People have called them many things: ‘exploitation movies,’ ‘b-pictures,’ and ‘grind house flicks,’ to name a few. More important, many have watched them. From their birth in the 1930s as a reaction to the Hays Code, to their slow decline during the 1970s, they were colossal moneymakers.

Often treated like a red-headed stepchild by film critics and historians, these movies provided an interesting reflection into the psyche Americans (and later Europeans) would prefer to hide. While the Hays Code prohibited the salacious material one could often find during the 1920s and earlier, such exploitiers as Kroger Babb and his young protégé David Friedman quickly filled the void, working hard, traveling the country, to give Americans the all the sleaze they secretly craved.

Okay, besides the nudity, sex, gore and violence, you might wonder why someone would actually watch these movies. Well, as a fan of them (since teenage) I often marveled at the creatively high concepts, ludicrous writing, indifferent acting, and bizarre situations that constantly crept up in the plotline and in the production itself. Often the titles were entertainment in themselves.

To understand what I mean, see how many of the descriptions (1-33) you can match with the titles (a-ag). If you don’t laugh at least once, you’re just not paying attention. If you’re not shocked or offended at least once, you’re probably a sociopath.


Descriptions

1. One character, based on real-life record producer Phil Spector, goes on a shooting spree, murdering a man and two women in his spacious mansion.

2. After murdering a cop, her girlfriend, her boyfriend, and her boyfriend’s mistress, the protagonist of this picture is raped by a giant lobster.

3. A radio evangelist interrupts her video game so that she can have sex with a Nazi war criminal in his coffin.

4. This screen adaptation of a literary classic depicts the male lead as a shoe salesman.

5. An exasperated extraterrestrial fumes, “All you of Earth are idiots!“ and “Your stupid minds! Stupid, stupid!”

6. Mental patients kill the villain by eating her alive.

7. To simulate the cutting out of a human tongue, an actress spits out an appetizing (ahem!) mixture of cornstarch, red food coloring, and Kaopectate.

8. A mild-mannered man turns into a psycho sex killer whenever he sees gold earrings.

9. This movie simultaneously spoofed a literary classic and Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.

10. In this movie, Jack Nicholson steals one scene as a masochistic dental patient (“No Novocain, please. It dulls the senses.”).

11. A businessman, at the insistence of an important client, reluctantly hires a bunch of prostitutes to entertain the guests of a sleazy party, only to find that his wife is one of the call girls.

12. A tuxedo-wearing man shooting hoops at a playground goes up for a slam dunk only to be riddled with bullets by the time he reaches the basket.

13. Yankee tourists are lured to a Southern town that exists for only a few days every one hundred years. The inhabitants, in an effort to gain some measure of revenge for the Civil War, involve the visitors in a number of degrading games that culminate in their horrific deaths.

14. A Peeping Tom blackmails a killer before feeding her to his giant man-eating plant.

15. Crazed hippies beat an old man with his walker, and then dump a crying tot into a garbage can.

16. A woman drowns in quicksand as her friends passively look on and do nothing. The last thing we see of her, before she goes completely under, is her outstretched middle finger.

17. An advertising agency has to deal with an executive who can’t stop exposing himself, and pressure from the President of the United States, who orders them to come up with a campaign for a Nazi war criminal’s corporation.

18. A biker gang quakes in fear when its members realize they are in a fight with (gasp!) lesbians.

19. Communist agents recruit American schoolgirls to wreak havoc as juvenile delinquents.

20. A Dr. Frankenstein clone and his monster have to teach a visiting extraterrestrial about love.

21. A biker gang strings up a piece of piano wire between two trees so that when a biker from a rival gang passes by, he, um, loses his head.

22. The protagonist, dressed as a matador, picks a professional wrestler (played by boxer Jake LaMotta) to death.

23. A woman wreaks revenge by smothering the bad guys to death in her, um, décolletage.

24. This 1968 movie spoofed Star Trek.

25. An artist can’t find just the right hue until he cuts himself.

26. An African-American man has to explain to his grown white daughter that they aren’t biologically related.

27. A group of swingers clean up their act when one of them attempts suicide.

28. An old man rescues wayward women so that he can force them to fight and kill each other.

29. In order to simulate the eating of human flesh, the actors in this movie chowed down on ham covered with Bosco Chocolate Syrup. (According to them, this tasted about as good as it sounds.)

30. After getting shot in the head, the protagonist tries to survive life by rubbing weight-loss cream all over his belly.

31. A pornographer lectures a young coed: “It's time for straight talk, Kim. It's not my fault you posed for Harmon. It's not my fault you posed for Larry in the nude. You did it. It’s your problem. It’s pretty late to act prissy and prim. All you kids make me sick! You act like little Miss Muffet and down inside your dirty. Do you hear me? Dirty! You’re greedy and self centered and think you can get away with anything. You’re no better than the girl who sells herself to a man. You’re worse because your a hypocrite. And now little Miss Muffet is in trouble and she's all outraged virtue. Well you listen and you listen well: you’re damaged merchandise and this is a fire sale. You walk outta here and your reputation won't be worth fifteen cents. You'll do as I tell you! Do you hear me? You'll do as I tell you!”

32. Harvey Korman (yes, that Harvey Korman) plays a pornographer who falls in love with the centerfold. His partner (the centerfold‘s husband) falls in love with a statuette.

33. A crime boss finds ever-inventive ways to torture her underlings when they disobey.

34. Col. Harlan Sanders (yes, that Col. Sanders) unwittingly helps a sleazy record producer con a rock band out of its money.



Titles

a. The Acid Eaters
b. The Agony of Love
c. The Amazing Transplant
d. Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens
e. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
f. Blast-Off Girls
g. Blood Feast
h. Color Me Blood Red
i. Come Back, Charleston Blue
j. Confessions of a Psycho Cat
k. Deadly Weapons
l. Even Hitler Had a Girlfriend
m. Five Loose Women
n. Greta: Haus ohne Männer
o. Just for the Hell of It
p. Kiss Me Quick!
q. Little Shop of Horrors
r. Living Venus
s. Mr. Mari’s Girls
t. Multiple Maniacs
u. Night of the Living Dead
v. Plan 9 from Outer Space
w. Please Don’t Eat My Mother
x. Putney Swope
y. Scum of the Earth
z. She-Devils on Wheels
aa. Space-Thing
ab. Suburban Roulette
ac. Swamp Girl
ad. The Secret Sex Lives of Romeo and Juliet
ae. 2000 Maniacs
ae. Venus in Furs
af. The Violent Years
ag. White Slaves of Chinatown