Having watched "Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!" is eventually going to cost me a lot of money in the long run, as I added yet another handful of obscure movies to my never-ending list of 'absolutely-must-track-down-purchases'. That is actually the main reason why horror and cult fanatics ought to check this spirited and cheerful documentary out! Not so much because it's highly informative and professionally made (which it is), but mainly because this literally is a gravy train of virtually unknown but seemingly delicious genre titles. You can watch this documentary with a pen & notebook next to you and just start writing down the titles of all out-and-out demented movies they show brief clips of, and I assure that near the end you'll have a whole page full! In case the extended title doesn't make it clear enough yet, "Not Quite Hollywood" is a documentary revolving on the Australian exploitation/B-movie industry in general. This production features tons of clips from movies of the different streams in cult cinema (vulgar 70's sex flicks, brutally gore horror and outrageous car/biker movies), interviews with practically all the pioneers of Aussie cult cinema (like Brian Trenchard-Smith, Richard Franklin and Everett De Roche
) and over-enthusiast testimonies for younger generation directors about how influential these movies were (Greg McLean, James Wan and particularly the always-hyperkinetic Quentin Tarantino). The footage and interviews covering the Sexploitation stream was the least interesting part for me, because I'm not that interested in those films. Still it was nevertheless worthwhile seeing, as this meant the launch of the Aussie exploitation industry, with director icons like John Lamond and Tim Burstall giving birth to Down Under sleaze and vulgarity. There's a surprisingly high amount of little interviews with lewd actresses of that time, so it's really fun to see them showing off their T&A first and then talk about how carefree this era was. The horror movies (comatose killers & outback chillers) and exploitation flicks (high octane disasters and kung-fu masters) are a non-stop spitfire of fantastic images, compelling background information, marvelous on-set anecdotes and enticing bits of gore. It's always a brilliant experience to watch so many of your cinematic heroes assembled in one documentary, and "Not Quite Hollywood" accomplishes exactly this.
