You know what I wish sometimes? I wish I could have been around in the 70s, in the heyday of sleazy exploitive grindhouse flicks. I wish I could have sat in the shady theaters with the sticky floors sweating and cramped while I watched movie history unfold before my very eyes. I have to settle for buying DVDs now and watching them in the comfort of my living room, and I have to wonder if the people who saw those movies back when they were released had any inkling that they were a part of movie history? Did any of the people packed into sleazy theaters to see "Last House on the Left" ever imagine that BOOKS would be written about this movie? I'd imagine not. I mean, that movie is FAR from perfect. It's gritty and grainy, it's got bad acting and horrible pacing and unnecessary comic relief that detracts from the power of the film, and its $5 budget disallowed for the type of special effects that would have made imminently watchable. I hated it when I first saw it, but the reason I'm writing about it now is that years later, it still sticks in my mind because it embodied all the anger of the 70s, all the freedom to go where film had never gone before, all the desire to show graphic violence like filmgoers had never seen. It's a perfect example of the "grindhouse" sub-sub genre in a nutshell.

It's also a movie I have to defend a lot. The shelves of my DVD case are littered with titles like "House on the Edge of the Park" and "Bare Behind Bars" and "Last House on the Left," and whenever I have normal people over to my house they end up perusing these shelves (because they take up most of my living room) and invariably I'm called upon to defend why I'd have "a movie like THIS" in my house. I find that a little insulting and I want to peruse their shelves and attack them for daring to insult my movie taste when they like movies such as "Dude Where's My Car," but really, I know that wouldn't do any good, and I don't really care what they watch. I know people have different tastes, I just get tired of constantly defending mine. I suppose it's because a lot of the movies I own make people uncomfortable. It's valid to ask me why I feel comfortable watching movies where someone is tortured and raped, but the truth is, these movies DON'T make me feel uncomfortable. They wig me out and disturb me and force me to confront things that bother me deep down under my skin, and I don't even have to leave the living room to do this. Even when the movies are throwaway trash like "Bare Behind Bars" I can't help but enjoying them and finding them hilarious in their badness.

Grindhouse flicks came from a different time. They came from a time when society was rebelling and breaking away from a repressive and restrictive society and films could promise fun and sex and trash and violence and rape in explicit detail in ways people had never experienced and the residue of freedom and wild abandon is left behind enough for me to pick up and enjoy it now years later. What's even better is when I find recent movies that buck the system and offer me something I can't find anywhere else, some gritty reality or disgustingly offensive comedy that's a breath of fresh air in a climate filled with plastic manufactured product masquerading as film.

The thing that bothers me the most though is that she used the word "pedophile" and she wasn't even joking because she actually meant to imply that anyone attracted to someone under the age of 18 is a pedophile, never mind that even this insanity is a huge leap from saying that everyone who watches "The Girl Next Door" is watching it to get off, in fact, never mind any logical argument at all, let's hurl insults and refuse to analyze what we're actually saying. I always get distracted when I hear people say things like this and I invariably end up pointing things out like how the legal and medical definition of pedophilia concerns people who are attracted to someone who hasn't yet reached puberty and therefore can't apply to someone who watches "The Girl Next Door" since the actress in that movie is eighteen, and I somehow never get further than that before people shut down and then someone gets all snippy and pissy and says "that's just semantics." Well, yes, since "semantics" is the study and understanding of what words mean, both denotatively, as in the dictionary definition of words, and connotatively, as in what words personally mean to individuals or groups of people, I suppose me pointing out that you're using the wrong word to be inflammatory and get attention would be "semantics," but that doesn't automatically negate my argument. People who don't know how to debate need a list of stock phrases to hurl at their opponents when they make valid points, so they use the old favorites like "that's semantics" and "you're comparing apples and oranges" and the like instead of trying to understand what the other person is really saying.

Yes, before you ask, this IS related to grindhouse. I'm rambling now, but it's only because I love these movies so much and I'm tired of having to take ten minutes out of every argument to defend why I like them. I shouldn't have to do that! Every movie debate I have that touches on the little rebellious, wild, degenerate movies that I love ends with someone telling me "you just don't understand the discussion" or something annoyingly similar, and I'm sick of it. Since when do we have to insult the intelligence or reading comprehension of our opponents in order to end a discussion? I had a brief discussion a few months back with the editor of a popular horror magazine about one of my favorite immoral classics, "I Spit on Your Grave," and I swear to god, she used the dictionary definition of "exploitation" to "prove" that "exploitation" films didn't have any deeper meaning or purpose, and that even if the director claims he had a bigger purpose with the film he's lying. I appreciate her taking the time to respond to me, I really do, but I'm still reeling from our argument today. Disagreement and dissent I can handle, insults I cannot. I feel like we're dancing around singing "anything you can think I can think better" and there's no point to that.

"Wow, people think I'm cool AND I get to feel like I've won! This is awesome!" It irks me. If people don't want to talk to me anymore, they should just say "I don't want to talk about this anymore" or "whatever, I still disagree." That's fine. I'm really not trying to get people to agree with me when I ramble about my obsessions like movies (why would I need other people to agree, I already know I'm right, haha) I'm just talking because like you, I love spouting off about my favorite subjects. I realize people will disagree with me and I don't understand their views some of the time, but I'm fine with them, I can listen to someone with whom I disagree and it doesn't bother me. But don't try this underhanded bullshit, debasing me and my enthusiasm and my argument with empty phrases that don't mean anything. That's annoying, immature, and rude. It knocks the wind out of my sails and I HATE that.

I think it's because these movies are like a drug to me. Whenever I see a movie that dares to break the mold of mediocrity and take a risk I feel like I'm part of something big. I feel like I'm watching movies that are doing things that I can't see anywhere else, movies that are expressing things that other movies are afraid to say. Movies these days are happy to be mediocre. If they were brilliant, like, five people would watch them because they'd be difficult for one reason or another. Either they'd make us think about things we don't want to think about, like child abuse and rape and torture, or they'd make us laugh at things we're not supposed to laugh about, and then they wouldn't make money. Movies these days aim low so that they're just good enough in enough areas that they reach a wide audience and make enough money to be a hit. No one cares about trying anything different. That loses investment dollars. It's weird for me to miss the days of grindhouse, since I wasn't even alive back then, but watching these movies gives me hope that there is a place of filmmaking freedom where people don't give a shit and just do what they love and say what they need to say. I've found movies that echo these sentiments in recent years, and I hope I find more. Do I take movies too seriously? Probably. Maybe more people should, too, and we'd have more movies out there worth watching. When people struggle against all odds and stretch a $5 as far as they can because they REALLY want to make this movie, the end result will most likely be something grainy and gritty and rough and raw and beautiful, and that's something worth watching and something worth defending (even when people call you a pedophile for doing it).