschell Gordon Lewis is an American filmmaker, best known for creating the "splatter film" subgenre of horror...

, Judy Brown, Jeremy Kasten

Jeremy Kasten

Jeremy Craig Kasten is an American filmmaker, known for his work in the field of independent horror as well as an editor.- Career :Kasten attended Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts and soon after moved to Los Angeles, California working various roles in film crews until learning the craft of...

, Jonathan Kaplan

Jonathan Kaplan

Jonathan Kaplan is an American film producer and director.Kaplan was born in Paris, France. He is the son of film composer Sol Kaplan and actress Frances Heflin; the nephew of actor Van Heflin. He is the brother of actresses Nora Heflin and Mady Kaplan...

, Bob Minor, Lewis Teague, David Hess

David Hess

David Alexander Hess was an American actor, singer, and songwriter.-Music career:In 1956, Hess recorded the original version of the Otis Blackwell composition "All Shook Up" under the stage name David Hill...

 and Fred Olen Ray

Fred Olen Ray

Fred Olen Ray is an American director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and cinematographer.-Biography:He is the producer, director, and screenwriter of low to medium-budget feature films in many genres, including horror, science fiction, action/adventure, softcore sex films and crime dramas...

. The documentary also features film historians Eddie Muller, Kim Morgan and Eric Schaefer. The narration is by actor Robert Forster

Robert Forster

Robert Forster is an American actor, best known for his roles as John Cassellis in Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool, and as Max Cherry in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, the latter of which gained him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.- Early life :Forster was born Robert Wallace...

.

Films referenced

The main films referenced in the documentary are:

• Traffic in Souls
  Traffic in Souls
  Traffic in Souls is a 1913 narrative feature film focusing on forced prostitution in the US and filmed around Ellis Island in New York City. Its subjects were working women and immigrants and it was released at a time when the country was undergoing a "moral panic" over the issue of prostitution...
  
  (1913)
• Freaks
  Freaks
  Freaks is a 1932 American Pre-Code horror film about sideshow performers, directed and produced by Tod Browning and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with a cast mostly composed of actual carnival performers. The film was based on Tod Robbins' 1923 short story "Spurs"...
  
  (1932)
• Maniac
  Maniac (1934 film)
  Maniac, also known as Sex Maniac, is a 1934 black-and-white exploitation/horror film, directed by Dwain Esper and written by Hildegarde Stadie, Esper's wife, as a loose adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story "The Black Cat", with references to his "Murders in the Rue Morgue"...
  
  (1934)
• You Can't Beat the Rap! (1936)
• Mom and Dad
  Mom and Dad
  Mom and Dad is a feature-length 1945 film directed by William Beaudine, and largely produced by the exploitation filmmaker and presenter Kroger Babb. Mom and Dad is considered the most successful film within its genre of "sex hygiene" films...
  
  (1945)
• Because of Eve (1948)
• I Was a Teenage Werewolf
  I Was a Teenage Werewolf
  I Was a Teenage Werewolf is a 1957 horror film starring Michael Landon as a troubled teenager and Whit Bissell as the primary adult. It was co-written and produced by cult film producer Herman Cohen, and was one of the most successful films released by American International Pictures...
  
  (1957)
• The Tingler
  The Tingler
  The Tingler is a 1959 horror-thriller film by American producer/director William Castle. It is the third of five collaborations with writer Robb White and stars Vincent Price, Darryl Hickman, Patricia Cutts, Pamela Lincoln, Philip Coolidge and Judith Evelyn.The film tells the story of a scientist...
  
  (1959)
• Psycho (1960)
• Scum of the Earth!
  Scum of the Earth!
  Scum of the Earth! aka Devil's Camera is a 1963 American exploitation film directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis and produced by David F. Friedman. It is credited as being the first film in the "roughie" genre.-Synopsis:...
  
  (1963)
• Blood Feast
  Blood Feast
  Blood Feast is a 1963 American horror film directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, often considered the first "splatter film". It was produced by David F. Friedman. The screenplay was written by Alison Louise Downe, who had previously appeared in several of Lewis' other films. Lewis also wrote the...
  
  (1963)
• Two Thousand Maniacs!
  Two Thousand Maniacs!
  Two Thousand Maniacs! is a low budget 1964 splatter film directed and written by Herschell Gordon Lewis. It is the second part of what the director's fans have dubbed "The Blood Trilogy", including Blood Feast and Color Me Blood Red...
  
  (1964)
• Olga's House of Shame (1964)
• The Wild Angels
  The Wild Angels
  The Wild Angels is a 1966 Roger Corman film, made on location in Southern California. The Wild Angels was made three years before Easy Rider and was the first film to associate actor Peter Fonda with Harley-Davidson motorcycles and 1960s counterculture...
  
  (1966)
• Lusting Hours (1967)
• She-Devils on Wheels
  She-Devils on Wheels
  She-Devils On Wheels is a 1968 American exploitation film about an all-female motorcycle gang called The Man-Eaters, directed and produced by Herschell Gordon Lewis.-Plot:...
  
  (1968)
• Easy Rider
  Easy Rider
  Easy Rider is a 1969 American road movie written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda and directed by Hopper. It tells the story of two bikers who travel through the American Southwest and South with the aim of achieving freedom...
  
  (1969)
• Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
  Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
  Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is a 1971 American independent drama film, written, produced, scored, directed by, and starring Melvin Van Peebles, father of actor Mario Van Peebles . It tells the picaresque story of a poor African American man on his flight from the white authority...
  
  (1971)
• The Corpse Grinders (1971)
• The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant
  The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant
  The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant is a 1971 science fiction/horror film directed by Anthony Lanza. It is the earlier companion to the 1972 blaxpoitation film The Thing with Two Heads. The film is in the public domain.-Plot:...
  
  (1971)
• The Tormentors (1971)
• The Big Doll House
  The Big Doll House
  The Big Doll House is a 1971 women in prison film starring Pam Grier, Judy Brown, Roberta Collins, Brooke Mills, and Pat Woodell. The film follows six female inmates throughout daily life in a gritty, unidentified supra-tropical prison...
  
  (1971)
• The Big Bird Cage
  The Big Bird Cage
  The Big Bird Cage is a 1972 exploitation film of the "women in prison" subgenre. It serves as a non-sequel follow-up to the 1971 film The Big Doll House...
  
  (1972)
• The Last House on the Left
  The Last House on the Left (1972 film)
  The Last House on the Left is a 1972 horror film written and directed by Wes Craven and produced by Sean S. Cunningham.The story is inspired by the 1960 Swedish film The Virgin Spring, directed by Ingmar Bergman, which in turn is based on the 13th century Swedish ballad "Töres döttrar i Wänge"...
  
  (1972)
• Night of the Lepus
  Night of the Lepus
  Night of the Lepus, also known as Rabbits, is a 1972 American science fiction horror film based on the 1964 science fiction novel The Year of the Angry Rabbit. Released theatrically on October 4, 1972, it focuses on members of a small Arizona town who battle thousands of mutated, carnivorous killer...
  
  (1972)
• Deep Throat
  Deep Throat (film)
  Deep Throat is a 1972 American pornographic film written and directed by Gerard Damiano and produced by Louis Peraino and starring Linda Lovelace ....
  
  (1972)
• Schlock
  Schlock (film)
  Schlock is a 1973 low-budget satire film, written, directed by and starring filmmaker John Landis.-Plot:Schlock, a prehistoric apeman who falls in love with a teenage blind beauty and terrorizes her Southern California suburb. Schlock is no ordinary simian; he possesses some very unusual skills....
  
  (1973)
• Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1975)
• Jaws
  Jaws (film)
  Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...
  
  (1975)
• Piranha (1978)
• Alligator
  Alligator (film)
  Alligator is a 1980 monster movie, directed by Lewis Teague with a screenplay by John Sayles. It stars Robert Forster, Robin Riker, and Michael V. Gazzo...
  
  (1980)
• The Passion of the Christ
  The Passion of the Christ
  The Passion of the Christ is a 2004 American drama film directed by Mel Gibson and starring Jim Caviezel as Jesus. It depicts the Passion of Jesus largely according to the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John...
  
  (2004)
• Grindhouse (2007)
• American Gangster (2007)
• Hell Ride
  Hell Ride
  Hell Ride is a 2008 American feature film from Larry Bishop released under the "Quentin Tarantino Presents" banner.-Plot:Larry Bishop stars as biker Pistolero, the leader, or "Pres" of the Victors, a Southern California motorcycle gang...
  
  (2008)
• Black Dynamite
  Black Dynamite
  Black Dynamite is a 2009 American film starring Michael Jai White, Salli Richardson, Arsenio Hall, Kevin Chapman and Tommy Davidson. It is a spoof of 1970s blaxploitation films...
  
  (2009)

See also

• Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!, a 2008 documentary about Australian exploitation films

External links

• American Grindhouse at the Grindhouse Database