Exploring filmmaking in the Philippines during the Marcos era, when miniature James Bonds, karatekicking soul sisters, snake-loving babes, anorexic Rambos and gun-toting nuns were the rage.

"MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED! might just be the funniest, fastest, most shocking film you'll see all year." -FANTASICFEST

MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED!
MARCH 4-10 @ THE BLOOR

EXTRA ADDED ATTRACTION,
courtesy of THE RIO, Toronto's late great home of 3-BIG-HITS, VINTAGE EXPLOITATION MOVIE POSTER EXHIBIT now on display inside SONIC BOOM, just w/ of The Bloor.


Interviews available with OZ DIRECTOR MARK HARTLEY and interviewees ALLAN ARKUSH, CELESTE YARNALL, MARRIE LEE, ROSANNE KATON (see below).

Contact Gary Topp for Interview Requests!


Director Mark Hartley, wowed audiences in 2008 with NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF OZPLOITATION!,

ALLAN ARKUSH is an Emmy-winning television director who began his career in the New World trailer department editing cheap and cheerful B-movies for an appreciative drive-in audience. Allan worked his way up through the New World ranks to co-direct HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD with Joe Dante and achieved cult immortality when he directed the Ramones in ROCK' N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL. He is currently producing the American cheerleading comedy-drama TV series, HELLCATS.

Boasting a CV full of ultra cool cult TV credits (including THE WILD, WILD WEST, THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. and STAR TREK) as well as roles in BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE and LIVE A LITTLE, LOVE A LITTLE, CELESTE YARNALL went from being wooed by both Elvis Presley and Captain Kirk to being terrorised by a paper-mâché-faced monster in BEAST OF BLOOD (1971). Celeste didn't think of this as a career hiccup until she discovered her dressing room in the Philippines was a cave that also doubled as the men's latrine!

Marrie Lee's career began at age 17 when she answered an advert in the paper asking, "Are you smart, sexy and seductive?". She auditioned in a miniskirt and won the title role in Bobby A. Suarez's THEY CALL HER CLEOPATRA WONG. Marrie braved all manner of injuries as she reprised the role in two sequels of decreasing quality and safety conditions (DYNAMITE JOHNSON and THE DEVIL'S ANGELS) before hanging up her karate kicking Go-go boots for good.

Playboy playmate turned exploitation Queen, ROSANNE KATON journeyed to the Philippines to karate kick her way to freedom in a couple of Cirio Santiago adventures, EBONY, IVORY & JADE and THE MUTHERS. Her other genre credits include MOTEL HELL, THE SWINGING CHEERLEADERS, and ZAPPED!

From the early-'70s to the mid-'80s, The Philipines was in the grip of a brutal dictatorship and under martial law. Fighting back was forbidden. Chaos was contained. Indecency was punished. There was no sign of revolution. EXCEPT IN THEIR MOVIES!

And during the classic grindhouse era of that same period, independent producers began turning out more and more exploitation features for less and less money. As the cycle wore on, there was a demand from audiences for more variety in settings and situations, and a demand from producers for lower budgets. Since it already had an infrastructure conducive to the making of inexpensive films, the Philippines fit the bill to a T. Labor was cheap, there were skilled technicians and equipment and, possibly best of all, the military dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos looked upon the enterprise favorably, contributing everything from tactical assistance to military firepower. One interviewee refers to the Philippines at this time as the "wild east", and that assessment certainly seems apt as we hear story after story of gunfights in hotel lobbies, rats the size of poodles and the most insane, irresponsible stunts imaginable. As shocking and lurid as many of the women-in-prison, jungle action, mad scientist and martial arts movies made in the Philippines were, the back stories may actually surpass the films in their shocking details. But when the films being discussed and shown in Hartley’s trademark montage style are as wildly entertaining as FOR YOUR HEIGHT ONLY, MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND, THE TWILIGHT PEOPLE, THE BIG DOLL HOUSE and TNT JACKSON, it may be a tie.

Tags: Bloor Cinema

A fast-moving, no-holds-barred exploration of the blood-drenched and action-packed world of Filipino genre filmmaking.

Karate-kickin’ midgets! Paper-mâché monsters! Busty babes with blades! Filipino genre films of the '70s and '80s had it all.

Boasting cheap labour, exotic scenery and non-existent health and safety regulations, the Philippines was a dreamland for exploitation filmmakers whose renegade productions were soon engulfing drive-in screens around the globe like a tidal schlock-wave!

At last, the all-too-often overlooked world of drive-in filler from Manila gets the Mark Hartley (NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD) treatment in Machete Maidens Unleashed!. This is the ultimate insiders' account of a faraway backlot where stunt men came cheap, plot was obsolete and the make-up guy was packin’ heat!

Machete Maidens Unleashed! features interviews with cult movie icons Roger Corman, Joe Dante, John Landis, Sid Haig, Eddie Romero and a large assembly of cast, crew and critics, each with a jaw-dropping story to tell about filmmaking with no budget, no scruples, no boundaries and - more often than not - no clothes.

Strap yourselves in - and join us for a non-stop Filipino femme-fest, all the way from the jungles of the Pacific via the trash cans of the critics!

Opening March 2010 Across Canada.


Official Website

Tags: Aquisition