We gave the audience what they wanted to see. The phrase in the title, said by the patriarch of low-budget cinema Roger Corman, accurately reflects the essence of the “operating movie” that is spoken about in this documentary.
“Girls with a Machete” tells us about the emergence of “operating cinema” in the Philippines, where savvy Hollywood businessmen have established the release of cheap films about monsters, kung fu and ninja, about the revolution and women in prison. The film consists of interviews with such decorated film figures as Joe Dante, Roger Corman, Jonathan Demmy, John Landis and many other, lesser-known (we have at least) actors and actresses, screenwriters and cameramen. And interestingly, everyone – from Californian actresses, whose youth remained in the 70s and to venerable husbands, who exchanged the eighth decade – does not go away with a smile, whether it is a cave-locker room / dressing room / toilet, about roaches in a salad, or just about the process of filming. It all looks very funny and damn interesting. The whole essence of such films, the whole background of their production and all the permanent chaos that was happening on and off the set is revealed.
In Russia, the films in question in this film are absolutely unknown to the general public, and this is understandable. All these second-rate, low-budget, ridiculous "pictures" were shot by the American craftsman and for the American public, for display in a purely American (although later spread in Australia) invention - drive-in theater. Young guys and their girls from rural American towns – the main contingent of these films – came to some “Crazy Doctor of Bloody Island” not for the purpose of education and aesthetic pleasure. They usually watched them in the back seat (usually not quite in clothes) of their father’s “buicks” and “cadillacs”, occasionally casting glances at the screen. We, alas, never really imbued with the aesthetics and peculiar charm of these films. But thanks to the film “Girls with machetes on the loose” we can plunge into that glorious era for an hour and a half.
9 out of 10