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Genre: Exploitation

The grindhouse end of the spectrum: cheap, lurid, and sometimes accidentally brilliant. Exploitation film reviews that take the genre on its own shameless terms.

Kay Lenz in a dance club scene from the 1987 film Stripped to Kill, wearing performance attire under stage lighting.Crime

Stripped to Kill (1987) Review

Stripped to Kill (1987) rates 4 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Katt Shea's first film as director, made for Concorde under a brief requiring a fixed number of dance sequences, and she used the constraint to build something…

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Melissa Leo as Cookie in a scene from the 1985 film Streetwalkin', standing in an urban New York setting.Crime

Streetwalkin’ (1985) Review

Streetwalkin' (1985) rates 3 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A Concorde Pictures production shot in New York in about three weeks, with Melissa Leo in her first lead role eight years before her career started, and a structure…

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A man in a dark shirt stands in a dimly lit interior space, looking troubled or searching for something. TITLE: Street GirlsCrime

Street Girls (1975) Review

Street Girls (1975) rates 3 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A father searches Eugene, Oregon for a daughter who has disappeared into the local trade, in a film co-written by Barry Levinson a decade before he directed anything,…

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A woman with short dark hair stares directly at the camera with an intense, blank expression in a dimly lit interior. TITLECrime

Ms. 45 (1981) Review

Ms. 45 (1981) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Abel Ferrara made a rape-revenge film with a mute protagonist, almost no dialogue and a budget of around sixty thousand dollars, and Zoe Lund's performance is better than…

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Betsy Russell as a young woman in 1980s clothing, looking serious or determined.Action

Avenging Angel (1985) Review

Avenging Angel (1985) rates 3 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. The sequel recast its lead, aged the character to university student, and converted a squalid character piece into a revenge picture with a real estate conspiracy. It is…

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Donna Wilkes in school uniform and streetwear, reflecting the film's central contrast between student and sex worker.Crime

Angel (1984) Review

Angel (1984) rates 4 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. New World Pictures built a film around the tagline about a high school honour student who works Hollywood Boulevard at night, and the premise is the problem. What is…

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The Swinging Cheerleaders (1974) film posterCheerleader

The Swinging Cheerleaders (1974)

Jack Hill's 1974 American exploitation film about a feminist journalism student who joins a college cheerleading squad to write an expose and finds genuin. The Swinging Cheerleaders is Jack Hill's 1974 American exploitation film depicting a feminist journalism student who…

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