Category: Exploitation Cinema
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Deadbeat At Dawn (1988)
Deadbeat At Dawn (1988) is a splatter-punk symphony on a beer can budget. Directed, written, and starring Jim Van Bebber, a film school drop-out who put everything into this low-budget action flick, even choreographing the fights and stunts. With gang members in ripped denim and head-bands, sporting switch-blades and nunchaka, this movie has been compared… Read.
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Eaten Alive (1976)
Look, I really liked Ti West’s 1970s horror throwback X, but when you catch up with something like Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive (1976; also known as Death Trap), I couldn’t help but think a little less of X. No doubt Eaten Alive is an acknowledged influence, but when it comes to exploitation hicksville horror, there’s… Read.
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Friday Foster (1975)
While it has violence and nudity, there’s something lighter and frothier about the blaxploitation film, Friday Foster (1975); it’s almost ready to be a crowd-pleasing TV movie pilot, maybe because the film is being based on a comic strip (comparable to Modesty Blaise in terms of syndicated newspaper comics). A vehicle for the great Pam… Read.
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Lone Wolf And Cub: Baby Cart To Hades (1972)
There’s something about Tomisaburo Wakayama’s portly stature and sullen demeanour as Ogami Itto, the wandering ronin, at the centre of the Lone Wolf And Cub series. A highly skilled and almost invincible assassin, Wakayama grounds everything with his grumpy stoicism and physicality, particularly in the face of enemy hordes and gushing blood sprays. Or in… Read.
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Blastfighter (1984)
One golden rule about Italian genre flicks if you can’t get Franco Nero as the lead, then get a guy who looks him. Maurizio Merli was busy, so for the motion picture titled Blastfighter (1984) Michael Sopkiw steps in with an effective moustache, playing the role of “Tiger” Sharp, an ex-cop released from prison for… Read.