B Movies. Quentin Tarantino holds them in reverence; your girlfriend looks at them with disgust; you look at them with guilty pleasure, paranoid someone will walk in on you watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Five Deadly Venoms.
Well, guilty is probably a strong word. Maybe we’re a little more accepting today of grindhouse and cult films thanks to the work of people like Tarantino, Rodriguez, Lucas and the increased popularity of Romero and campy John Waters films. If you love all these remakes, tributes and nods to low budget films, then here are 3 new and upcoming home cinema releases you’ll be interested in.
Alexandre Aja’s remake of Joe Dante’s 1978 parody of Steven Spielberg’s 1975 thriller Jaws (which was based on a Peter Benchley Novel) gives you the gore and boobs you’d expect of a 70′s B-movie but is executed with enough wit and irony to make you feel better about yourself once the film ends. The plot: an underwater quake releases an army of prehistoric piranhas and a group of strangers (including an eccentric pornographer) must band together to avoid becoming supper. This movie knows it’s gratuitous and is proud of it. Did I mention it stars Steve Mcqueen’s grandson?
Fans of the Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity will enjoy the suspense and execution of Last Exorcism’s mockumentary style. Reverend Cotton Marcus agrees to be part of a documentary which aims to prove that exorcism is a hoax while he attempts to free an innocent farm girl from the Devil’s clutches. Part religious satire and discussion of charlatanism, partly a look at the genre itself—Last Exorcism is an intriguing, shaky-cam addition to any horror video library.
Death Race 1 with Jason Statham was based off of the 1975 cult film Death Race 2000, starring David Carradine and Sylverster Stalone. The 2008 film was entertainment at its most senseless and gratuitous, taking itself and its stupid violence way more seriously than its predecessor. This film is guilty pleasure in its truest form. Who doesn’t like Jason Statham being violent and driving fast cars? The direct to home cinema sequal (or prequal) to Death Race promises more of the same as it explores the life of the racer Frankenstein up until the beginning of the original movie.
