Machete Maidens Unleashed!

Mark Hartley's 2010 documentary is about the low-budget films made in the Philippines in the sixties and seventies. For American producers the country was ideal: cheap labour, easy permits and almost no rules, and the result was prison films, war films and monster films made in succession. The documentary tells that production as enjoyable nostalgia while not hiding the conditions: the precarity of local crews, accidents that ended in death and the relationship with martial law under Marcos. Roger Corman, John Landis and performers of the period speak. The film is dense with clips and cut fast. Both the invention and the exploitation of exploitation cinema are visible at once. Who it's for: viewers curious about the history of genre and exploitation film. Who it's not for: anyone uncomfortable with violent and sexual clips; the documentary uses them freely.