caligulathegod

As with most challenges, the goal is to reach 100 movies. Your own goal might be higher or lower. Challenge begins April 1, 2020, 12:00 am EDT (or Dusk March 31) and ends April 30 at dawn (that is, the morning of May 1).

Due to nationwide quarantines, we are allowing this challenge to start early and overlap with the Action challenge. Suitable movies can count for both lists.

Sex, violence, torn-from-today's-headlines shockers, fast cars, faster pussycats, psycho killers and kids run wild — throw a few (or all) of these ingredients into a pot, let the whole thing boil over, and you have the recipe for some tasty exploitation cinema.

What kinds of films are we talking about? Well, there is no hard and fast rule. This one is largely up to you.

What is an exploitation movie? Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex, violence, romance, etc. An exploitation film, however, relies heavily on sensationalist advertising and broad and lurid overstatement of the issues depicted, regardless of the intrinsic quality of the film. Very often, exploitation films are of low quality in every sense. However, this has not always been the case. Exploitation films sometimes attract critical attention and cult followings.

Rules

The Goal is 100 films. These type of films tend to be short, but they also might be a challenge to get through. Your personal goal might be higher or lower, depending on your tolerance for this type of cinema.

A film can only be counted once per list with the exception of riffed/commentaried films (see below).

This challenge is for Movies. Although we are not allowing TV shows, Made for TV Movies are allowed as are Direct to Video features.

We are allowing documentaries on Exploitation and Drive-ins and those involved with the production thereof. These should be features over 40 minutes.. We are also allowing trailer compilations, such as 42nd Street Forever and Something Weird compilations. Compilations should be at least an hour.
Throw a viewing party and show trailers between movies.

Mystery Science Theater 3000, Riff Trax, Cinematic Titanic, etc. are allowed. If there is a second riffed version (for example, MST3K did one, then Cinematic Titanic did the same movie) you may watch the second and any additional riffed versions for a full credit each, but I encourage you to just watch another movie, instead.

Commentaries. All commentaries count as views.

B-Movies are still included, but you are on your own with those. If you understand the actual concept of B-Movies and don't need individual confirmations on titles then you are welcome to have this be your challenge.

Films that have been nominated for Oscars are discouraged but not banned. I had originally wanted this to be the only hard rule, but I came across too many exceptions.

Drive-In exception rule: Any film seen in an actual Drive-In during the challenge 2020, regardless of other qualification, counts toward your list.. Please note that it was a Drive-In Movie.

Mini-series and Serials: We will go with the Sci-Fi rule on TV Mini-series (one "night" equals an entry), on Serials (we'll go with an hour's worth per entry), provided they actually were theatrical serials. A serial episode is about 15-20 minutes, so an hour's worth counts as an entry. Four-15 minute ones or Three-20 minute episodes. You can round up. This goes for other shorts and compilations as well.

There are 3 Wild Cards for non-conforming films. These are ones that are close but may have some doubts about.

For fun, keep a running tally of "before they were famous" appearances in your list.

Please number your lists. Also, it is helpful to put a link to your list in your signature. This makes it easier for others to check out your list.

Please tally your totals including "new views" at the end of the challenge.

"I still don't understand what kinds of movies you are talking about."

This list is not exclusive nor definitive, but these are the most representative movies for the challenge:

Biker Films
Blaxploitation
Cannibal Films
Carsploitation
Cult Movies
Giallo films
Mondo films
Eco-Terror films
Nazisploitation
Rape / Revenge films
Sexploitation
Shocksploitation
Spaghetti Westerns
Women in Prison films
Martial Arts films
Eschploitation (religious end times)
Hixploitation/Moonshiners
Nunsploitation
Stoner Film
Vigilante films
Financial Bombs
Critical Bombs (Less than 20% Rotten Tomatoes or
Metacritic or less than 3.0 on IMDB, or IMDB Bottom 100 {Bottom 100 archive})
1930s and 1940s Cautionary Films
Juvenile Delinquent
60s Beach movies
Elvis
Films starring Rock Bands (or Rock stars that didn't become legit actors)
Depression era criminals
"Ozploitation (Australian exploitation)
"Foreign" Ripoff films (like Turkish cinema)
"Race" films (early films made specifically for the African-American market pre-1950)
Films Dealing with "race" (pre-1965)
MST3K version of a film,
"Condemned" by the Catholic National Legion of Decency
Bad Sequels to well-regarded films
Mildred Pierce-type "Women's pictures" from the 40s-60s
3-D films from the 90s and before
Mexican Wrestling films
Razzies
Pre-90s Post-Apocalyptic films (80s and before)
NEW! Plague-sploitation.





In the WIKI is a list of filmmakers and actors that by their very presence make a film "safe". While some of these people (actors especially) might have some exceptions in their credits (like Star Trek for William Shatner), generally films with the listed creative talent are safe for the challenge. Questions? Ask in the thread.

caligulathegod

Well, I had planned on retiring but I've got this Al Adamson boxed set arriving soon. I keep getting pulled back in.

shadokitty

This is one of my favorite challenges. I love B Movies.

coyoteblue

I think maybe you gotta problem with your bbcode or are you using HTML? Or is the editor being twitchy? Anyway...issues.

caligulathegod

I just copy and pasted the existing code and it all messed up. Problem is, there's no edit or delete button on that post. I reported it and asked for it to be deleted.

ade3333

looking forward to this challenge

indiephantom

Think I failed last year but I want to give it a try again, especially with more access to ever to this kind of cinema.

caligulathegod

There's a lot of great ROKU channels. Jive Turkey is $2 a month and shows Blaxploitation. GRIT has lots of exploitation with commercials or $2 GRIT Gold is commercial free.

Dimension X

B-Movie TV and it's quasi spin-off The B-Zone are both free. B-Movie TV does have commercials when you first tune in, but not during movies. The B-Zone doesn't, at this time.

I think MovieSpree still has their 100 free movie deal.

I'm tempted to do a streaming only challenge, but I have a few cheap martial arts DVDs and Blu-rays (from Dollar Tree and Hamilton Books) that I'd like to watch.

coyoteblue

The way things are headed, going to the drive-in for the Challenge this year will be N/A. As an alternative I suggest the Shocker Internet Drive-in at the Internet Archive (archive.org). There's over 100 double features to choose from.

mrcellophane

If anyone is looking for suggestions, the Pure Cinema Podcast put out an episode this week themed around Something Weird Video. It's a great podcast and a good resource for this challenge.

BobO'Link

Thanks! I *always* forget about the IA Treasure Trove of stuff. They have hundreds of classic video games you can play online in addition to those movie and audio and book and other files...

coyoteblue

I had forgotten about the video games. That's a pretty recent addition I think. With the last 6 months or year.

edit -- No, I'm thinking of the Flash Game archive

Dimension X

If you have a 4K TV and Roku, The Archive (the Roku channel, not to be confused with archive.org) has some qualifying flicks available to watch in 4K, including Martial Law & Martial Law II (Cynthia Rothrock), Mutant (Wings Hauser), and Jessi's Girls (Sandra Currie). They play commercials during the films.

indiephantom

I happen to be convinced that the free on demand service tubi tv https://tubitv.com/home is the best source for movies for this challenge. I predict over 80% of the stuff I watch will come from there. Commercials are very limited and not nearly as annoying as on other free sites. Think I had like one 30 second break in the last three features I watched. Anyway, they feature lots of stuff that's been released from Arrow, Vinegar Syndrome, Troma, Blue Underground, Shout Factory and have lots of Elvira, MST3K and even Rifftrax live. They even have lots of foreign exploitation and recent cheapie horror. I love all the uncut stuff...you can search easily by directors (like Roger Corman or Abel Ferrara) or stars (like Bai Ling and Eric Roberts).

Is Ron Jeremy on our safe list? I'm guessing he is, because that dude is in every B movie I've watched lately.

caligulathegod

I added Ron Jeremy because he really should have been there, but I think the list is pretty much locked.

indiephantom

Sweet...yeah I've kind of been watching B movies most of the year so far and he is everywhere with those cameos.

shadokitty

It wouldn’t count as it’s a tv series, but yesterday I watched a Grindhouse production on SyFy on Demand. Blood Drive ​​​​​​ is about a race where the cars run on human blood, and at least in the first episode, there was plenty of it.

Dimension X

I've watched a bunch of Rifftrax on Tubi (they also have Cinematic Titanic and The Film Crew, along with MST3K, as you mentioned). The commercial interruptions do seem limited, but I've had varying experiences with many Roku channels - going from an obnoxious number of commercials during a movie one day to just a single commercial the next. I used to delete a channel if it hit me with a bunch of commercials, but now I give them a second chance a day or so later in case that was an extreme case for that channel.

caligulathegod

technically, cameos really don't count on the safe list. Even high class movies might have a walk on, but I would think that any movie that would have him even make a cameo would likely qualify.

indiephantom

Actually, he is in the opening credits in a few I've watched and in more than a few scenes in Euroclub, for example. And you're right when you say they all would quality anyway. In fact, this little gem called Bikini Valley Car Wash, which is from 2020 was just released on streaming today and Ron is third billed on the poster. I'm so glad we still have plenty of new exploitation in the world. According to my Letterboxd account, Ron is topping my most watched stars of 2020 so far, along with Eric Roberts. In fact those guys are almost a package deal. Shit...is Roberts on our safelist. Dude also qualifies for the Nick Cage award, since he was once nominated for an Oscar. Think I will be doing more pre-challenge work than normal.

pacaway

Let's start early!

indiephantom

I would be pretty cool with that. Special year, special circumstances.

Trevor

I say go for it! Or, if not allowed, there are plenty of titles that count for the current Action/etc Challenge.

caligulathegod

I don't see why we couldn't. I can make a list thread.