Stealers Wheel

Come with me, and you’ll be, in a world of pure Ozploitation. Had you going there, didn’t I?. . . you thought I was going full Willy Wonka, but rather, I am transporting you to a very different landscape, that of the Australian exploitation film. Growing out of the R rating after it was instituted (as well as helped by new tax cuts), this Australian New Wave rose out of the 1970s and 80s (a little later than its American counterpart), and is a broad term that refers to no specific genre, encompassing horror, comedy, sexploitation, post-apocalyptic, dystopic and so much more – though it does slant the traditional norms of culture at the time. It is hard to argue that the Mad Max franchise, directed by George Miller, would not be the best known example of this type of movie.

I would be remiss if I did not write an important tribute on the Toronto International Film Festival selected documentary Long Time Running, which tells the closing tale of the Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip (who I was lucky enough to see perform at the Canadian Football League halftime show at the Grey Cup in Ottawa). Filmizon.com was never set up to review documentaries, so this short commentary finds its way into the blog section – also signifying the importance of this movie. For those of you who do not know, The Hip have been one of the pre-eminent Canadian rock and roll bands of the past thirty years – consisting of lead singer Gord Downie (his words that of a lyrical lyricist poet), guitarists Rob Baker and Paul Langlois, bassist Gord Sinclair, and drummer Johnny Fay – they have all been friends since childhood. With iconic hits like “New Orleans is Sinking”, “Boots or Hearts”, “Courage”, “At the Hundredth Meridian”, “Fifty-Mission Cap”, “Ahead by a Century” and so many others, they are the number one selling Canadian band of all-time. Never truly gaining major ground in The United States or the rest of the world, they are the rare example of a Canadian artist/group who have resisted the cultural draw to the south and instead stayed in their home and native land. And their music speaks to this. . . in a rare country that does not tout its past, The Hip are the unusual example of making history come alive, developing an almost folkloric mythical quality for Canada’s memorable moments (including hockey), and of late, the longstanding aboriginal plight.

Imagine being wakened by a bright light, not like that of some sort of alien abduction, but rather as if someone was snapping your photo, with the flash on, in the pitch black of your own bedroom. . . well, that is the concept of the 2015 short film Polaroid. Produced, directed, filmed and edited by Alex “Pressplay” Wohleber, it is a vignette of sheer terror. Waking from the bright light and distinct sound of a Polaroid picture being taken, our lead, simply known as Guy (Matt Halpern – also a producer), not only finds himself in a possible robbery situation, but also quickly learns that the electricity in his home isn’t working.

One of the weirdest mash-ups ever to grace the silver screen, 1975's Wolfguy: Enraged Lycanthrope fuses martial arts action, an investigative crime tale, political conspiracy, sci fi elements, and horror concepts within the box of a B movie exploitation piece. With a title like that, you can probably guess that it is a foreign film, translated to English from Japanese, in this case – these films are often labelled under J-horror. For those linguists out there, you will know that lycanthrope means a werewolf, and Akira Inugami (Shin'ichi “Sonny” Chiba) is the last survivor of a long line of these beasts – the rest of them hunted and killed by those afraid of anything outside of the norm. He uses his wolfish powers to investigate unusual crimes.

It is likely that this sounds familiar: a movie about a group of people who enter an unusual strip club that ends up being packed with vampires – I would fashion a guess that most film afficionado’s would immediately point to the now iconic Quentin Tarantino penned (and executive produced), Robert Rodriguez directed 1996 horror feature From Dusk Till Dawn. . . though this concept was actually first done a decade earlier in the 1986 horror comedy Vamp. Producer Donald P. Borchers came up with a simple idea, ‘vampire strippers’, and decided to take it to a young filmmaker with only one well respected short film to his name – Dracula Bites the Big Apple, Richard Wenk (now a well respected screenwriter who has penned such films as 16 Blocks, The Equalizer, the remake of The Magnificent Seven and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back), who expanded the idea and took on the role of director as well.