W Richard Benash

Scum Cinema W Richard Benash

Scum Cinema is a social and cultural journey through the 100-year history of America's most critically derided, culturally reviled, and often misunderstood style of filmmaking - exploitation. From the very first feature-length exploitation film, 1913's Traffic in Souls, to Reefer Madness, Mom and Dad, The Immoral Mr. Teas, Blood Feast, It's Alive, Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS, The Toxic Avenger, The Human Centipede, and many other films in between, exploitation films have been alternately called crude, disgusting, trashy, and occasionally brilliant. Their makers were often figures on society's social, cultural, and political margins. Some were hucksters looking to make a quick buck and others were passionate artists attempting to make a deeply-felt personal statement despite having few resources at their disposal. Exploitation films are far from a cultural oddity; they have existed for as long as film itself. Despite their reputation as a form of low culture, they were hardly garbage for the sake of being so; in their crudity and audacity they revealed unique observations about the society that produced them. Scum Cinema is the story of exploitation films and those who made them. Its research was conducted with academic rigor, but it is written in a style that will appeal to both the film student and the casual fan. Scum Cinema is one of the most detailed examinations of an often ignored style of American film, and is an essential addition to any serious library of film literature.