Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)

Dir. Russ Meyer

A trio of hell-raising go-go dancers out for thrills in the California desert end up with dollar signs in their eyes and blood on their hands.

Russ Meyer was a filmmaker and photographer who loved his subject. A large portion of the scenes in which the hourglass-figured women appear is structured and framed to accentuate their feminine dominance; it has more low angle shots than a Japanese kaijū movie. Faster, Pussycat also benefits from having a ton of cheesy but extremely quotable lines of dialogue.

The acting isn't the kind that wins mainstream awards, but that's to be expected. Nevertheless, Tura Satana's performance as the leader of the fast-car loving threesome gives the film a vigour that many similar budgeted movies lack.

Stray Cat Rock: Films (1970)

Stray Cat Rock: Films (1970-71)

Dirs. Yasuharu Hasebe / Toshiya Fujita

There are five movies in Nikkatsu's Stray Cat Rock / Alleycat Rock series, but they aren't connected in any meaningful way other than being thematically similar and each one having actress Meiko Kaji in a lead role.

In the first, 01. Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girl Boss (1970 / Dir. Yasuharu Hasebe) a group of street-savvy women, really just 'chicks' with knives and razor blades, fight for a purpose when a sukeban (delinquent girl) rides into town and provides guidance.

It's interesting seeing the traditional roles of the sexes reversed in a 70s setting, and exploring how rules are applied and disregarded in the contrasting arenas of the street and the boxing ring, but, ultimately, Delinquent Girl Boss is 80+ minutes of style over substance played out to a soundtrack of funky jazz and psychedelic rock. If Dir. Hasebe had further indulged his willingness to explore a film frame's role in the telling of a story, then things might've been better.

Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988)

Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988)

Dir. Fred Olen Ray

From the safety warning at the beginning to the very last cut, HCH is a lot of cheap fun.

What separates it from the bucket-load of 80s B-Movie crap is the addition of a private dick, unsubtly named Jack Chandler (Jay Richardson), who provides an occasionally clumsy but primarily enjoyable hard-boiled medium-boiled noir-esque v/o. His wit and male weaknesses make him a likeable loser.

The hookers play up to the scream-queen, comedy/horror stereotypes in a fully self-aware script. Despite the title, however, there's very few actual deaths by chainsaw, but having Gunnar Hansen oversee them adds an extra in-joke for fans of horror (although his passionless acting is far from memorable).

It's released in the UK as part of 88 Films' themed Slasher Classics Collection (it's #6), but it only marginally fits that description, I feel.

Grindhouse (2007)

Grindhouse (2007)

Dirs. Robert Rodriguez + Quentin Tarantino

If you're aware of what the Grindhouse pairing was and just want to read thoughts on the films themselves, then you can skip direct to the text below the cut. For anyone else, I'll attempt to give some background on the genre and project.

The term 'grindhouse' is believed to have been coined in America to describe a movie theatre that screened mainly trashy B-Movies and exploitation flicks, a no frills venue that might have less than stellar hygiene practices. It was the hooker-and-motel for 'cult' film lovers, or even the equivalent of a quick grope behind the diner with the local skank. But sometimes that skank was all you really needed from life.

Directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino each made a film in the spirit of those cheap exploitation flicks and screened them as a double feature back-to-back. Well, in the US they did. In Britain they were split up and to see both we had to buy separate tickets. It sucks, but in reality I don't consider either film worth seeing. The real downside of the split is that we were denied the fake trailers for nonexistent films that were shown between the two flicks.