Talk:Exploitation film

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[edit] Changes

Hi,

I've recently made quite a lot of additions to the exploitation film page, and would appreciate a peer review. --Jahsonic 08:43, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

What is an exploitation film? It is not addressed in the article. Roman Soldier 04:54, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Er, it's not? What's the first paragraph all about, then? -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:35, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I've revised the opening to more directly describe the subject in the first sentence.

[edit] suggested merge

I think the merge of B-movie is a bad idea; surely not all B-movies are explotation films. I think the articles stand well on their own. Same goes for Z-movie. On the other hand, merging grindhouse makes sense since this already has a section on that. Brighterorange 00:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

So Ron Reagan starred in explotation films? Next thing, wikipedia will list ketchup as a vegetable. Ghosts&empties 17:57, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Merging all these things together would be a bad idea. Mabey some of these things are Explotation films, or whatnot, but merging them altogher will result in an article that is far to complex to find out the thing you are looking for. Keep them seperate. <unsigned>

in that case please rewrite Exploitation film to clearly distinguish it from B-movie and vice versa as to a layman like me i'm totally confused by all these different classifications that all appear to be the same thing. Catherine breillat 21:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)


Some B-movies are exploitation films but not all exploitation films are B-movies. A B-movie is a movie with acting, writing, directing and production values not quite up to par with A-movies, they are not necessarily designed to shock or titillate like exploitation films. Anthopos 21:34, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Suppose that you're a filmmaker in the 1950s. You get someone who sold a few stories to the pulps back in the heyday of pulps to turn one of his old stories, a by-the-numbers crime-and-punishment story, into a film. You line up an old actor who used to pack them in the theatres, and a young would-be star who might actually be good if he can learn not to overact, and crank out the flick, directing it yourself to avoid paying someone else. That's a B-movie.

Now suppose you're another filmmaker in the 1950s. You open up your paper and read about Charles Starkweather's rampage across the Midwest. You get on the phone immediately to your one friend who works for a major studio; he assures you that the major studios would never dare risk such tastelessness as to rush out a film about a spree killer and his barely-pubescent girlfriend. You crow with delight to hear that you're not going to have competition; before the day is out you've lined up a hammy young actor who can snarl and wave a gun on cue, a girl who can't act to save her life but will bare her breasts if it means starring in a movie, and you've got a hack writer to churn out most of the script but you're writing in extra sex scenes to make sure they're lurid and scandalous -- after all, if your film gets banned in one town because it's so shocking, that means you're going to have huge crowds for it in the next town over, because everyone wants to see what they know they're not supposed to see. That's an exploitation film. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Very well put, altho your definition of 1950s B-movies is better suited to 1970s (post-studio-era) B-movies. In the 50s, studios had A- and B-list directors under contract just like they had A- and B-list actors. --Tysto 04:08, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Distinctions

The proposed merges do not make sense to me. Here's why:

A B-movie, a matter of budget and quality, originally refered to products of the Hollywood studio system with low production costs, obviously as opposed to their A-movies. The heyday of the B-movie was 1935 through around 1960 when the studio system collapsed. Making these movies at a lower standard of quality served multiple purposes: training ground for directors and stars, 'filler' material for studio-owned theatres, smoothing out holes in the production schedules. Sometimes B-movies were accidentally successful, like Casablanca. In a looser sense 'B-movie' has been used to refer to any movie with substandard production values.

A Z-movie, a matter of budget and quality, is a less exact term for movies with extremely low production values. I've seen it used to refer to the output of Poverty Row or to independent producers, but never to the output of a major studio.

Exploitation film, a matter of content, refers to movies whose chief attraction is violent, prurient or other sensationalistic content. The heyday of exploitation film is probably from 1965 through now, but the category stretches back at least to the 1930s and Kroger Babb. Up through the late 1960s the major studios did not touch exploitation films. They were too worried about their reputations and the Production Code. One case after 1960 is when 20th Century Fox chose to distribute Beyond the Valley of the Dolls in 1970, but it's unusual.

Paracinema is new to me, I have no opinion about it, other than it looks like a pretty loose category that could encompass all of these.

Does this help? --Lockley 01:39, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

This is exactly the conclusion I came to just now after seeing the merger on Wikipedia:Proposed mergers and reading the three relevant articles (B-movie, Paracinema, and Exploitation film). Since the consensus seems to be against a merger, I'm removing all merge tags and taking it off the proposed mergers list. | Klaw ¡digame! 20:20, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I too have to agree that B-movie and Exploitation films should not be merged. There are many examples of early cowboy films and other inexpensively done films like Gun Crazy that are absolutely B-movies, but not necessarily exploitation. Exploitation films are necessarily defined by their content. B-movies are completely B due to their budget. Sensorium 05:00, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Guinea Pig series not "simulated snuff"

The article uses the Guinea Pig series as an example of snuff simulation, a "sub-sub-genre" og shock exploitation. While it can be argued that the second instalment of the Guinea Pig series, "Chiniku no hana" (aka "Flower of flesh and blood"), was essentially a snuff simulation, this does not apply to any of the other movies. Some seem to think that the first film, "Akuma no jikken" ("Devil's experiment")is a fake snuff; I dispute this because the girl victim, as far as I know, isn't actually shown being killed at all (though it might be argued that her death is implied, or that she might be dead in those scenes where she is shown dangling from a tree in a sack), so it can't be called a snuff simulation. As for the other movies, none of them contain anything that could be called snuff, allthough many of them are exploitative (and very comical). Thus I changed this in the article. Hope nobody minds. Mogura 17:41, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Grind House

I added an alternate link to the 2007 film Grind House, as I was redirected to this page by looking for "Grindhouse". If this is not appropriate, please revert. Erik 22:54, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

It is somewhat important but highly confusing. XdiabolicalX 00:38, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Since Grind House redirects here, I added this term also to the introductory section. Tikiwont 16:18, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

In the article it claims that "grinding out" movies is a reference to hand crank cameras. This seems like nonsense to me, I don't think the term to "grind out" lots of something has cinematic origins at all. It seems like someone just thought the two things were similar and stuck that in the article on his own whims. I'm taking it out.


Verification on Bump and Grind origins: I'd like to see a citation on Grindhouses being named for 'bump and grind' burlesque houses. I live in the land of the now extinct grindhouses. Wikipedia was the only place I have read this. The generally held conception is that grindhouse was a term used for places that used to play films from studios like Troma, the Chinese market and other low budget studios that would 'grind out' film after low budget film. They didn't cost much to make or for the theaters to buy.

The reason I question this also is the burlesque houses here were more the type of runway and pole setups. They usually weren't big enough to be real theaters. We didn't have a vaudeville era with strippers on a big stage and comics etc. Burlesque here was and still is just strip joints which were just converted storefronts and restaurants. Although I was in one stripjoint that used to be a theater but never a theater that used to be a stripjoint. Well there are the newer "Gentleman's Clubs" which can be pretty big. But they came in the nineties. I am not expert enough on grindhouse theaters to say its wrong. It just sounds wrong based on my experience of Los Angeles. So I would like to see a citation.


"One of the most famous grindhouses in American cinema is Troma, which created the Toxic Avenger series along with a variety of other cult films."

Um... the paragraph this closes just finished explaining that grindhouses were movie theaters. Troma is a studio. I think this sentence needs to be struck. Monkey Bounce 00:25, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

  • My impression is that the "grindhouse" was an urban theater showing the kind of exploitation movies usually associated with the rural drive-in theaters: "B" or double-bill movies, plus the soft porn and "mondo" movies. After our local mall multi-plex took over booking "A" list single-bill first-run movies, our old grand theater downtown started showing second-run "A" movies and midnite movies like "Flesh Gordon" and "Groove Tube". We never had burlesque theaters. The explanations of the origin of the term "grindhouse" all strike me as after-the-fact surmise or speculation. When was the first use of the term and in what context?Naaman Brown (talk) 16:25, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
According to Emily Booth on the dvd trailer compilation : 'Grindhouse: Trailer Classics' the term 'grindhouse' refers to the defunct 'bump n' grind' burlesque theatres on sleazy 42nd Street where these exploitation films were shown. The name referred to these venues - not the production process. Colin4C (talk) 16:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

On www.grindhouse.com there is an explanation of the origin of the term grindhouse: Many of these inner-city theatres formerly featured burlesque shows which included "bump and grind" dancing, leading to the term "grindhouse. However, I don't know how reliable this source of information is! It could be used as a reference though. (131.211.109.244 (talk) 19:39, 5 June 2008 (UTC))


[edit] the term itself

It would be nice if the article could explain why they are called "exploitation" films. Who or what is being "exploited", or am I missing the point entirely? I am probably not the only person confused by this term. — coelacan talk — 04:16, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I have to do some work on this article. The term is mostly about the subject matter. --badlydrawnjeff talk 04:52, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I have edited the article in the very first paragraph to immediately address these concerns while trying to maintain as much as possible the intent of the previous author.

The opening should now be more direct and economical and very specifically addresses what areas of the public psyche are being exploited. The previous was more equivocating about the term exploitation. Since it handles a lot very quickly, it tends to make portions of the following paragraph dealing with advertising and promotion redundant. And I have done nothing about that for fear of rewriting everything in my image of what it should say.* — 75.84.87.244 08:10, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Just noticed someone adjusted the advertising paragraph and shifted my list down. Very well done the opening is really shaping into a much better article than was there this morning. — 75.84.87.244 08:21, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

The rewrite misunderstood the origin of the term "exploitation". Exploitation films were not called so because they "exploited" the audience's baser instincts, but because they relied on heavy promotion, or "exploitation", of the film's contents. "Exploitation" existed as a common show business term for promotion long before "explitation film". The show business bible Variety used it regularly, for example, in sentences like, "Heavy exploitation in opening week could bring out audience for this peculiar pic." — Walloon 14:21, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Subtle but important and educational distinction...just as it should be. — 75.84.87.244, 08:27, 27 April 2007) (UTC)

  • Exploitation in movie terms seems to refer to the advertising and selling of the movie. With "The Beast with a Million Eyes" or "I Changed My Sex" the posters existed before the movies were even scripted, much less filmed. Of course, the movies exploited the public interest in the shocking or astounding subject matter as well. With most exploitation movies, the ads or trailers are more entertaining than the movies. It is a double-edged term.Naaman Brown (talk) 16:35, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Terrible quality; "Subgenres" needs a complete re-write

First of all, "Shock exploitation" is a purely fictional "subgenre". The films listed fall into the actual subgenres of "Rape and revenge", "Pseudo-snuff", and "CATIII".

The term itself is redundant: most, if not all, exploitation is meant to be shocking.

Plus, "Pornochanchada" (I believe I spelled that right) is a subgenre of sexploitation, and I would go as far as arguing that "Chambara" is a subgenre of splatter films. These specific sub-subgenres shouldn't be listed as strictly subgenres of exploitation.

These are the subgenres I believe should have a small sgement written about them:

  • Blaxploitation
  • Cannibal films
  • Mondo films
  • Nazisploitation
  • Nunsploitation
  • Rape and revenge
  • Sexploitation
  • Splatter films
  • Women in prison films
  • Zombie films

...and these are the ones I believe should be listed under "other subgenres":

  • Bruceploitation (?)
  • Dyxploitation (?)
  • CATIII
  • Giallo
  • Hixploitation (?)
  • Pinku eiga
  • Pseudo-snuff

Helltopay27 01:51, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Changes

i added to the "grind house" section of this article stating that mark kermode believes the eponymous move Grindhouse to be not of the genre. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.3.139 (talk) 15:37, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] B-Movie and Exploitation

What's the difference between B-Movie and Exploitation ? Is it about the genre or the times when it was made ? (unsig 00:36, 3 December 2007 (UTC))

I Would say that the primary difference is in the content. A low-quality monster movie of the type currently made for the Sci-Fi Channel would be a B-movie. What takes it to the level of exploitation cinema is the addition of gratuitous violence, nudity, etc. Exploitation, though not universal, is generally applied to films from the 60s and 70s while B-movies are still made. 69.181.55.239 (talk) 09:08, 14 May 2008 (UTC)