Masters of The Grind

Those in the spotlight are the dumbest, most notorious exploitation films around, yet all are a joy to watch. Couple those with the talking head interviews, and these men — as it was primarily men directing this schlock — honestly admit to having no formal training but really wanting to make a buck. These guys sit in a kitchen, their offices, living rooms, and patios and tell us of their trials, the troubles on set, and the deaths of their peers. The common elements amongst all the tales are the lack of budget, the desire to make a film, being cheated out of money by distributors, and learning the craft of filmmaking by doing all the jobs. Heartbreak arrives when speaking of the death of a stunt person during a jump sequence, the suicide of a wife, and the crippling of a co-producer’s daughter due to being cheated out of money. Rutherford does not rush these scenes, bringing a human toll to the documentary.

“…on par with some of the best incendiary cultural documentaries…”

The drawbacks are its length and density of material that, at times, is unstructured. The emphasis on North American film ignores the work of Jess Franco, French provocateur Jean Rollin, and the entire giallo and spaghetti westerns. Women filmmakers like Doris Wisman, who made, among others, Bad Girls Go to Hell, and those witty nudies like Nude on the Moon, don’t get mentioned even in passing.

Masters of the Grind is a ticket into what one filmmaker calls the cinema of “unintentional surrealism.” Ever since Hollywood embraced genre and supplied large budgets, independent film became the go-to for actors and directors who seek a challenge in their art. Throughout the massive but well-worth it runtime, Rutherford argues that was always the case, as art can exist without a budget.