The ABCs of B-Movie Bullsh*t -- P is for Poster

P

is for Poster

I suppose it is possible to be a fan of B-Movies and care not one whit about how they were marketed, but I truly do not understand how. For me, B-Movie advertising is such an essential part of what I love about the field that if I actually had to choose between it and the films themselves, I would have to think about it.

And then I’d pick the marketing.

If you’ve searched around Vanity Fear, you’ve probably come across my bio, in which I describe how my obsessions came to be. The truth is that I became a fan of B-Movies as an idea long before I’d seen enough of them to appreciate them on their own merits. And the reason for this is because of how ably producers and distributors were able to excite my imagination with their advertising.

In a world where the product was so often lacking, a good poster often meant the difference between success and failure. To my mind the best of their kind aren’t actually selling a movie, but a dream. The fact that the films almost never live up to them is irrelevant, as the art of the poster is just as satisfying, if only for inspiring the movie you got to see play in your own imagination.

When I was a kid, video stores were my favourite places in the world. There were literally dream emporiums, filled with shelf after shelf of video covers specifically designed to demand my attention. Today I relive that sensation by visiting a site like Wrong Side of the Art, and collecting posters myself. At this point my collection far outnumbers my ability to display it, but I am helpless to the pursuit. The movies can never be anything but what they actually are, but the posters will always be whatever we want them to be.

P

is for Poster

and

Poster

is

Perfection

The ABCs of B-Movie Bullsh*t -- O is for Out of Print

O

is for Out of Print

There was a time where being a serious movie buff required true dedication and hard work. There were no such things as VCRs or Laserdiscs or DVDs or Blu-rays or Netflix streaming or iTunes or YouTube or Bittorrent. If there was a movie you always wanted to see, you had to hope that someday a local revival house or TV station decided to show it. Problem was that the first option tended to focus more on well-respected critically acclaimed junk and the second guaranteed you’d see an edited version with all of the good stuff cut out of it.

Thankfully, those days are long past, but not all is golden in movie buff land. For all of our options, we’ve grown accustomed to certain levels of presentational quality and access. We want to watch what we want to watch now and we want it to look better than it did when it was actually released.

And the world simply doesn’t work like that.

Out of Print means being denied. It means wanting. It means desire.

It also means having a reason to go on. In a land of plenty where all is available purely by whim, there is no joy of anticipation or satisfaction of achievement. Searching for the Out of Print keeps your love of movies alive. It forces you to appreciate films that you might have once dismissed out of hand as terrible. It make you think of the ways the world has changed so that what was once considered a marketable product, is now an unviable property, unworthy of release.

Out of Print makes the IMDb the most fascinating website in the world, allowing you to discover previously unheard of projects whose worth you can only estimate until you finally get the chance to see them for yourself.

Perhaps someday soon Out of Print will cease to be and we will all have access to every single thing ever recorded by a camera. It’ll be cool at first, but soon the novelty will fade, taking our passion along with it. It’s just so much easier to love that which you cannot have.

O

is for Out of Print

and

Out of Print

is

Our Blessing and Burden

The ABCs of B-Movie Bullsh*t -- N is for Nudity

N

is for Nudity

 

There are some who tell us that the purpose of art is to hold a mirror to society and expose us to the truths we cannot see in the workaday world. They are wrong. Art is about naked ladies. Anyone with a working brain can tell you that.

Show me a time and place and I’ll show you a bunch of artists depicting the glory of the unclad bod. From the Venus of Willendorf to Marilyn Monroe’s famous calendar, the truly wise have always known where true art lies.

People forget that pre-Hayes Code it was possible to spot nude bodies in mainstream films like Ecstasy and Tarzan and His Mate, but once studio self-censorship took over it was up to the independents to give audiences the art they craved.

How badly did people want to see the naked parts of a lady? Bad enough to willingly pay admission to see Mom & Dad, a film that showed a woman’s vagina in close-up detail—all you had to do was ignore the baby coming out of it, which many members of the all-male audience (the sexes were strictly segregated during screenings) were only too happy to do.

Fortunately for pervs art aficionados everywhere a new breed of “educational” films arrived in the form of the “nudie cutie”, which exploited the popularity of naturalist colonies for the enjoyment of all. Eventually filmmakers tired of the fake documentary format and decided to add comedic plots to their collections of artfully composed T&A. Most prominent of these innovators was former battlefield photographer Russ Meyer, whose The Immoral Mr. Teas and Eve and the Handyman proved to be the true classics of the genre.

When the Hayes Office reluctantly allowed a bare breast to appear in Sidney Lumet’s 1964 drama The Pawnbroker, it was only a matter of time before the floodgates opened and the art began to freely flow. By the end of the decade, nudity was a regular part of the mainstream film going experience. In the seventies it almost became de rigueur.

Never ones to be left behind, low budget B-Movie filmmakers rededicated their efforts in providing audiences with the art they craved. Meyer flourished and rose to the level of offbeat auteur with such efforts as Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and SuperVixens. Entire subgenres arose based on the promise of female flesh, including those devoted to the adventures of cheerleaders, nurses, teachers and female prisoners.

In an age where the image of a naked lady is only ever a single mouse click away, Nudity has never gone out of style. Whole websites exist only to document the history of unclad cinematic flesh and softcore “art” is frequently the only lucrative market available to the filmmakers who first made their names in the 80s and 90s B-Movie marketplace.

It just goes to show you that our need for art is constant and eternal and if there is a potential point of over-saturation, we’re far, far away from reaching it.

N

is for Nudity

and

Nudity

Is

Nuthin’ But Art

The ABCs of B-Movie Bullsh*t -- M is for Music

M

is for Music 

Yes, I know, M is for Monster. It doesn’t get more obvious than that, but Vanity Fear isn’t about the obvious. We’re all about the mofoin’ oblique bitches!

Sorry.

As important as Monsters are to B-Movies, I would argue that Music is just as important. Not only can Music turn a good B-Movie into a GREAT B-Movie (see my go-to-favourite example Halloween), but in many cases great B-Movies ONLY EXIST because of the Music they contained.

Y’see kids, there once was a time when people bought things called records. Records were collections of songs assembled together with the intention that they be listened to in the same order, each and every time! In most cases, records featured the work of ust one band or artist, which could often be boring and repetitive. It didn’t take long for smart folks to figure out that money could be made assembling records made out of random songs by different artists, but such are the rational, gotta-have-a-reason ways of this world, these folks had to think of ways to justify these random assemblages beyond the fact that they made shitloads of money.

So they made movies out of them!

Sure, they’d tell folks that they made the movies first and the records just sorta happened by accident, but we’re all grown ups.

We know the truth.

Ever seen a terrible B-Movie where the song licensing obviously cost more than the actual production (The Last American Virgin)? Ever seen a terrible B-Movie based on a dance craze that was forgotten before its first screening ended (Thank God It’s Friday)? Ever seen the greatest movie ever made that some assholes think is stupid because they’re retarded morons (The Apple)? Then you know what I’m talking about.

In some cases having too awesome a soundtrack could prove to be a double-edged sword. It is widely speculated that the reason Patrick Swayze’s “lost” classic Skatetown U.S.A. has never been officially released in ANY home video format is due to the fact that the cost to relicense songs by Earth, Wind & Fire, The Rolling Stones and The Jacksons simply makes it more expensive than the investment is worht. Of course this could be total bullshit (it’s not like other movies haven’t simply replaced expensive songs with cheaper alternatives for home video releases), but it feels true and Vanity Fear is all about the feeling, not the reality.

M

is for Music

and

Music

means

Monsters can suck it

The ABCs of B-Movie Bullsh*t -- L is for Lost Worlds

L

is for Lost Worlds

There are two kinds of Lost Worlds when it comes to B-Movies. There are the far-off fantasy lands whose existences have been kept secret by their remote inaccessibility, such as those found in King Kong, The Lost Continent, Valley of the Gwangi, and pretty much every movie Doug McClure made in the 70s. And then there are the darker, more disturbing worlds that have risen following the loss of civilization as we know it. In Escape from New York, Mad Max, and their many, many low budget Italian duplicates, the Lost World is the one we’re lucky to have now.

Interestingly, neither seem like places anyone would want to live in. Both are inevitably treacherous and barbaric places where the strong feed on the weak. In the fantasy worlds of At the Earth’s Core and The People That Time Forgot, a wrong turn could lead to your being eaten by a dinosaur. In 1990: Bronx Warriors, Steel Dawn or Warriors of the Lost World you had to worry about mutants. In both you could easily end up enslaved by your fellow man.

I’ve always felt that beyond mere escapism the appeal of the Lost World film comes from the revelation that despite all of our apparent problems, things could be so much worse. Your job may suck and people may be ruder and more inconsiderate than you would prefer, but at least you don’t have to kill someone for a drink of water or worry about becoming a Tyrannosaurus’ latest meal. It also helps that these films tend to have women like Caroline Munro and Dana Gillespie in them, which admittedly downplays the potential misery, but still makes them heckuva lot of fun to watch.

L

is for Lost Worlds

and

Lost Worlds

are

Lots of Fun

The ABCs of B-Movie Bullsh*t -- K is for Kicking

K

is for Kicking

Kung Fu, Karate, Thai Kick-Boxing, Ninjitsu, Jeet Kune Do, Gymkata.

Experts (that is to say people who proudly display their collections of throwing stars and nunchucks) could easily spend hours discussing the many differences that make each of the many different fighting styles unique, but we all know this is mere wankery. In each case it’s all about kicking, even those that don’t actually allow you to use your legs, because the kicking I’m referring to is ass-kicking and ass-kicking is easily the most popular B-Movie genre of all time.

An encyclopedia’s worth of books could be written on the different subgenres alone. You’ve got martial arts movies, rape/revenge movies, vigilante movies, angry Vietnam vet movies, gang movies, female gang movies, biker movies, big tough Southern sheriff movies, prison movies, boxing movies, incorruptible cop movies, corrupt cop movies, kickboxing movies, secret tournament movies, redneck movies, big city folks forced to fight redneck movies, I could go one forever.

Fact is most people will go through their entire life without kicking any ass, or worse they’ll only know what it’s like to get their ass kicked. Ass­-kicking movies give them the catharsis they need to get through the day, knowing that out there somewhere the people who truly need their asses kicked might actually get their asses kicked as soon as they mess with the wrong motherfucker.

Every B-Movie fan has their favourite ­ass-kicking subgenre. Mine is the  rape/revenge movie, as exemplified by Day of the Woman (both the original and remake), Kill Bill 1&2, Ms. 45, Lipstick, Thriller: A Cruel Picture, and Savage Streets. For reasons I make clear in this recent Bookgasm review, I’ve always identified more with female protagonists than their male counterparts and thus always feel more satisfaction watching a hot chick some righteous ass.

What’s your favourite ass-kicking movie genre?

K

is for Kicking

and

Kicking

is

Kool

The ABCs of B-Movie Bullsh*t -- J is for Japanese

J

is for Japanese

There’s so much to talk about when it comes to Japanese B-Movie cinema. You’ve got your samurai films (which are essentially westerns where the guys carry swords instead of six shooters), bizarre supernatural horror tales, their infamous “pink” softcore porn films, bloody gangster films, as well as their unique brand of adult-themed animation, but the truth is that we here at Vanity Fear (and by “we”, we, of course, mean me, but I’m trying to keep it all professional and shit) only really care about one kind of Japanese B-Movie:

BIG RUBBER MONSTER WRECKS SHIT!

Serious movie buffs will tell you all about how the original B&W Gojira was a serious metaphor for Hiroshima and how the never-ending flood of sequels bastardized the concept and turned it into a laughably inane children’s series.

This is why serious movie buffs are assholes.

As works of pure unfettered juvenile imagination the Godzilla series (along with such adored imitators as the giant nuclear turtle Gamera) are pretty much unmatched in the annals of world cinema. Few are good, most are terrible, but taken together they’re nothing short of brilliant. From such pretentious beginnings true B-Movie Bullsh*t bloomed, resulting in the creation of that astonishing 1962 culmination of Japanese and American culture—Kingu Kongu tai Gojira.

Though there’s no truth to the rumor that separate endings were filmed in order to allow both combatants to win in their home countries (it actually ends in a much more disappointing tie), it is true that in the sequel Kingu Kongu no gyakushû our giant ape-y hero fights a robot version of himself.

Awesome doesn’t get more awesome than that.

J

is for Japanese

and

Japanese

is

Just Insane

The ABCs of B-Movie Bullsh*t -- I is for Italian

I

is for Italian

When people describe the virtues of the Italian culture, subtlety is a word you’ll almost never hear. If any one phrase can be used to sum up their artistic achievements and general philosophy towards life, it would have to be, “Go big or go home.” This is especially true when it comes to their filmmaking.

“But Allan,” I hear some of you whine pitifully, “what about the Italian neo-realists like Rossellini and De Sica? Surely they weren’t extravagant or over the top?”

“Nonsense!” I shout back authoritatively. “For all of their authenticity, Rome, Open City and The Bicycle Thief are also clearly in-your-face diatribes against the fake glamour of traditional cinema. In that way, they are about as subtle as a swift kick to the meatballs.”

This is especially true of Italian B-movie cinema, a world that famously ranges from sword and sandal period tales featuring Hercules and Machiste, to spaghetti westerns to raunchy sex comedies (hopefully starring Edwige Fenech) to gross-out cannibal/zombie movies to noir crime dramas to cheesy sci-fi to the classic giallo thrillers. It’s hard to think of a single genre the Italians haven’t given their own spin on.

Beyond their often-prurient focus on sex and violence, Italian B-movies were notable for the use of M.O.S. sound, the process in which dialogue isn’t recorded on set, but instead added via ADR during post-production. The result is a strangely detached, almost dreamlike quality where the spoken words never quite exactly match the movement of the speaker’s lips—even when spoken in the language used during production.

The history of Italian B-movies is far too vast to sum up in a brief entry such as this, but some notable names to look up would be Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento, Luigi Cozzi, Lamberto Bava, Dino Di Laurentiis, Sergio Leone, Carlo Ponti, Ruggero Deodato, Joe D’Amato, Tinto Brass, Umberto Lenzi and the already mentioned Ms. Fenech.

I

is for Italian

and

Italian

is

Incredible

The ABCs of B-Movie Bullsh*t -- H is for Hammer

H

is for Hammer 

By 1955 Britain’s Hammer Film Productions had been around for 21 years and was only barely surviving by rapidly pumping out “quota-quickies”—low budget films of dubious quality that often played to empty theaters in order to meet the government-regulated demand for homegrown cinema.

That all changed that year, when they released the film adaptation of a chilling radio thriller about an obsessive scientist chasing after the rapidly mutating participant of his latest rocket experiment. The Quartmass Experiment quickly became the company’s biggest hit. They immediately followed it with two more sci-fi thrillers (X the Unknown and the sequel to Quartermass), but it was another horror effort that changed their fortunes and turned them in their country’s most famous exporter of B-movie greatness.

With The Curse of Frankenstein Hammer chanced upon a brilliant formula: Take the monsters made famous by Universal studios over 20 years earlier and update them with all of the blood, violence and (most importantly) sex they could hope to get away with. In 1958 that wasn’t much, but it was enough to cause a sensation. Critics were scandalized, while audiences were thrilled.

The resulting box office convinced Hammer to go all in. Adaptations featuring their versions of Dracula, the Wolfman, the Mummy, the Phantom of the Opera, cavemen, lost worlds, zombies, reptilemen and every kind of murderer they could think of soon followed. These films turned British character actors Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee into marquee stars, while their true appeal lay in the constant supply of European starlets who lent their heaving cleavages to the productions. Ask any Hammer fan to name their favourite and they’re likely to run out of breathe and faint before they get even close to stopping (Madeline Smith, Raquel Welch, Ursulla Andress, Kate O’Mara, Martine Beswick, Caroline Munro, Stephanie Beacham, Ingrid Pitt, Valerie Leon, Yvonne Romain…and that’s just off the top of my head).

If during the sixties these films represented a constant battle between sex and violence, it was clear by the seventies that sex had won. Lesbian themes were introduced into films like The Vampire Lovers, twin playmates were given the title roles in Twins of Evil and naked Nastassja Kinski was the only apparent justification for To the Devil a Daughter. That said, the studio still managed to produce several truly great films, including Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter and the imaginative Stevenson adaptation Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde.

Following the failure of To the Devil, the studio finally closed its doors, only to reopen them in the past few years. Unfortunately the resulting films have yet to suggest any reason why fans of the original studio’s output should care.

H

is for Hammer

and

Hammer

is

Hot!

The ABCs of B-Movie Bullsh*t -- G is for Gore

G

is for Gore

Herschell Gordon Lewis was always ahead of the curve. A few years earlier he had teamed up with famous exploitation movie producer David F. Friedman and started grinding out a series of “nudie cuties” (fake “documentaries” of nudist colonies that attempted—mostly unsuccessful—to justify the sight of busty beauties playing nude volleyball as educational), but the market was becoming over-saturated. A new gimmick was needed, all he had to do was figure out what people wanted that they weren’t currently getting.

With Blood Feast, Lewis found his gimmick and movies were never really the same again.

In the past acts of violence were always either shown off screen or depicted as unrealistically as possible (how man western villains died from gunshot wounds that produced no blood or visible wounds?). Lewis changed all that—well, the first part anyway (no one would ever accuse his films of being realistic). Where once filmmakers were content to merely allow audiences to imagine the carnage their characters had wrought, Lewis filmed it all in excruciating, pornographic detail. If Hitchcock’s famous shower scene featured 77 different shots, but not a single one in which the knife penetrated Janet Leigh’s body, then Lewis’ equivalent would have been done in one long take of the knife cutting through flesh, muscle and bone, causing a geyser of blood to splash against the camera lens.

The result was box office magic. Lewis quickly followed his success with a series of gory movies that became more surreal and strange as it went on (to stretch out the running time of The Gruesome Twosome, for example, he inserted shots of two inanimate wig mannequins having a conversation with each other). Strangely, few filmmakers immediately attempted to replicate his success. It turned out that even hardened B-Movie opportunists had limits.

Still, the floodgates had been opened and it was only a matter of time before the inevitable river of blood flowed through them. As the audience for such films grew, master technicians like Tom Savini developed the artistry required to make this violence as true to life as possible. This resulted in an equally inevitable backlash. To this day when people describe horror films as a form of pornography, they are almost always referring to those that emphasize gore over suspense.

G

is for Gore

and

Gore

is

Great