About

“Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash we have very little reason to be interested in them.” - Pauline Kael

Trash Cinema Club was originally designed as a celebration of rude, disreputable genre filmmaking, but because my readers weren’t supporting the website (by clicking on the ads), I decided to make this website into a reference for me and my friends, which means that from now on, I’ll be reviewing every film I see, not just trash. In other words, I’ll be reviewing art films and mainstream films like every other critic.

So, what is trash cinema, anyway? These are the movies that are made basically to entertain. They don’t usually aspire to higher meaning (although they might achieve it accidentally). Often, they’re cheaply and quickly made and fly under the cultural radar. They tend to focus on prurient subject matter, with an emphasis on sex and violence. Since they are often low budget, they tend to approach the subject matter in a way that would never fly in a mainstream movie. They can be as homophobic, racist, gross, violent, sick, or nauseating as they want, as long as they obey the cardinal rule to never bore you.

Where do they come from? They tend to come from Italy, Japan, the United States, Korea, and Hong Kong, but they can come from anywhere depraved minds congregate.

My special passion is to be your guide to cinema dumpster diving, to turn you on to the different flavors of trash cinema. Maybe you’re already familiar with spaghetti westerns, but have you heard of Italian police movies from the 70s? If not, you’re missing out! Maybe you’re up on Hong Kong gangster movies from the 80s, but how about South Korean political action flicks?

By the way, I write my reviews to give you just enough information to decide whether or not you want to see the flick. That’s why they’re so short. I hate reviews that are strewn with spoilers! I hope you do, too.

One unfortunate aspect of trash cinema is, since they weren’t intended to be enduring works of art, many titles can be hard to find. I’ve seen hundreds of these films, and I’ve barely scratched the surface. That’s why I’ve provided a forum, so members can let each other know about great flicks others should see, or to aid in locating hard to find movies, etc.

Don’t be shy about using the forum. The more people use it, the better it will be for all of us trash cinema fanatics!

Have fun and tell your friends.

You probably know that Trash Cinema Club makes it easy for you to locate Hong Kong films or Essential films through the Topics menu on the upper left corner of the site. But did you know that you can search for something as complex as all action films from the 70s that don’t star Clint Eastwood? If you like to know how, check out my article, New Advanced Search Capability.