I am very pleased to say that I have moved Grindhouseland to its own server. Please redirect your links, bookmarks, and RSS feeds to the new site at Grindhouseland.com
Big thanks to Danny Chaoflux for the boss looking new logo. Look for new things to be added there periodically
To my loyal readers:
Updates are going to slow down a bit as I move Grindhouseland to another server. You’ll still be getting the same coverage of all your favorite schlocktacular drive-in, cult, exploitation, and grindhouse movies. We’ll also be adding a grindhouseland Amazon store where you can buy all of these movies, as well as cool grindhouse cinema schwag.
I’m very much looking forward to these changes, and I will let you know just as soon as the site is fully updated.
Yours,
Deacon Blues
Five Fingers of Death AKA King Boxer is a fairly pedestrian wushu picture from Shaw Brothers Studios. Apparently this (and not the far better made and more gripping Enter The Dragon released the same year) is what kicked off the martial arts craze in America. Ho hum. All the usual genre tropes- an aging master, a pretty girl, honor, revenge, and a tournament fight for little other than bragging rights- and not much else. Lo Lieh is excellent as usual, but there isn’t much to draw you in here. Fans of wushu films should check it out for historical value, and it’s not a bad way to spend the wee hours of a Friday night / morning, but there are definitely better examples of the genre out there.
2.5/5
Spaghetti westerns have never really been my bag, but Death Rides A Horse might just change all that. A gripping revenge tale starring Lee Van Cleef and John Phillip Law, you’ll no doubt notice a couple of things appropriated by payed homage in Kill Bill. A young man watches his whole family killed and waits for revenge. Semi-related, an old man is released from a fifteen year prison stint hellbent on getting revenge on his gang who double-crossed him. It’s got great gunfights, laconic dialogue, and one of the more disturbing scenes in western history when JPL is buried up to his neck and force fed salt. Stylistically interesting, and a boss fucking story about mentoring young men, Death Rides A Horse will have you reaching for your poncho and Colt .45.
4/5
Pam Grier vehicle Coffy is basically a step-by-step first run on Foxy Brown. It’s hard to say which is better, but both are definitely worth checking out. In Coffy Pam Grier is out for revenge- for her heroin-addicted sister, for her childhood friend beaten nearly to death by mafia thugs, and for herself, set up by Black politicians and the mob. A great throwback to the 70s days of Soul Power, big Afros, earnest talk about drugs in the community, and sticking it to the man. Watch for Pam Grier’s boobs which are apparently oddly asymmetrical. Run a double feature with Foxy Brown and see which one you prefer.
3.5/5
A triple bill of dope scare films from the good people at Something Weird.
Probably my least favorite drug scare film, Marihuana is hard to follow, boring, and covers most of the ground every other drug scare film does. A young girl heads down the primrose path of destruction with a “stick” or the devil’s harvest. *yawn*
1.5/5
Reefer Madness is the gold standard of drug scare films, the most famous representative of the genre. Often misunderstood as a warning against drug use, it’s really just an excuse to put asses in seats by having teenagers smoke dope and fuck. Watch for lots of sublimated racial profiling (nice ‘fro on the hopped up jazz piano player) and, of course, the violent behavior typical of potheads. One of the good girls in this movie goes on to play a bad girl in the next feature. Full length, public domain video below for your viewing pleasure. The better of the two Dwain Esper marijuana flicks.
4/5
Assassin of Youth is my personal favorite of the drug scare films. It has a lot of great lines (“I’m pretty good at guessing”), a movie within a movie, and a gripping plot about a good girl who stands to lose her inheritance because the town thinks she’s gone bad. An underrated movie often overshadowed by the more popular Tell Your Children AKA Reefer Madness. Watch for more cultural knowledge about the 1930s than you’ll find in any documentary. Oh, and if anyone knows how to make a Parisian flip, call ole Deacon Blues and let him know.
4.5/5
Darktown Strutters is one of the more bizarre movies I’ve ever seen… and I’ve seen Ice Pirates. An all-female, all-Black trike gang hassle police, pick up guys, search for a missing mother, and run around at high speeds, Benny Hill style. This is a really confusing and disorienting movie, along the lines of the aforementioned Ice Pirates. It also has moments of great fun and great style, and is in the public domain. Full length movie below. Enjoy with caution.
3/5
No. Not the bloody awful musical or the sexploitation remake. This is the original horror comedy deeply steeped in the Jewish-American humor tradition, Little Shop of Horrors. Famously shot using much of the same cast, crew, and sets as A Bucket of Blood, Little Shop has stood the test of time. Its jokes still hold up, and the characterization is still amusing in its broad, Borscht belt sort of way. Little Shop tells the story of Seymour, a good-hearted but dim-witted boy working in a plant shop who happens upon a man eating plant from space. It seems that this creature won’t grow without copious amounts of human blood, bones, and flesh. Did I mention it has the power to HYP-MO-TIZE? Well, it does. Watch for Dick Miller as a man eating plants (as opposed to a man-eating plant) and an early Jack Nicholson appearance as a masochistic dental patient.
3.5/5
“Shaolin shadow boxing… and the Wu-Tang sword style. If what you say is true, the Shaolin and the Wu-Tang could be dangerous.”
Anyone familiar with the seminal 1993 hip-hop album that changed fucking everything is at least familiar with the above line of dialogue. Yes, kids, Shaolin and Wu-Tang is so fucking cool that RZA and the gang chose it as their name. The Shaolin and Wu-Tang are rival kung fu schools pitted against one another by a Machiavellian Lord who seeks to use their martial secrets to his own end. But do you really give a flying guillotine what this movie is about? More to the point: bad fucking ass fighting scenes, subtitles that don’t match the dubbing, and awesome Ming period costumes. Also known as Shaolin Master Killer.
4.5/5
