American Grindhouse

American Grindhouse
Directed by	Elijah Drenner
Written by	Elijah Drenner Calum Waddell
Produced by	Elijah Drenner
Narrated by	Robert Forster
Cinematography	Dan Greene
Edited by	Elijah Drenner Andrew Goldenberg Dan Greene
Music by	Jason Brandt
Production companies	Lux Digital Pictures End Films
Distributed by	Lorber Films
Release date	March 13, 2010 (2010-03-13) (SXSW)
Running time	80 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

American Grindhouse is a 2010 documentary directed and produced by Elijah Drenner.^[1] The film made its world premiere at the South by Southwest film festival in Austin, Texas on March 13, 2010.^[2]

Overview

The documentary chronicles the history of the American exploitation film from the days of Thomas Edison to contemporary films of the 21st century.^[3] The film features interviews with John Landis, Joe Dante, Jack Hill, Don Edmonds, Fred Williamson, Allison Anders, James Gordon White, Larry Cohen, William Lustig, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Judy Brown, Jeremy Kasten, Jonathan Kaplan, Bob Minor, Lewis Teague, David Hess and Fred Olen Ray. The documentary also features film historians Eddie Muller, Kim Morgan and Eric Schaefer. Robert Forster narrates.^[4][5]

Films referenced

Many film titles and posters get shown in passing, but this is a list of the films that are commented on or analyzed in the voiceover or by the interviewees. The list is in chronological order, but some of the films are mentioned in the documentary out of that sequence to fit with the themes.

The main films referenced^[6][7][8] in the documentary are:

• The Great Train Robbery (1903)
• Traffic in Souls (1913)
• Dracula (1931)
• Frankenstein (1931)
• Freaks (1932)
• Maniac (1934)
• You Can't Beat the Rap! (1936)
• I Wake Up Screaming (1941)
• Mom and Dad (1945)
• Because of Eve (1948)
• Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
• Blackboard Jungle (1955)
• I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957)
• The Tingler (1959)
• The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959)
• Psycho (1960)
• Scum of the Earth! (1963)
• Blood Feast (1963)
• Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)
• Olga's House of Shame (1964)
• The Wild Angels (1966)
• Lord Love a Duck (1966)
• The Lusting Hours (1967)
• The Trip (1967)
• She-Devils on Wheels (1968)
• Easy Rider (1969)
• Midnight Cowboy (1969)
• Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971)
• The Corpse Grinders (1971)
• The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971)
• The Tormentors (1971)
• The Big Doll House (1971)
• The Big Bird Cage (1972)
• The Last House on the Left (1972)
• Night of the Lepus (1972)
• Deep Throat (1972)
• Schlock (1973)
• Black Caesar (1973)
• Coffy (1973)
• Truck Turner (1974)
• Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1975)
• Jaws (1975)
• Eaten Alive (1977)
• Piranha (1978)
• Alligator (1980)
• The Passion of the Christ (2004)
• Hostel (2005)
• Grindhouse (2007)
• American Gangster (2007)
• Hell Ride (2008)
• Black Dynamite (2009)

Reception

The film earned positive reviews from critics, with some like The Village Voice's Mark Holcomb saying "nitpicky enough to please film-history nerds but lively in a way that should tickle the merely curious".^[9][10]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 75% of eight critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.3/10.^[11]

See also

• Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!, a 2008 documentary about Australian exploitation (better known as Ozploitation) films by Mark Hartley
• B movie
• Roger Corman

References

1. SXSW Review: American Grindhouse - Film School Rejects
2. "American Grindhouse Preview at SXSW '10". Dread Central. March 3, 2010.
3. Slant Magazine
4. Underground Film Journal
5. Drenner, Elijah (31 December 2011). "My Favorite Year". iwakeupscreaming. Retrieved 19 June 2022.
6. Hale, Mike (4 February 2011). "Exploitation 101 (Published 2011)". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2020-11-12.
7. Puppet Nazis vs. the Grindhouse Gang!
8. DVD Talk
9. Holcomb, Mark (February 2, 2011). "American Grindhouse Traces the Lineage of Cheapjack Cinematic Slop". The Village Voice.
10. Hale, Mike (February 3, 2011). "Exploitation 101". The New York Times.
11. American Grindhouse at Rotten Tomatoes

External links

• American Grindhouse at the Grindhouse Database
• American Grindhouse at IMDb
• American Grindhouse at AllMovie
• American Grindhouse at Box Office Mojo
• American Grindhouse on MUBI
• Elijah Drenner, director