“Bad Girls Go To Hell,” “A Bucket Of Blood,” “A Night to Dismember,” “Wild Angels,” “Big Bad Mama”… not only do they belong to the club of films with the coolest names they also represent some of the greatest exploitation film to come out of the old school indie circuit. “Schlock” is an in-depth documentary that explores the first explosion of exploitation films, where everything was about nudity, evil, and gore. Director Ray Greene sat down with some of the major players behind these films such as Samuel Arkoff, Harry Novak, actor Dick Miller, exploitation queen Doris Wishman, and the God of Gore himself, Roger Corman. These movies were stepping stones in Guerrilla Filmmaking tactics; taking almost no time to write, produce, shoot, distribute and premiere.
Working off the notion that the only way they could compete was to make films that Hollywood didn’t have the balls to make, they threw their films together one after another, some using the same sets and for that matter some using the same scripts. Doris Wishman took the route of making nudist colony films and “roughie” films to draw in the male crowd, while Roger Corman worked off of the scare of nuclear war and made sci-fi and horror films.
Ray Greene, out of his own pocket, shot and edited Schlock over the course of three years. The look of the film has a homemade feel, which I thought was right up the alley of the subject matter. Not leaving any stone unturned, Greene does a thorough job of hitting all the points that make these movies still important today.
Filled with classic clips of some of these hard to find treats, and the informative interviews by the filmmakers, this is a fun and educational documentary that defiantly fills my quota of breasts and blood in a film.
