Sunday, August 30, 2020

Enter the Invincible Hero (1977) and Exploitation in the Sunday "Bad" Movies



One thing has always been true of the film industry. If a filmmaker found an easy way to make a quick buck, they exploited it. Trends dictated what was made. If audiences were interested in something, the movie making system searched for a way to jump on that trend and drive it into the ground. In most cases, the lower budget additions to the trends became known as exploitation films. They exploited the trends while, frequently, not progressing things in any way whatsoever. And they frequently created their own subgenres.

The term exploitation film has broadly encompassed all kinds of films. Only through branching into the various subgenres can the idea of exploitation filmmaking truly be understood. An exploitation film is an exploitation film is an exploitation film, but what or who was being exploited must be known to understand how it or they were being exploited. The Sunday “Bad” Movies has featured various exploitation films from many exploitation subgenres. What better way would there be to dive into exploitation than to analyze it through the movies that have been featured?


Mockbusters
The Asylum has long been a part of the Sunday “Bad” Movies. A large part of their production strategy has depended on churning out the types of movies categorized as mockbusters. These movies were mindless copycats of movies expected to be popular. When the big budget, assumed hit films hit theaters, The Asylum would have their own flick hit the home market. It could have been on physical media, or it could have gone to streaming. All that mattered was that people would get their hands on a copy, think that it was a serviceable replacement for the theatrical experience, and check the movie out.

Other companies released mockbusters throughout the years, as well, leading to many other mockbusters being featured in the Sunday “Bad” Movies. The Asylum got their representation through films that included Snakes on a Train (Snakes on a Plane), The Da Vinci Treasure (The Da Vinci Code), and Grimm’s Snow White (Snow White and the Huntsman and Mirror Mirror). Spark Plug Entertainment tried their hand at mockbusters with A Car’s Life: Sparky’s Big Adventure (Cars), An Ant’s Life (A Bug’s Life), and Car’s Life 2 (Cars 2). Then there was Gaiam, an animation studio that released Tappy Toes (Happy Feet) and Chop Kick Panda (Kung Fu Panda).

Each company had the same business model. They made cheap knock-offs of films they thought would be popular. They were exploiting the home video market. They were oversaturating rental stores and streaming services with their cheaply made movies that had some similarities to the big screen movies. There was quick money involved. That was the main reason that any of the movies were made.


Blaxploitation
One of the biggest problems in Hollywood has always been the predominantly white makeup of the business. White people have produced most of the movies. White people have been the most predominant workers behind the screen. White people have been featured the most on screen. Blaxploitation exploited black people in order to have someone else involved. It came out of the 1970s in a big way, showing that black people could be the heroes of movies as much as white people. The exploitation came out of how that concept was presented. Characters were frequently shown as racial stereotypes, being gangsters and pimps, and often clashing with the police.

Only one true blaxploitation movie found its way into the Sunday “Bad” Movies. It was Blacula, a racial swap on the classic Dracula story. An African prince was turned into a vampire and found his way to America. From there, it became the story of Dracula with a blaxploitation twist. There was a black cast and stereotyping of minorities including people of colour and gay men. It was an exploitation movie.

Blaxploitation continued to exist, though on a much smaller level. Most of the more modern blaxploitation movies became spoofs of the subgenre, or updated versions of the older movies. The genre kind of cooled off since the 1970s, though, as a result of different exlploitation trends taking over, and a cultural shift to try and tell stories from a non-white perspective that weren’t as full of racial stereotypes.


Slashers
Horror spawned a multitude of various subgenres, few of which reached the popularity or level of exploitation as the slasher subgenre. In each of the movies, some horribly twisted person or thing went on a killing spree, usually involving a whole bunch of teenage characters. Sometimes they weren’t all teens, or there might not have been any teens at all. Most of the time, though, teenagers were the primary victims, thanks to franchises like Halloween, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street, each of which were successful and filled with teens being murdered.

The exploitation of the genre came in the wake of each of those big three franchises making their debuts. Halloween spawned numerous holiday slashers like New Year’s Evil, which had a slasher killing people on New Year’s Eve. Friday the 13th led to many sequels, as well as an exploited summer camp slasher trend that included the Sleepaway Camp movies. A Nightmare on Elm Street led to people exploiting the idea of non-conventional slashers that happened beyond the “real” world. Dreams, leprechauns, inanimate object killers… A Nightmare on Elm Street was the movie that made the Leprechaun movies and the Jack Frost movies possible. It also put Wes Craven on the path to making Scream, which started a whole new era of teen slashers that included things like April Fools.

For a while in the 1990s, it looked like the slasher exploitation was coming to an end. Movies like Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, and Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare were coming out, showing how low the exploitative subgenre had gotten as the staple franchises were churning out new, soulless entries every couple years. Then Kevin Williamson’s writing kick-started a new era of sleeker slasher flicks filled with current (at the time) stars. Then the slew of mid-00s slasher remakes happened. More recently, a reboot phase where there were new entries with the old actors reprising their roles started to happen. Every few years, the subgenre got rejuvenated and the slashers began their exploitation tricks once again.


Sharksploitation
Jaws was one of the most important films to be released in the history of cinema. Many people point to it as the start of the blockbuster era of filmmaking, though it was really one of many movies from the 1970s that pushed Hollywood into the big budget spectacle. The popularity of Jaws led to a vast array of animal attack movies. In the late 1990s, animal attack movies were turned in the direction of shark attacks once again, which led to many more sharksploitation movies coming out.

That earlier Jaws era of sharksploitation was mostly filled out with the Jaws sequels, but also featured other aquatic creature features like Orca. The Asylum got in on the sharksploitation game in the 2010s with movies including the Mega Shark flicks, 2-Headed Shark Attack, 3-Headed Shark Attack, and, of course, the Sharknado franchise. These b-movies paved the way for many others, which then led to bigger budget shark movies going back into the mainstream. They were all the result of Jaws leading to animal attack movies leading to shark attack movies leading to sharksploitation b-movies.

Sharksploitation might not have had the same immediate impact as some of the other exploitation subgenres, but it built up a vast history and filmography. There have been shark attack movies in almost any location imaginable. Sharknado 3 took sharks to space while Sharknado 4 had sharks in Las Vegas. Jaws 3 took place in SeaWorld. There have been so many sharksploitation movies that there could be one for any occasion. That was a lot of exploitation.


Teensploitation
When teensploitation became a major exploitation force, there was a big difference between it and the typical teen movies. The basic idea of a teen movie was that the movie was about teens and for teens. The John Hughes films of the 1980s or the teen comedies and horror movies of the late 90s and into the 00s very much fit that teen movie concept. Teensploitation took the movies one step further. It made the sex, drugs, alcohol, and crime much more explicit. The movies became a hybrid of a teen movie and the standard exploitation flick.

The 1980s were the heyday of teensploitation, mostly through the sex comedy subgenre. Sex comedies like Screwballs, Hardbodies, and Hamburger: The Motion Picture were released. They weren’t the only way that teensploitation flicks came out, either. Slasher films frequently collided with teensploitation in movies like Friday the 13th, where the teens were seen drinking, smoking, doing drugs, and having sex. Or there are the more serious movies that didn’t play the exploitative aspects for as much audience fun, instead playing them as a cautionary tale. Larry Clark and Harmony Korine were good at that style of teensploitation.

Teensplotation never went away. It may not have remained a mainstream force, but recent movies have featured some of the elements of teensploitation. Even without the mainstream attention, teensploitation could still be found in small nooks and crannies. Slashers and sex comedies have been released in recent years. Lifetime has released melodramatic television movies focused on teens going down “bad paths.” There have been reality television shows devoted to teen moms and that sort of thing. It simply took on a new form for a new age.


Stoner Films
This was always a straight-forward exploitation genre. There were people. They liked to smoke marijuana. This brought happiness and comedy to the audience. In these movies, weed, for lack of a better word, was good. People smoked weed and got up to wacky hijinks. In most cases, at least. Most of the stoner films fell into the stoner comedy category. The laughter that people experienced while smoking cannabis came through the screen and led to the audience sharing that laughter.

Stoner films were initially a product of the summer of love and all the hippie stuff in the 1960s. (I hope hippie isn’t seen as a derogatory term, now. I don’t know another way to generally describe the people involved in that movement.) In terms of popular movies, though, stoner films truly came to prominence thanks to the popularity of Cheech and Chong. Every stoner movie that followed could cite Cheech and Chong as an inspiration. Or they could cite a movie that was inspired by Cheech and Chong. Budz House probably took some inspiration from How High, which took inspiration from what Cheech and Chong did in the 1970s.

With the legalization of pot coming to different regions of the USA and Canada through the recent years, stoner films became more common. People used recreational marijuana more frequently in comedies, dramas, and horror flicks. The taboo nature of weed on film, such as in the days of Reefer Madness, has all but left mainstream Hollywood. But some movies continued make weed the focus. They exploited the idea of smoking weed and turned it into a culture rather than a recreational activity. Movies like Evil Bong and its sequels or Hansel and Gretel Get Baked relied on weed to tell the story, rather than having characters maybe smoke a joint at some point. Stoner movies have continued to go strong.


Brucesploitation
This was one of the most exploitative of all exploitation subgenres. Martial arts movies became extremely popular in the 1960s and into the 1970s. Much of that success could be attributed to one star who was on the way up at the time. Bruce Lee was born in San Francisco, raised in Hong Kong, and became a martial arts master and movie star on both sides of the Pacific. He was one of the biggest stars in martial arts filmmaking. The industry pretty much depended on him to maintain success. But then, suddenly, in 1973, he died.

Rather than let the martial arts film industry die, filmmakers searched out anyone who resembled Bruce Lee and started tossing them into films. Many times, their names would be changed to more closely resemble his. Bruce Li, Bruce Lai, and Bruce Liang were a major part of this exploitation of Bruce Lee’s legacy. Enter the Invincible Hero featured Dragon Lee, a Korean actor. He took his stage name from Bruce Lee’s nickname. The movie featured him impersonating many of Bruce Lee’s mannerisms, including his attitude and the nose thumbing thing. At one point, there was a movie called The Clones of Bruce Lee that featured Bruce Le, Dragon Lee, Bruce Lai, and Bruce Thai, among others. Each of these actors were chosen to capitalize on the death of the biggest martial arts star in the film business. It was an insensitive and disgusting move.

For the most part, Brucesploitation faded out once a new martial arts star was able to make a name for himself that wasn’t riffing on Bruce Lee’s name or legacy. That star ended up being Jackie Chan, who became one of the biggest stars in the business. That didn’t mean that Brucesploitation completely left the movie business. It faded mostly away, but some movies continued using the popularity of Bruce Lee to push themselves into the zeitgeist. Danny Chan was featured in at least three projects as Bruce Lee, as well as another where he played someone resembling Bruce Lee. Then there was, of course, Mike Moh as Bruce Lee in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The appreciation of Bruce Lee and the use of his likeness never completely left. It was just used to a far less extent than the 1970s and early 1980s.


There have been many more subgenres of exploitation films throughout the years. Some of the ones that haven’t quite been touched upon in the Sunday “Bad” Movies include women in prison films, sexploitation films that basically end up being softcore porn, Nazisploitation, and cannibal films. And then there were things like biker films (High Desert), Canuxploitation (Science Crazed, The Final Sacrifice), carsploitation (Death Race, The Wraith), and monster movies (Spawn of the Slithis) that there wasn’t enough time to write about. There will always be another post that could involve those topics, or there could be something that goes more in depth about one of them.

Exploitation films will always be a thing, though the trends being exploited change. All exploitation has depended on the changing interests of audiences to thrive. The movies were made depending on what could be made for cheap that audiences wanted to see. That’s the Hollywood way. That’s the movie industry way. If people will pay for it, it will get made. It will make money. At the end of the day, money rules all. Thus, things get exploited. People, violence, sex. Whatever makes the most money the fastest.


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