Review by Stuart Barr
UK certification 18 | UK RRP £15.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 100 minutes
British film fans of all things cult and weird have long looked at their American cousins with envy. Where the North American fan of cinematic sleaze, gore and oddity has long been spoiled by a multitude of specialist video companies scouring the vaults and film fairs of their country for obscure treats to release, those of use living in our green and pleasant isle have often been starved of content or given bare bones releases. Until the last few years the solution was to buy a multi region DVD player and hope for the best with customs and excise. However more recently companies like Arrow have appeared giving us cult releases that sometimes have the yanks envious. Even the likes of Studio Canal are now getting in on the act with some choice back catalogue releases (Emmanuelle in America? The mind boggles, even with four minutes of BBFC cuts). Nucleus Films have been carving their own niche with a range of euro sleaze and sexsploitation releases (plus some horror items). The company is also responsible for “party tapes”. These first appeared in the VHS era, and are collections of trailers, usually of obscure movies that will have played at 42nd Street grindhouses and drive-in theatres.
Grindhouse Trailer Classics 3 is Nucleus’ another such release (you can also count last year’s jaw dropping 3 disc Video Nasties collection, although I’d be careful who you invite to that party). Introduced by venerable British genre critic Kim Newman - a man who can work Proust into an introduction of trashy trailers - this collection casts the net beyond horror, to find choice examples of sexploitation, nazisploitation, blacksploitation, southern redneck car chase movies, kung fu films, women in prison movies, rape revenge thrillers, and so on. There are a few horror trailers in there as well of course.
There are some great examples of the trailer maker’s art in here. Of course there are extraordinary claims like:
“See the sex capital of the world, where topless bands beat out the throbbing rhythms of a turned on Generation”
“Lusty, busting babes, ripe with the fruits of desire”
“Never before has the screen erupted with such passion, pagan rituals and sexual frenzy”
“What the girls do in this movie is not dirty of wrong under the laws of Denmark”
“Evil, depraved, blood-sucking werewolves that will scare the pants right off you”
Perhaps most eye opening trailer is for Nazi Love Camp 27 (so obscure even Kim Newman hasn’t seen this film) which opens with a voice over warning that the trailer has been edited to remove shocking scenes, and then proceeds to engulf the viewer in a shocking parade of absolute filth with occasional bits of black leader and the word CUT spliced in before the voice over promises that the film will show in its uncut form and urges those shocked by “total nudity and violence” not to attend.
A cavalcade of beige and flesh, this collection serves to remind us that there was an extraordinary amount of sex and violence (and sexual violence) being presented for titilation in the 1970s, but at the same time the advent of video in the home killed the softcore sexploitation films many of which now look quite charming in retrospect, and in comparison to what is now mainstream porn. Of course most of these films will be far less fun to watch than their trailers suggest. Having said that I really want to see Police Women “a motion picture that takes you on a roller coaster ride of hard hitting violence... and soft curves”.
Also you get to hear Veronica Lake say the line “what’s the matter? Don’t you like my little maggots.”
EXTRAS ★★★ A great explanation of meaning of Grindhouse from film critic and author Kim Newman, poster gallery, and so many trailers for other Nucleus releases it is almost like getting Grindhouse Classics 4 thrown in.