Machete Maidens Unleashed

  • Client ABC TV
  • Year 2010
  • Director Mark Hartley
  • Producer Veronica Fury

Karate-kickin’ midgets! Paper-mâché monsters! Busty babes with blades! Filipino genre films of the ’70s and ’80s had it all.

Boasting cheap labour, exotic scenery and non-existent health and safety regulations, the Philippines was a dreamland for exploitation filmmakers whose renegade productions were soon engulfing drive-in screens around the globe like a tidal schlock-wave!

At last, the all-too-often overlooked world of drive-in filler from Manila gets the Mark Hartley (NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD) treatment in Machete Maidens Unleashed!. This is the ultimate insiders’ account of a faraway backlot where stunt men came cheap, plot was obsolete and the make-up guy was packin’ heat!

Machete Maidens Unleashed! features interviews with cult movie icons Roger Corman, Joe Dante, John Landis, Sid Haig, Eddie Romero and a large assembly of cast, crew and critics, each with a jaw-dropping story to tell about filmmaking with no budget, no scruples,
no boundaries and – more often than not – no clothes.

Strap yourselves in – and join us for a non-stop Filipino femme-fest, all the way from the jungles of the Pacific via the trash cans of the critics!