10 Types Of Movies You Don't See Any More

3. Blaxploitation Films

Coined by Variety in their review of Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970), the term ‘Blaxploitation’ came to epitomize the kind of exploitation fare that was popular with coloured audiences in the 1970s, but while these films had an African-American in the lead, they were far from being examples of African-American filmmaking. 

Abby, Coffy and The Thing With Two Heads were the products of white studios (and filmmakers) that just wanted to make money and distributor AIP most likely viewed African-American audiences as dispassionately as the teenaged viewers for whom they had cranked out Beach Party movies and juvenile delinquent melodramas in the 50s. Where there was demand, studios supplied, nothing more.

In both decades, that supply ran the gamut from good to bad, kitsch to !*$%. Products of their era, these time capsules have an amusing and endearing ‘period charm’, but the wildest, craziest efforts appear to have dropped fully formed from some other dimension. Who knows, perhaps even the Wayans brothers might think twice before attempting a remake of The Black Gestapo (1975), a tale of infighting amongst coloured vigilante groups.