Machete Maidens Unleashed! (2010, Festival Screener Review) Fury Productions
Director: Mark Hartley
Cast: Corman, Haig, Jack Hill, Dante and so many more!
Fury Productions / NTSC Region 0 / Unrated / 16×9 Anamorphic Widescreen / Stereo / 84 minutes
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Over the past few years DVD companies have saturated the market with long thought lost exploitation and horror oddities allowing old and new fans alike to appreciate the depth of genre cinema. To continue feeding the cinephile’s hunger for knowledge, there have also been quite a few very good books on cult, horror and “grindhouse” films (check out the DVD Delirium library, Vol.1-4). And to round out the circle of Genre Cinema 101, recently there have been some very good documentaries on the subject. In 2008 filmmaker Mark Hartley got high praise for his award winning film Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation. The film centers around the Australian exploitation explosion in the ’70s and ’80s –which seems to be height of exploitation cinema everywhere– told with anecdotes from filmmakers, critics, stars and fans of the almost forgotten regional genre flicks.
Now Hartley has tackled Filipino exploitation in his new film Machete Maidens Unleashed! with the same vim and vigor as with Not Quite Hollywood. As I write this the film is making its rounds on the festival circuit and getting rave reviews from critics and con attendees alike. So when the nice people at Fury Productions sent me a screener, I was very excited. With some minor technical problems aside (on my end apparently!), I dove in head first since I am all but ignorant about the Philippines and its indubitable contribution to the exploitation world. I guess I should have been a little more attentive because filmmakers who I absolutely love shot some of the greatest and most beloved “grindhouse” movies ever there. It should be explained that Filipino exploitation movies weren’t necessarily Filipino productions but American as explained by film greats like Joe Dante, Jack Hill, John Landis (who apparently had nothing to do with the films coming out of the Philippines except being a HUGE fan) and Roger Corman.
Weng Weng in For Y’ur Height Only
Dante, Hill, and Corman are profiled along with lesser known but no less badass directors Cirio H. Santiago (TNT Jackson, Vampire Hookers) and Eddie Romero (The Blood Trilogy, Black Mama, White Mama) as well as cult actors like the Philippines own midget wonder, Weng Weng (For Y’ur Height Only). We also learn from the actors and actresses who starred in the southeast Asian nuttiness like Sid Haig, Judy Brown (The Big Dollhouse), Marlene Clark (Switchblade Sisters, Night of the Cobra Woman) and many more about their trials and tribulations during shooting. From battling Ferdinand Marcos’ martial law regime to local stuntmen who work for cheap and without nets, sometimes with deadly results. The most famous movie to ever be shot in the country in the same period was Frances Ford Coppola’s Vietnam nightmare Apocalypse Now, and even it was not without its problems with the government and the Army who was at war with rebels at the time.
It was so interesting to hear Joe Dante and Allan Arkush (Deathsport, Rock ‘n’ Roll High School) talking about cutting trailers for some of Roger Corman’s and other’s films. The process of thinking how to cut teasers for sometimes boring or just really shitting movies was fantastic! We also learn that Machete Maidens got its name from Arkush’s film Hollywood Boulevard. Through interviews, stories and fantastic clips from the action packed movies Mark Hartley hits another home run for the retro fringe cinema fan. The production values and editing were top-notch as it weaved together the story of an over-the-top time in a once over-the-top business. I can’t wait for the DVD release of this with the prospect of even more goodness in the extras. This movie could have been five hours long and I would have loved every minute of it. There is a huge world of strange and wild cinema for every time period since the inception of film and I look forward to Mark Hartley and company to get me up to speed on it!
This sounds really cool. I’m looking forward to checking this out when it’s released.