The feature length documentary and directorial debut of Elijah Drenner, American Grindhouse, will première at the South by Southwest festival in Austin Texas on March 13th.
American Grindhouse is a project from Drenner born out of a passion for grindhouse cinema in which he investigates the tradition of grindhouse film in American cinema over the past 100 years.
Although not lucky enough to experience the grindhouse cinema experience first hand (I was born after its heyday in the 70s) I have watched many of the films closely associated with the tradition of the grindhouse and there are many fantastic films with even those that are truly terrible often having a hook that makes them worth a watch.
Following Tarantino and Rodriguez’s 2007 Grindhouse there is a renewed interest in these kind of films and it looks like this documentary will provide a great introduction for the uninitiated and a further insight for existing fans into the people behind the films.
Drenner has assembled a great selection of people to interview, including Jack Hill (the project began as a Jack Hill documentary), Herschell Gordon Lewis, Joe Dante, Larry Cohen, Fred Williamson and John Landis and the film features clips from over 200 films. Here’s hoping the film will be a worthy tribute to grindhouse cinema and help bring many of these often ignored titles to a wider audience.
Check out a preview from the film embedded below.
