Machete Maidens Unleashed!

After Not Quite Hollywood, an exploration of ‘ozploitation’ films, B-film chronicler Mark Hartley pointed his camera at the Philippines. Thanks to low production costs and the exotic climate, in the 1970s this became a favourite location for genre film makers such as Roger Corman and Joe Dante. Respected Filipino film makers like Eddie Romero and Gerry De Leon also took advantage of the American drive-in market.
Cast and crew back then fondly remember the primitive working conditions, interspersed with many film excerpts. The country was burdened by the dictatorial regime of Ferdinand Marcos, but the B-film crews had a free hand. The theme of the caged woman was a favourite. Of course there was plenty of torture, severed genitals and nuns with machine guns. At the end of the decade, Francis Ford Coppola also discovered the advantages and disadvantages of the 'Wild East' as a film location, when he settled in the jungle to shoot Apocalypse Now.