The Sleaze Merchants: Adventures in Exploitation Filmmaking
Tim Burton's Ed Wood, a 1994 film profiling an ungifted but persistent director, focused some attention on exploitation movies. McCarty's book assesses Wood along with 14 other purveyors of this alternative cinema. Although Albert Zugsmith (Sex Kittens Go to College), Larry Cohen (It's Alive), and Frank Henenlotter (Basket Case) are absent, many of exploitation's exemplars are discussed, and their achievements are evoked by provocative stills and promotional ads for the movies. There are terrific interviews with Fred Olen Ray (The Tomb), William Lustig (Maniac Cop), and the makers of the 1963-64 cult classics Blood Feast and 2000 Maniacs, Herschell Gordon Lewis and David F. Friedman. While some argue that The Corpse Grinders, The Astro-Zombies, and The Lustful Turk demonstrate that civilization can't be taken for granted, this book's able dissection reveals that these films have a place in film history. Recommended for strong film collections.?Kim Holston, American Inst. for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters, Malvern, Pa.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.