Bad Combinations

I grow tired of coming across abysmal studio "collections."
Whether they're double, triple or quadruple features, they really should make sense.
Here are a few that make me cringe...

Let me get this straight, you're taking a well-done slasher film and pairing it with a film from the GHOULIES franchise? Scratch that... a bastard film in the GHOULIES franchise?! Just because you own the rights to two different horror film properties doesn't make them two peas in a pod. (But, I cannot lie... I'm game for such a double bill.)

Unless they mean this is a triple feature of three out of four films that are worth a shit, I'd say this would be a QUADRUPLE feature set.

Here's one of the more ridiculous combinations I've found. Yes, they're two cross-country race films and true enough that both of the CANNONBALL RUN features were inspired by THE GUMBALL RALLY, but wouldn't it make much more sense to make this a double bill of THE CANNONBALL RUN and CANNONBALL RUN II?! I'd understand if Warner didn't have distribution rights to the original film, but that's certainly not the case. The original is currently available via HBO Video ...WHICH WARNER BROS. OWNS!

Idealistically, there is nothing wrong with this arrangement of films, but the grindhouse thing is really getting old. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love those types of films (my heart lies in exploitation / genre cinema), however, since Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez breathed new life into the term, video companies have been cashing in on it ever since. I know, I know... exploitation begets exploitation, but, what's particularly lame is when distributors don't truly understand the definition of the term, such as exampled here. There's absolutely no such thing as a "drive-in grindhouse." Not only is the term contradictory, to say the least (it's very hard to park an automobile in an actual movie theater without breaking a few laws), but it makes very little sense when one knows the difference between the two forums. Grindhouse is a term for "hardtop" theaters that specialized in the exhibition of films which would normally go unseen anywhere else, including drive-ins. That's not to say that they wouldn't showcase drive-in style fare, but it certainly wasn't what they were known for. (Think early John Waters films, pornographic pictures, questionable arthouse, European sleaze & gore fests or basically anything on 42nd Street pre-Rudolph Giuliani killing all the fun.)

Keep an eye out for the next poorly advised double bill, THE DELTA FORCE plus MISSING IN ACTION 2: THE BEGINNING. As for BRADDOCK: MISSING IN ACTION III, sorry, but you're shit out of luck since MGM doesn't own the rights to DELTA FORCE 3.

STAY TUNED!
MORE TO COME!