#2,968. Machete Maidens Unleashed (2010) - Documentaries About Film

 

“Since World War II, the Philippines was home to one of the world’s most prolific film industries, producing up to 350 titles a year.
Not one of these films received a theatrical release overseas.
In the late 1960s, this all changed.
Maverick American producers – wanting to create cheap and edgy genre fare outside of the United States – unleashed a tidal wave of productions from the Philippines into drive-in theaters the world over”.

And with the above text scroll, writer / director Mark Hartley, who previously tackled Ozploitation (Not Quite Hollywood) and would eventually set his sights on the craziness that was Cannon Films (Electric Boogaloo), kicks off 2010’s Machete Maidens Unleashed, his venture into low-budget filmmaking in the Philippines, an era that stretched from the late 1960s to the mid-80s.

Featuring archival footage, plenty of interviews, and stories so batshit they will make your head spin, Machete Maidens Unleashed takes us back to the beginning, when American producers tapped Filipino filmmakers Gerardo de Leon and Eddie Romero to turn out a number of low-budget horror movies. The resulting films, known as the Blood Island movies (Brides of Blood, Mad Doctor of Blood Island and Beast of Blood), were financed and released in the U.S. by Hemisphere Pictures. The main star of these movies was American John Ashley, who accepted the roles as a way of getting over his recent divorce. Ashley fell in love with the Philippines, and would remain there for years.

It was Ashley who tipped off his old pal Roger Corman, who was so intrigued by the stories of cheap local labor that he sent director Jack Hill and a film crew over, resulting in the women-in-prison movie The Big Doll House. It was a huge smash, and led to a string of other exploitation films that featured all the blood and nudity that kept drive-in patrons of the day happy.

Corman would eventually hire local Filipino directors to helm these movies, chief among them Cirio Santiago (Fly Me, TNT Jackson). The benefits of making movies with government assistance (martial law was declared by dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1972, and he was only too happy to assist his American friends by lending out military troops and equipment for their movies) would even Francis Ford Coppola to fly to the Philippines, where, after years of turmoil and hardship, he would turn out one of the greatest movies ever made: Apocalypse Now.

Many of those interviewed for Machete Maidens Unleashed, including directors Eddie Romero, Jack Hill and Brian Trenchard-Smith as well as actors Sid Haig, Pam Grier, Gloria Hendry and Margaret Markov, had first-hand experience of the insanity that was shooting a movie in the Philippine jungles. In the early days, many of the locals carried guns (Jack Hill claims that he and several of his crew saw a man shot to death in a hotel lobby), and relied on local “talent” for everything, even pyrotechnics! From the excessive heat to the large bugs and rodents (Sid Haig claims he watched a rat carry off a kitten), not to mention a lack of any sort of safety protocol (several local stuntmen were killed over the years), it was, as Trenchard-Smith called it, the “Wild East” of low-budget filmmaking.

Many actresses, hoping it would lead to better parts in the future, stripped to their birthday suits and allowed themselves to be put into some dangerous situations. One was tied down naked and, with only a sheet of glass to protect her, found herself face-to-face with a venomous cobra!

Yet, thanks to the low costs associated with these productions, the movies continued to make money. According to Roger Corman, who admitted he “Did not care” for The Big Doll House, it cost $100k to make that picture and it took in over $4 million!

As with Not Quite Hollywood and Electric Boogaloo, Hartley brings an incredible energy to Machete Maidens Unleashed, cutting back-and-forth from interviews to film clips at a pace that makes the documentary, at times, feel like an action film. This, plus additional commentary by the likes of John Landis, Danny Peary, and the duo of Joe Dante and Allan Arkush, who in the ‘70s were tasked by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures to cut trailers for these Filipino movies (Corman admits at one point that the trailers were often better than the movies themselves), Machete Maidens Unleashed is a fascinating glimpse into, as the movie’s subtitle states, The Wild, Untold Story of the Filipino exploitation explosion.

If you’re like me, the minute Machete Maidens Unleashed is over, you’ll be seeking out many of the titles mentioned, if for no other reason than to see if the movies themselves are as crazy as what went on behind the scenes. Of the ones I’ve watched already, I can tell you: they absolutely are!
Rating: 9 out of 10

#2,953. This is Cinerama (1952) - Documentaries About Film

 

The threat of television loomed heavy over the motion picture industry in the early 1950s, and Hollywood needed to up the ante to compete with the more convenient home-based medium.

It was then that Cinerama was born.

Invented by film pioneer Fred Waller, Cinerama utilized images shot by three individual cameras, operating in unison by way of a single shutter, that, when projected, offered viewers a widescreen experience like no other, a complete “field of vision” presentation beamed onto a 146-degree screen that wrapped around the theater. Combined with another new innovation, stereophonic sound, the Cinerama process was unlike anything seen before, and the movie that introduced it to the world was the 1952 documentary This Is Cinerama.

Produced and co-directed by Merian C. Cooper, the mastermind behind another revolutionary motion picture, 1933’s King Kong, This is Cinerama opens with a black and white sequence, presented in the standard aspect ratio, during which narrator Lowell Thomas offers a rundown of the history of moving images, from the attempts by prehistoric man and ancient Egyptians to show pictures in motion to the days of early animation, Thomas Edison, and The Great Train Robbery.

Once this segment is over, Lowell, staring straight ahead, bellows “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Cinerama”, at which point the screen expands, the picture changes from black and white to color, and the viewer is treated, in full stereo sound, to a ride on a rollercoaster (the cameras were attached to the front of the Atom Smasher coaster in New York’s Rockaway Playland).

I can only imagine how that first audience reacted to this initial sequence, but to paraphrase Al Jolson in 1927’s The Jazz Singer, they ain’t seen nothing yet!

This is Cinerama follows it up with a variety of amazing segments, shot in Venice (including a Gondola ride), Scotland (The Rally of the Clans at Edinburgh Castle), Vienna (featuring an outdoor performance by the Vienna Boys Choir), Spain (where we witness a bull fight in a packed arena), and Milan (one of the film’s most impressive sequences, the triumphal scene from the opera Aida, staged at the La Scala Opera House).

Then, after a brief intermission and a demonstration (audio only) of Stereophonic sound, This is Cinerama focuses on a more “American” experience, with a half-hour water show at Florida’s Cypress Gardens followed by aerial images (shot from a B-25 bomber) of some of the country’s more familiar landscapes, including Manhattan, Washington D.C., Chicago, the Mississippi River, and the Grand Canyon. Even today, in this age of high-tech entertainment, all of the film’s sequences are breathtaking.

The three-camera process as presented in This is Cinerama would be featured in a handful of movies over the next 10 years, mostly documentaries (Search for Paradise in 1957, South Seas Adventures in 1958), but also in two narrative films, both released in 1962: The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm and the amazing How the West Was Won. It was during the making of How the West Was Won that the Cinerama corporation realized it could create a similar (though not quite as grand) widescreen 70mm experience using a single camera, as opposed to the more expensive three-camera set-up. This new technique, renamed Ultra Panavision 70, would become the standard for Cinerama in the years to come, and be utilized in such movies as It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Hallelujah Trail, and, most recently, Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. Still, even with its short life span, This is Cinerama proved there was something special about that three-camera set-up. Watching it on Blu-Ray, projected onto my high-definition television, gave me a taste of just how cutting-edge this process was at the time, yet I can’t help but envy those lucky patrons who saw the movie in 1952 on that 146-degree screen.

I was enthralled, impressed, and entertained, but they were witnesses to history in the making.
Rating: 9 out of 10

#2,925. All American High Revisited (2014) - Documentaries About Film

 

If you need a smile, or a pick-me-up, then you’ll want to check out director Keva Rosenfeld’s All American High Revisited. It is an incredibly fun documentary.

Released in 1987, Rosenfeld’s original film, simply titled All American High, followed the senior class of Torrance High School in Los Angeles as they navigated their way through the 1983-’84 school year, from the first day of class all the way to graduation. The cameras were there to capture it all, from classes and assemblies to student elections and the Senior Prom. And, of course, the parties, which could get a little rowdy. One party host went so far as to charge admission, to ensure he’d have enough money to repair any damages caused by the revelers.

We meet a few key members of the class of ’84, but our guide for this journey is Finnish exchange student Rikki Rauhala. As an outsider to American customs, Rauhala offers some fascinating insights, on cheerleaders (after attending a football game, Rauhala admits she had only seen cheerleaders in the movies or on TV, never in person); her friends putting their education second to having a good time (she talks about this often); and even her classmates’ hang-ups about sex. Rauhala mentions at one point that she had two boyfriends that year, including one who took her to the Senior prom. Both relationships ended when the boys were slow to act, and too shy to make a move.

Along with being a time capsule of life in the mid-1980s (I was a freshman in ’83-’84, and to see that era alive again, from the fashion to the music, was very, very cool), All American High is an expose of teen culture at that time, as seen through the eyes of someone (Rikki) who had only just joined it.

But as good as All American High is, it’s the Revisited part of the movie that really blew me away!

Thirty years after shooting the movie, in 2014, Rosenfeld reconnected with Rauhala as well as a few other members of the Torrance Class of ’84. At that point, Rauhala was living in Karjaa, Finland (which a graphic informs us is 5,602 miles from Torrance High). She was married and the mother of three children, including a daughter who was herself about to graduate.

We also reconnect with William, who we met briefly when he offered insight into a mock wedding ceremony, a class project the students had to complete, which was designed to teach them about relationships and how best to handle any issues that might arise later in life. Sporting a pair of sunglasses, the 1984 William talked of how he wasn’t impressed with the mock weddings. Looking at that footage 30 years later, William, now a contractor, quipped that he is almost positive the reason he was wearing sunglasses during that interview was that he was high!

This later Revisited segment (which takes up the final half hour of the movie) also contains a clip from a (then) recent public screening of All American High, which played on a double bill with Fast Times at Ridgemont High. While on-stage for a Q & A with Amy Heckerling (Director of Fast Times), Rosenfeld asked the crowd if anyone from that Torrance class was in attendance, and was thrilled when a good number of people stood up!

The highlight of the Revisited sequence, though, was sitting down with Rauhala and her family in Finland as they watched the movie. With her kids playfully taunting her, Rauhala got to see her teenage self again, and even remarks that it seems like it could have all happened “six months ago”. To see the look on her face, the emotion in her eyes, was priceless.

All American High Revisited is one of those movies, one of those experiences, that reminds me why I so love the cinema.
Rating: 9.5 out of 10

#2,497. Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016) - Documentaries About Film

Directed By: Bill Morrison

Starring: Kathy Jones-Gates, Michael Gates, Sam Kula




Tag line: "Film Was Born of an Explosive"

Trivia: The film contains rare footage of the 1919 World Series - known for the "Black Sox" betting scandal







It is estimated that 75% of all silent films, most printed on highly flammable nitrate stock, have been lost. 

We learn this little factoid early on in writer / director Bill Morrison’s 2016 documentary Dawson City: Frozen Time, which makes everything that follows it all the more incredible. 

Founded in 1897, Dawson City - a tiny metropolis situated in Canada’s Yukon Territory - saw its population explode during the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 19th century (at its height, 40,000 people called Dawson City their home). As a result, the town grew very quickly, with saloons, gambling houses, brothels and even a few theaters popping up. 

In the first decades of the 20th century, moving pictures were all the rage, and several venues in Dawson City exhibited them on a regular basis. Because the town was so far north, it sometimes took two or three years for Hollywood’s newest releases to reach it. In many cases, the residents of this Yukon community were the last to receive the prints, and since they were, by that point, considered “outdated”, the studios and distributors didn’t want to pay for their return. 

So once they finished their run, the film reels were crated up and stored in the basement of a burned-out library. 

Within 10 years or so, this basement was filled to capacity, and a bank manager (whose facility was hired by the distributors to ensure the movies didn’t play past their rental period) again asked the powers-that-be in Hollywood if they wanted their films back. 

They didn’t. 

But instead of destroying the reels (as the studios instructed him to do), the banker donated the crates to a local hockey team, which used them as landfill for the construction of a new ice rink. 

The building that surrounded the rink eventually burned to the ground, and the crates stayed buried under the ice until 1970, when an excavation crew finally uncovered them. 

It proved to be quite a find: over 500 reels of nitrate films dating as far back as the mid 1910’s. These reels were shipped off to a historical society, which cataloged each one. Some of the movies they found were believed lost forever. 

The telling of this story is - in and of itself - enough to make Dawson City: Frozen Time a worthwhile documentary, but it’s how director Morrison approaches the material that lifts this remarkable film to a whole new level. 

Instead of relying on narration and talking heads, Morrison lets the recovered movies speak for themselves, relating the history of Dawson City itself (recounted in great detail via newsreels and appropriate excerpts from dramatic films) as well as other historic events, like the 1914 Colorado miner’s strike; the end of World War I;, and the infamous 1919 World Series (see John Sayles’ Eight Men Out for more on this).  

Footage for all of this, and more besides, was rescued from the Dawson City site. 

By dedicating so much time to the movies themselves, Dawson City: Frozen Time does more than relate the tale of an extraordinary cinematic discovery; it demonstrates what we gained, and what might have been lost had the reels remained buried forever. 

Dawson City: Frozen Time is a documentary movie buffs and historians alike will applaud. The cache in Dawson City was a truly amazing find, and its story made for an equally amazing motion picture.

#2,000. Cleanflix (2009) - Documentaries About Film

Directed By: Andrew James, Joshua Ligairi

Starring: Ray Lines, Allan Erb, Scott Nybo




Tag line: "Sex. Violence. Mormons. Movies"

Trivia: Premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival








In April of 1986, Ezra Taft Benson, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, addressed the faithful at a Utah conference and touched on a number of topics. One he felt particularly strongly about was the “lewd and suggestive” entertainment industry, which, if left unchecked, might pollute minds with its “degrading matter”. “Don’t see R-rated movies”, Benson said that day, and thousands of Mormons heeded his advice. 

Fortunately, they wouldn’t have to avoid movies like Goodfellas and Schindler’s List forever. 

Launched in 2000 by entrepreneur Ray Lines, Clean Flicks was a Utah-based company that edited R and PG-13 rated films, removing all “objectionable” content (bad language, sex, violence) so that Mormon families could enjoy them without putting their eternal souls in jeopardy. 

Co-directed by Andrew James and Joshua Ligairi, the 2009 documentary Cleanflix takes us inside the world of edited movies, from its earliest days right up to the end, when Hollywood (specifically, the Director’s Guild) cried foul, and fought to put Clean Flicks and its many imitators out of business. An in-depth, often riveting film, Cleanflix tells the entire story… and then some.

By way of interviews and archived news footage, Cleanflix covers all the necessary bases, from product demand (we meet a good number of Mormons, including college students at Brigham Young University, who say that under no circumstances would they watch an unedited R-rated movie); to supply (along with Ray Lines, who provides a quick overview of how his editing service worked, we’re introduced to shop owners Daniel Thompson and Robert Perry, both of whom hopped on the Clean Flicks bandwagon early enough to make some serious money with it); to, eventually, the end of the line, when the Directors Guild successfully sued to have Clean Flicks shut down (among the filmmakers who chime in on the issue are Curtis Hanson, Steven Soderbergh, and former Mormon Neil LaBute, who thanks to his past association with the church had a few interesting things to say). 

In addition, we get a gander at some of the films Clean Flicks “cleaned up” over the years, watching first a scene from the original, uncut movie followed by the exact same scene in the Clean Flicks version (the cut sequence in The Matrix was done well enough, but a funny moment from The Big Lebowski was completely ruined by extensive edits).

As it turns out, though, the life and death of Clean Flicks wasn’t the end of this particular story.

While most of those associated with Clean Flicks threw in the towel once the court order was issued, shop owner Daniel Thompson decided to stand and fight. Claiming he found a loophole in the copyright law, Thompson kept his store open, continuing to sell sanitized versions of Hollywood films. As a result, he became a local media darling (in one very entertaining scene, the camera is affixed on Thompson as he listens to a radio piece about his battle to stay afloat). 

Alas, Thompson would eventually lose the fight, and to the surprise of those who supported him for so many years, he and an associate were arrested a few months later and charged with committing a sex crime.

This sad state of affairs does fit nicely into the overall Clean Flicks story, due in part to Thompson’s association with the company, but mostly because it exposed a hypocrisy in what was intended to be a very moral, virtuous endeavor. That said, the telling of Daniel Thompson’s personal tragedy also stands well enough on its own, offering a sort of “documentary within a documentary”. 

The portion of the film dealing with Clean Flicks Is intriguing, to say the least, but by keeping the cameras rolling, directors James and Ligairi also managed to take Cleanflix in a completely new, yet equally fascinating direction.

#1,750. Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (2004) - Documentaries About Film

Directed By: Xan Cassavetes

Starring: Jerry Harvey, F.X. Feeney, Robert Altman




Line from this film: "You just never know when you're living in a golden age"

Trivia: This documentary was screened out of competition at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival







Jerry Harvey loved movies. 

A graduate of UCLA, Harvey organized a screening of Sam Peckinpah’s “director’s cut” of The Wild Bunch in 1974, and in 1981 became director of programming for Z Channel, a Los Angeles-based movie-centric pay cable station that was one of the first in the U.S. For years, Z Channel was a film lover’s paradise, focusing on foreign and under-seen movies while occasionally championing a few that had been savaged by critics.

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession, a brilliant 2004 documentary directed by Xan Cassavetes, explores Harvey’s passion for the cinema, and how he helped turn Z Channel into a premiere cable network. 

But there was another side of Jerry Harvey. A much darker side. Suffering from depression and prone to fits of rage, Harvey, in 1988, shot and killed his wife of two years before turning the gun on himself. Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession gives us the good and the bad, painting as complete a portrait of this talented, troubled individual as it possibly can.

As much a history of the groundbreaking cable station as it is the story of Jerry Harvey, Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession features interviews with current filmmakers (including Quentin Tarantino and Alexander Payne) who were influenced from an early age by the films they saw on Z Channel. Playing movies by Bergman, Fellini, Kurosawa, and the French New Wave on a regular basis, “Z” introduced these foreign masters to a new generation of fans while, at the same time, shining a light on lesser-known works like 1975’s Overlord (directed by Stuart Cooper) and Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900. 

In addition, Z Channel gave movies like Michael Cimino’s much-maligned epic western, Heaven’s Gate, a new lease at life, and showed the world why the nearly 4-hour cut of Once Upon a Time in America was a classic (before its U.S. release, the movie was trimmed to just over 2 hours, a version that was panned by critics). 

In short, Z Channel was a godsend for cinema enthusiasts, and even when HBO and the other big boys started to get a foothold in the L.A. area, nobody was willing to cancel their subscription to “Z”. It was like a film festival in your living room each and every day of the week.

The man behind the channel’s success was Jerry Harvey. According to those who knew him, Harvey dedicated almost every waking hour to Z Channel, contacting studios and filmmakers on a daily basis in the hopes of uncovering some hidden gems. He was a fan of the cinema from an early age, and prior to joining “Z”, he and his friend Doug Venturelli had written the screenplay for the Monte Hellman-directed 1978 western China 9, Liberty 37. 

During his time at Z Channel, Harvey befriended the likes of Michael Cimino, Robert Altman, and Paul Verhoeven, and used his vast knowledge of movies to ensure “Z’ maintained the level of excellence its subscribers had come to expect. Featuring clips from many of the films that Harvey brought to the forefront, including Turkish Delight (Verhoeven’s 1973 drama / romance starring a young Rutger Hauer), Fingers (a 1978 crime flick with Harvey Keitel) and Penelope Spheeris’ The Decline of Western Civilization, Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession will, in turn, introduce you to many movies you’ve never seen, some of which you’ll want to seek out immediately.

Admittedly, I became so wrapped up in the tale of Jerry Harvey the cinema nut that I forgot there was more to his story. But Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession didn’t let me forget it for long. By way of interviews with former flames and close friends (including critic F.X. Feeney and some of Harvey's co-workers at Z Channel), we hear about Jerry’s traumatic childhood, and how his two older sisters had both committed suicide, a fact that disturbed him deeply. 

Doreen Ringer Ross, his live-in girlfriend for 5 years, says there were times when Harvey’s tempter would take over, yet when the news broke that, on April 9, 1988, he had killed his second wife, Deri Rudolph, then took his own life, everyone was stunned. Even those who loved the man cannot forgive the fact that he murdered his wife (those interviewed speak very highly of Deri, saying she had a vibrant personality and a smile that lit up a room). Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession doesn’t shy away from revealing Harvey’s inner turmoil, which, unfortunately, took control in the end.

For over a century, the cinema has served as an escape from the everyday, where, for a couple of hours, people can forget their troubles. But as Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession shows us, sometimes even movies aren’t enough to keep the demons at bay.

#952. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (2003) - Documentaries About Film

Directed By: Kenneth Bowser

Starring: Martin Scorsese, Dennis Hopper, Peter Bogdanovich




Tag line: "How the Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood"

Trivia: Among those who declined to be interviewed in the documentary were George Lucas and William Friedkin






So there’s this sequence in 2003’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls - a documentary based on the controversial novel by Peter Biskind - where we’re watching clips from an 8mm home movie, shot in either the late ‘60s or early ‘70s. 

It was taken inside a California beachfront house that, at the time, was being rented by actresses Margot Kidder and Jennifer Salt, and shows a bunch of people sitting around and talking, pausing occasionally to mug for the camera. 

But these weren’t your everyday house guests; among the revelers were Brian De Palma, John Milius, Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, and producers Michael & Julia Phillips. Also there, standing on the other side of a dining room table holding a camera of his own, was Steven Spielberg. 

In the coming years, this talented group of filmmakers would once again put Hollywood on the cinematic map, yet when this home movie was shot, they were, as Jennifer Salt put it, “Nerdy guys who wanted to hang around with each other and talk about movies”. 

Can you imagine being a fly on the wall, listening in on those conversations?

As someone who loves movie, I’m finding it hard to imagine anything else!

Narrated by William H. Macy, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is a BBC-produced documentary that spells out, as the tagline put it, “How the Sex, Drug, and Rock & Roll Generation Saved Hollywood”. With the studio system in turmoil, it fell to a group of novice filmmakers to rescue American movies, which they did by reaching out to a younger generation of fans. With films like Bonnie and Clyde, Easy Rider, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Last Picture Show, this “new wave” brought Hollywood back from the brink of oblivion, and, in so doing, changed the face of American movies forever.

Through interviews and archival footage, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls takes us behind the scenes of many of these groundbreaking classics, relating a number of fascinating stories, like how studio chief Jack Warner couldn’t make heads or tails of Bonnie and Clyde, and why most of the major studios passed on distributing Martin Scorsese’s breakout movie, Mean Streets. 

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is an excellent source for film fanatics, but there’s plenty of drama here as well for the more casual fans, including a few scandals (Peter Bogdanovich’s affair with Cybill Shepherd on the set of The Last Picture Show) and the odd tragedy (the murder of director Roman Polanski’s wife, Sharon Tate, one of several people killed by Charles Manson and his followers in 1969).

As a movie addict, I wanted Easy Riders, Raging Bulls to run for 6 hours. But even clocking in at just two, this material makes for one incredibly entertaining, highly informative documentary.

#513. Vampira: The Movie (2006) - Documentaries About Film

Directed By: Kevin Sean Michaels

Starring: David J. Skal, Forrest J Ackerman, Maila Nurmi




Trivia:  This movie was an official selection at the 2007 Comic-Con International Independent Film Festival

Film historian David J. Skal, one of the many personalities appearing in director Kevin Sean Michaels' 2006 documentary Vampira: The Movie, had this to say about Maila Nurmi, aka Vampira, television's very first horror host and the subject of this motion picture: 

“Her persona was a strange combination of sex and death”, adding that, if she were a car, she would have been “a hearse...with headlights”. 

By way of several in-depth interviews with Nurmi and a variety of others, Vampira: The Movie takes us from Vampira's days as host of a late-night horror show right up to her legendary appearance in Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space, considered by some the worst movie ever made.

Vampira: The Movie does offer a brief summation of Maila Nurmi's early years; when she was two, her family emigrated from Finland, passed through Ellis Island, and eventually settled in Massachusetts. But it's Nurmi's alter-ego, Vampira, who gets most of the screen time. Through an extended interview, Nurmi reveals the process by which she developed Vampira's seductive appearance (influenced, in equal parts, by the cartoons of Charles Addams and the cover of an S&M magazine). We hear what she thought of Ed Wood the first time she met him, and why her character in Plan 9 never spoke (in short, she had a hard time reciting Wood's dialogue, which she found “moronic”). 

A number of recognizable stars have their say in Vampira: The Movie, including Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Forrest J. Ackerman, and a plethora of modern-day horror hosts, most of whom cite Vampira as their chief inspiration (with the noted exception of Cassandra Peterson, aka Elvira, but that's probably because Nurmi sued her back in the '80s for allegedly stealing the Vampira character). 

Yet the reason this film is such a hoot is Maila Nurmi herself. At times flighty and prone to embellishment, Nurmi is nonetheless amusingly animated, making her the perfect storyteller to relate her own, colorful tale. It is she who gives Vampira: The Movie its charm, and her bubbly enthusiasm that, in turn, makes it an entertaining watch.

#228. Going To Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film (2006) - Documentaries About Film

DVD Synopsis: Every fear you've ever felt. Every evil you've witnessed. Every nightmare you've ever known... have come together for the first time in one film. Going To Pieces is the ultimate anthology that takes you on a horrifying journey through your favorite slasher films including Halloween, Psycho, Friday the 13th, Prom Night, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream and When A Stranger Calls. Interviews with horror icons John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Rob Zombie, Tom Savini and many more guide you through a series of gruesome scenes from classic films and recent hits. Watch as the history of the slasher film comes alive... if you dare!










On October 23, 1980, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, two well-known Chicago film critics who hosted a popular TV program called Sneak Previews, dedicated an entire episode to examine slasher films, which at the time were pulling in millions of dollars. Not even trying to hide their utter contempt for this “new” style of horror film, the two tossed around words like “cruel”, “misogynist”, and “sexist”, and even went so far at to criticize the fans who were packing theaters to see them.

Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film is a documentary that takes a long, hard look at both the slasher phenomenon and the artists behind it. We get to see some clips from this Sneak Previews episode, which are presented alongside interviews with the stars and directors of the movies the duo attacked, who, at long last, are given an opportunity to plead their case.

Yet the best defense for the subgenre came from Fred Walton, the filmmaker behind 1986's April Fool's Day. Walton didn't feel the need to defend slasher films at all, summing up brilliantly what millions of fans have been feeling for the better part of three decades: “If you don't like it...boo-hoo!”.

Going to Pieces provides an in-depth analysis of the history of the slasher craze, which started (its box-office success, at least) in 1978 with John Carpenter's Halloween. We hear from Carpenter himself, who spins a few yarns about what it took to turn a low-budget horror movie into a cultural phenomenon. Yet as important as it was, Halloween was only the beginning of something very, very big.

Going to Pieces dedicates a fair portion of its runtime to reviewing all of the early, influential slashers, such as Friday the 13th and My Bloody Valentine, films that gave horror fans a whole new reason to go to the movies. Of course, as with any pop culture sensation, the marketplace eventually became over-saturated with low-rent knockoffs and sequels, which tried the patience of even the staunchest genre afficionados. Going to Pieces looks at these films as well; it is all-inclusive, and doesn't shy away from any movie, even the terrible ones.

Going to Pieces is a horror buff's delight, a film filled with fascinating insights from both the legends (John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Tom Savini) and those following in their footsteps (including Rob Zombie and a handful of others). It is an exhaustive documentary, containing everything you'd want to know about slashers, and maybe a few things you didn't.

If you are a fan, then this is a documentary you simply can't afford to miss.

And if you're not... boo hoo!