During the 1970's, it became common in some circles to refer to small
budget movies aka B Movies as being "grindhouse" flicks. Just how and
why this term came about is unclear. What is clear is the fact that
despite the low budgets and near complete lack of big name acting
talent, such movies found a receptive audience that very much enjoyed
them. One big reason why audiences liked these movies is that they often
were much more original than the all too often formula driven
productions that came out of Hollywood.
Although the Drive-Ins and the big city theaters that constituted the B
Movie Theatrical Circuit have largely gone by the wayside, there is a
great deal of nostalgia out there for the low budget flicks of the past.
This nostalgia has led to the tremendous success of low cost DVD
packages such as the Mill Creek line of 50 and 100 movie packs where the
prices are about 50 cents or less per movie. Of course, these are all
public domain flicks, but one reason why they are public domain in the
first place is that most of the low budget production companies went out
of business during the transition period between the days when B Movies
were released to theaters and the development of the original movies
direct to the public via the DVD & VHS market. Extinct companies do not
renew copyrights.
The other reason is that before it became clear that
there was a healthy market for B Movies on DVD/VHS, many of the low
budget production houses did not renew the copyrights on their
creations. After all, TV stations and cable channels rarely ran
"grindhouse movies" with the result that there was no real financial
incentive to renew those copyrights.
This success of "grindhouse" flicks on DVD has not escaped the
attention of Hollywood. However, instead of paying attention to why folks
would prefer the low budget movies of the past over the big budget flicks of
today, the big shots in Hollywood got it in their heads that the way to
capitalize on the success of grindhouse flicks would be to take the
grindhouse name and use it for their own ends.
In other words, instead of abandoning the tired old formulas and
embracing new, original ideas, Hollywood decided to make a typical piece
of hack drivel and market it under the name "Grindhouse" and hope that
the American people would fall for it like a bunch of suckers.
In the case of Grindhouse, the American people proved the Hollywood
conventional wisdom wrong. Despite a slew of positive reviews, written
by critics who would not recognize a genuine B Movie under any
circumstances, the viewing public stayed away from Grindhouse. Despite
the fact that this movie was made on a huge budget that combined with
the budget for advertising and promotions added up to over $100
Million, Grindhouse grossed less than $30 Million world wide. As it
happens, the movie audience was right to stay away from Grindhouse as it
is a truly horrible flick.
Grindhouse was billed as a tribute to the "grindhouse" movies of the
past. There was a great deal of inconsistency at work here as
Grindhouse was made at a budget massively larger than what any of the
low budget flicks that it claimed to pay tribute to. Likewise,
Grindhouse had none of the inventiveness of the grindhouse movies and
those low budget flicks rarely had big name acting talent associated
with them while Grindhouse the movie is practically overflowing with it.
As final proof of the awfulness of Grindhouse, consider that the
geniuses behind it have announced that instead of releasing
Grindhouse on DVD in the form that it was originally released to
theaters, it will be divided into 2 different features entitled
"Deathproof" & "Planet Terror." Obviously, the studio bosses are
attempting to avoid the stigma attached to Grindhouse and are trying to
sucker the public into buying this garbage by pretending that these are
2 different movies that have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
Irregardless of whatever name(s) that it goes by, Grindhouse is trash
and ought to be avoided as such.
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