The question immediately comes to mind … why would I subject myself to steaming piles of cinema like: The Corpse Grinders, The Undertaker and His Pals, The Worm Eaters, Invasion Of The Blood Farmers, and The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies?
Research.
I wanted to make movies and I wanted to see how bad a movie could be … and still get released. I wasn’t interested in mega-million dollar flops. I only watched the low-budget and no-budget movies because that’s where I was going to begin my so-called career. I was going to follow in the footsteps of Francis Ford Coppola, John Carpenter, and Martin Scorsese who all started out making cheap-o horror and sci-fi films.
I ended up watching a lot of irredeemable crap.
Once in great while I’d see some talent shining through the garbage. The script was well written, the direction and editing kept the story moving, and the acting wasn’t half bad. But Night of The Living Dead, Halloween, and Eraserhead were rare exceptions. The rest were just … junk. The worst things about these crummy movies wasn’t a boom mic in the shot, or the visible zipper running up the monster’s back, it was the cynicism of the producers and the contempt they had for the audience. The reason this misbegotten film genre is classified as “Exploitation Films” is because the producers play everyone … the cast, crew, and the audience … for chumps. Hollywood bottom-feeders don’t have the moral code of third-rate carnival hucksters.
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