CineNiche

Retro Flashback presents: Hell Comes To Frogtown  Welcome to Retro Flashback. Today we take a trip into a post-apocalyptic future as seen by low-budget filmmakers in the late eighties. Our study will begin with the creator of Frogtown , Donald G. Jackson, and his unique vision of filmmaking. We will also study the career of Frogtown's leading man, the late great Roddy Piper. Hell Comes To Frogtown may not be a particularly good film, but does it still warrant a place in your genre education? Lets dive into the ballad of Commander Toty. In the beginning... Donald G. Jackson was born in Mississippi but grew up in Michigan. He worked at an automotive factory where he met his friend and future co-director Jerry Younkins. The two of them had a plan to make a feature film but could not put together any funds. Fate then stepped in. Jerry got into an accident at work that left him without a few fingers. The insurance check came through and they were in business. With Jerry...

“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 ...