Review of Machete Maidens Unleashed! (2010) by Allan C — 08 Mar 2014

From the same writer/director of "Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!" comes a new documentary about the many exploitation films made on the cheap in Marcos' Philippines in the 70s and 80s.

While it's a fairly thorough documentary on the subject, what it lacks compared to "Not Quite Hollywood" is that many of the Australian exploitation filmmakers in that documentary went on to much greater things, which gave this exploration and celebration of Ozploitation more credible and significant.

The biker, women-in-prison, midget super spy films made in the Philippines were quirky and unique, but they were simply exploitation, made my filmmakers who for the most part, never rose above exploitation.

"Not Quite Hollywood" played out like an origin tale for Peter Wier, George Miller and other, which this film was lacking. I did enjoy when the documentary began to explore the Filipino filmmakers, which was new to me, but the American produced films were not a lot more than a fun celebration of his exploitation sub genre.

And related to this, when the cover the production of "Apocalypse Now" it seems kind of out of place when the rest of the film is covering films like "The Losers" or "The Big Doll House" Still, there are many fun interviews with the likes of Roger Corman, Steve Carver, Joe Dante, John Landis, Jon Davidson, Jack Hill, Brian Trenchard-Smith, Joe Viola, Sid Haig, Christopher Mitchum, Dick Miller, Pam Grier and R.

Lee Ermey, and the film has a breezy pace that serves it well. If you've seen and enjoyed the films covered here, you'll probably enjoy this doc. I think I'm looking forward to director Mark Hartley's next film, which is focusing on exploitation films by Cannon.