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Hot on the tail of 'Movies so bad they're good', I think some kudos needs to go to those little independent exploiters that just shine despite their ikkle budgets and unknown casts. I could make a list as long as my arm on this one, but here's just a few that I personally consider to be movie greats:

Bone - Larry Cohen's first movie. It's a headtrip of a black comedy and I love it to bits.

Black Ceasar - Cohen's second film came after Sweet Sweetback but really pushed the 'blaxploitation' genre into the mainstream. It made a star of Fred Williamson, and the soundtrack by James Brown is what earned him the name 'Godfather of Soul'. Avoid the sequel, 'Hell Up In Harlem' though - it stinks.

Martin - Zero-budget vampire flick that doesn't actually feature a supernatural vampire. George Romero's very best movie - it's grizzly and beautiful and puts its evil in all the most interesting places.

Frankenfish - Just the title alone got me hooked. Then I read the premise and I was sold. And even though the movie itself is no Casablanca, it's astonishingly good fun!

Miracle Mile - Not quite a zero-budget affair, but still modest and rarely seen. This one switches genres with gusto in the opening scenes and the 60-minute real-time panic attack that makes up the body of the film is gut wrenching.

Dark Star - Utter perfection that defies explanation.

That's it for now. What are your favourite exploiters??

For me it's got to be "Man Bites Dog". A fly-on-the-wall documentary crew follows a serial killer around Belgium as he goes about his "job". I think it was made for about 50p, but it's so different, brilliantly naturalistic, and detailed that it's utterly compelling, even though the subject matter is so horrible to watch.

Try:

The Last Horror Movie

or

The Deadly Spawn

or

Clerks

seige wrote:Clerks

Now, that's a good film.

I saw the Kevin Smith lecture DVD a while ago, where he spoke to various film schools. His advice was to get as many credit cards as possible, max them out with cash advances, make the film and if it doesn't make money, invoke your payment protection insurance.

I loved "Man Bites Dog", and "Clerks". I've yet to see "Clerks 2".

I enjoyed Shane Meadow's "Twenty Four Seven" well worth seeking out and watching. And I remember a film that I think was called "Proof" starring Russell Crowe and playing a blind photographer!!

Best

Martin

ah man bites dog - granny snuff and dwarf sugar...

for me, Going Places - Les Valssuer - gerard du poopoo (cant remember how to spell his real name, i always call him that) but him and a friend are small time crims, lazing their way through france with oddities and beautiful dialogue...very sinister and very funny in equal measure...a bit withnail and i in places..early 70s..

i'll add superfly - for the jump over the fence, and the soundtrack alone...

toto le hero - another french film, two jealous little children meet again in an old folks home...and plot to kill...

tin drum - gunter grass novel, freak city that film truly is from start to finish...genius...

equus - richard burton, superb performance, unsettling, disturbing horse-murdering with religious overtones...and jenny agutter looking divine...