Review of Machete Maidens Unleashed! (2010) by Wu C — 05 Nov 2011

This documentary is gritty, exploitative, and deliciously gross in only the way that exploitation of the seventies and eighties can be. Channeling the vibe of exploitation films exclusively made in the Philippines in that time period, this documentary centers mostly on a certain mesh of topics, and especially focuses on the godfather of low budget grindhouse films, Roger Corman.

His production company, New Horizons Pictures, made many disgustingly addictive films using the three B's: breasts, blood, and beasts. These films ranged from a variance of genres which include horror, women in prison films, kung fu, blaxploitation, fantasy, and marketing as lower budgeted versions of larger scaled productions.

The film also speaks of the atrocious conditions that the actresses had to go through in the Filipino climate, including the extreme heat, cockroaches, and lack of privacy among the crew. Many of the interviewed actresses were accommodating, even found their work more hilarious than humiliating, and spoke of it with a strange mix of pride and self-awareness.

Many others purported that the baring of their breasts was a statement for feminism and that the many scenes that included attempted rape, torture, and extenuating circumstances for profit was a way for them to fight back by showing parts of them that had previously been censored.

The film even goes over the filming of Apocalypse Now, though that was fairly big budgeted, and starred large names of the day, including Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando. Though this film did bring attention to the directors of the day, and placed praise on these innovators, most of it was just slices of film, trying to cram as much in as possible.

A lot of the content was educational and really brought the process of low budget moviemaking's dangers to attention, but it was not the deep film that could have come about.