Exploitation Cinema

In 1948, the supreme court deemed the “the Big 5” of Hollywood’s studio system a monopoly! Surprise! 20th Century Fox, RKO Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer showed clear signs of being monopolistic like having their actors/actresses and directors under contract, making the films and owning the theaters they were played in, even some studios owned the film processing companies, and if shown in an independent theater, studios worked together to have control on how it was being shown. But what really killed them was “block-booking”, where they sold their films in packages and one of the main reasons they were ruled as a monopoly. Independent artist couldn’t get their films into theaters but after the effects of the decision the film industry fell off as independent producers and studios shined without interference of the Hollywood studio system. Also, the paramount case lead to an expansion of television. Major studios sold their libraries to television companies, and actors/actresses under the studios became T.V stars. Television audiences increased as less and less people went to the big theaters.

As Hollywood’s golden era came to an end, new kind of films were being made. We are then introduced to the exploitation film. Exploitation films were typically low budget, and are known to “exploit” some kind of cultural trend or controversy, targeted specific audiences, and consist of themes of sex, drugs, violence, nudity, teenage reality, gore, rebellion, sensationalism, and more. They were played at drive-ins or independent theaters.  An independent studio known as American International Pictures started making films that appealed to specific audiences like teenagers. Teenagers before this period were considered children and weren’t represented in a realistic way. Also foreign films made there way to “Art house” and independent theaters influencing viewers and filmmakers. Exploitation films are not easily defined as one thing, but is based on the audience’s own perception and what they can take away from it if they choose to or not. Some films that are now considered culturally significant were overlooked back then because the films were labeled as exploitation such as, Carnival Of Souls (1962) and Night of The Living Dead (1968). In the documentary we watched, Schlock! (2003), it was mentioned that if Carnival of Souls was made in Europe it would have been considered an art film.  

The documentary we screened in class, Schlock! The Secret History of American Movies, looks at the history of exploitation cinema of the 50’s and 60’s and its genres of nudies, roughies, and gore. There were interviews with notable directors of this period like the “exploitation king” himself Roger Corman, along with Sexploitation directors Doris Wishman, Harry Novack, and David Friedman, and even the legendary Vampira also known as Maila Nurmi. It featured clips from the most notable exploitation films such as Bad Girls Go to Hell, Carnival of Souls, Blood Feast, The House of Usher, The Terror, A Bucket of Blood and many more. I think the documentary did a good job of drawing out exploitation genre from its very beginnings, to what it developed into, to how it’s influenced further cinema.