CineNiche

Burst City (1982) bursts through the screen with high-octane energy in a frenzy of fight scenes and anarchy. While I have no idea what I just watched, I do know that Burst City and I are now in a relationship. This insane film creates what would one day become the MTV aesthetic and does so the same year MTV launches with Video Killed The Radio Star . The MTV style would be known for quick cutting, mixed media, and flashy camera-work; however, it would soon be seen as style merely for the sake of style. Michael Bay would build his filmography upon this idea of no substance or little substance with a shiny ribbon. But here, pre-dating all of that is a strange Japanese punk film. I can now up my hipster game / pretentiousness by creating a Spotify list devoted to early 1980’s Japanese Punk. Here is said mix . The punk rock in this film is incredible. By 1982 we had Dead Kennedys, Bad Brains, Misfits, Descendants, Black Flag, The Replacements, The Cramps, Circle Jerks, The Damned, The...

“Exploitation films are no different from any other kind of movie.  All appeal to some desire or fear that the audience may have.  Only because they do it more directly, with perhaps a bit less finesse, than a Hollywood product, they are branded as exploitation.” Mike Quarles, Down and Dirty: exploitation filmmakers and their movies   (xiii) Around the same year that The Last House on the Left was released another young documentary filmmaker was contemplating his own horror film.  He got the idea for his film while he was Christmas shopping.  He was in the middle of a large crowd of consumers all rushing to get their last minute gifts.  He couldn’t make his way down the main isles, so he went down a side isle and found himself in the power tools section.  He stared at a display of tools and thought about how easy it would be to clear the people out of his way if he only had a chainsaw.  Tobe Hooper’s 1974 film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ...