Half decent documentary that unfortunately crams too much in a short amount of time. Chronicling the exploitation films from the US dating back to the silent era is a good idea but only a few moments devoted to each big movement is a bit of a shame.

Clearly they could only get to speak to a select few of the artists involved, but it's still a pleasure to hear Fred Williamson, John Landis, Joe Dante, Larry Cohen & Jack Hill talking about these films.

I did learn a bit to be fair, particularly the further back in time you go.

Exploitation basically means there's an element you can exploit, whether it's nudity or sex... or violence... or a monster... or an idea.
-John Landis

Great little documentary on grindhouse cinema. The only problem is that it tries to cover too much in it's short running span (81 min). It delves into all the subgenres of grindhouse to the point that it names some that I didn't know had names, like Nazisploitation. Because of the sheer vastness of subject covered they never spend enough time on anything in particular to fully dissect it. Still very entertaining though.

Enjoyable trawl through a century of American exploitation features many of the entertaining usual suspects (Landis, Dante) but falls short of the best of these types of flicks (see Not Quite Hollywood for example) - mainly due to familiarity with much of the later movies discussed. The most interesting section is the focus on pre-war and pre-Hayes exploitation which I could have easily watched an entire film on.

I'm pretty green when it comes to exploitation films, but I found this to be an interesting window into the genre. The interviewees were quite lively and enjoyable, with stand out contributions from film critic and historian Kim Morgan, director John Landis and actor David Hess.

A cool little documentary about the history of American exploitation films, from cinema's early days right up to the present day. John Landis, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Joe Dante, Larry Cohen, Fred Olen Ray and William Lustig are among the important genre directors offering their views, while there are clips (some admittedly just a few frames long) from a massive 250 or so movies. The chronological structure is disappointingly obvious, and with so many decades and sub-genres to cover, the film only really ever skims the surface, with no space for debate or opposing viewpoints. Still, as an overview of the seedier side of cinema, it's a treat.

Second part of my weekend double bill. Another solid documentary which did not cover anything particularly ground breaking for me personally but was an interesting insight into exploitation movies nonetheless. A least a few titles have made my way to my wish list!

Half decent documentary that unfortunately crams too much in a short amount of time. Chronicling the exploitation films from the US dating back to the silent era is a good idea but only a few moments devoted to each big movement is a bit of a shame.

Clearly they could only get to speak to a select few of the artists involved, but it's still a pleasure to hear Fred Williamson, John Landis, Joe Dante, Larry Cohen & Jack Hill talking about these films.

I did learn a bit to be fair, particularly the further back in time you go.

A solid doc on exploitation cinema, however I could have used a bigger variety of interviewees and there are also areas that could have used some better explanation.

Also, the film ends its discussion in the 70s, then jumps to talking about some neo-exploitation films of today, but there were tons of great exploitation films in the 80s with the advent of VHS that they didn't really touch upon.

I did love that they showed outtakes from some of the more famous grindhouse flicks though, that was a nice touch.

Recommend this along with Machete Maidens Unleashed and Not Quite Hollywood

Documentaries don't always have to be boring.

Interesting

Pretty good documentary on some pretty awesome movies.

AMERICAN GRINDHOUSE is a documentary about cult, grindhouse films in America. These are niche movies of the highest order, definitely not for everyone but personally, I love them. They’re fascinating little corners of the movie universe.

The documentary itself doesn’t do much to entertain. None of the talking heads are terribly interesting outside of John Landis and Don Edmonds (Director of Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS). I’m sure Herschel Gordon Lewis gave some fun interviews over the years, but none of them were in this film.

It’s a nice piece of history. A fun collection of clips. As a documentary, though, it’s nothing special.

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Mycket underhållande om framväxten och historien om Grindhousefilmerna