Thanks(ploitation)! Part II

by Patrick Bromley

Junesploitation is over. Long live Junesploitation.

After 30 days and literally hundreds of movies watched between us, our second Junesploitation has concluded, bigger and better than before. Last year's Junesploitation was something of an experiment -- a way to do a community event over the summer and an excuse to watch a bunch of exploitation and genre movies. We brought it back for the same reasons. And because it was a ton of fun.

This year's Junesploitation confirms that it's here to stay.

Like Scary Movie Month and F This Movie Fest, Junesploitation will now be an annual institution at the site. Enough of you have embraced it and enough of us (me) love it to justify making it a permanent part of what we do here at FTM. Hopefully most of you are happy to hear it. Those of you that aren't should keep in mind that we posted enough non-Junesploitation-related content these last four weeks to keep you busy even if you didn't participate. This begs the question: why didn't you participate?

Know how I know Junesploitation should come back next year? Because after 30 days and upwards of 50 movies watched, I'm not ready for it to be done. It's July 1 and I'm still going to be watching my Empire Pictures discs and my Blue Underground titles and anything on Full Moon Streaming. I'm sure it helps that I love this stuff and would be watching it all year anyway, but it's been great to really immerse myself in it for a month straight and talk about why I love it with all of you.

I know that exploitation and genre movies are not to everyone's taste. But the month is designed so that you could watch ANY movie from a given category. You don't have to pick an old Roger Corman drive-in movie for "Cars!" day. You can watch any movie that has a car. We had people watching everything from Beverly Hills Cop to Krzysztof Kieslowki's Three Colors trilogy to whatever crazy shit @manwithpetgull was finding every day. The fun of it is watching movies.

Because that's the the real reason we do it: so that we get to watch movies. That's what we're supposed to want to do, right? As movie loves and visitors to a movie site, we'll use any excuse to watch movies. Junesploitation is that excuse. Make it your excuse.

I'm so thankful not just to everyone who participated -- we like to brag about our community, but you guys actually put your money where your mouth is -- but also for the tons and tons of movies I got to hear about and now want to track down. You were all so great about making these titles sound fun and crazy when they were supposed to and sound terrible when they sucked. The love of genre movies came through in every post. I'm happy that we have a place where we can talk about highbrow Oscar bait and crazy exploitation movies with the same amount of excitement and passion. As someone whose heart truly lies with genre films, this is the kind of shit I live for.

So thank you all for a very special month. I would have days where site-related stuff would bum me out, but then someone would post an enthusiastic review of a super cheap '80s action movie and my spirits would lift. Watching movies, loving movies and sharing that love together is what drives me to keep growing the site and hopefully making it better and better. I can't tell you how much it meant to me every time someone ended a comment with "Thanks, Junesploitation!" Someone got to see something he or she liked and might not have seen otherwise. That's why we do this, and to see so many of you get into the spirit of the month and embrace all these crazy movies was a high point of the last 30 days.

On a personal note, I had better luck this year than last in that I enjoyed -- if not outright liked -- the majority of the stuff I watched. Looking back on what I saw the last month, there were plenty of disappointing and downright terrible picks. Those have already faded from memory. What sticks are the high points -- Southern Comfort, The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, Deathdream, Four of the Apocalypse, The Heroin Busters...I could keep going.

This may also be the month that also pushed me towards finally liking Italian horror. I watched a shitload of Italian movies this month, and not just horror, either. There was science fiction, action, fantasy, crime movies, westerns, thrillers...the Italians are the fucking exploitation kings. I've come to find the cheap shocks and the dubbing and the weird shit that couldn't be done in any other movie very comforting. I can watch something like Lamberto Bava's Macabre and recognize that none of it adds up to anything "good" in the traditional sense, and yet it all kind of works in that context. I want to keep chasing it. I've got my copies of Shock and The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Strip Nude for Your Killer that I didn't get around to watching and I'm not willing to wait for next year's Junesploitation to roll around. Let's keep this crazy Italian party going. Bella bambina, 12 o'clock.

What were your highs and lows this year? Top three favorites? Bottom three? Anything you didn't get around to watching that you're going to hold until next year? Or are you like me and can't wait that long? Let's recap the month in the comments below.

So once again thank you to Matthew, manwithpetgull, Ivan, Brad L., Shannon Briggs, Steve K., Scott McHarg, Mac McEntire, Chaybee1, JP, Myke, Gabby Ferro, J.M. Vargas, Matt Sollenberger, Cameron Cloutier, Sol, Grant Malfitano, Ike, Jeff Quinn, AdamD, Tom Smail, Drew, Angela Hager, Mike, Joseph Finn, Grey Weirdo, Luke Ciancio, Tom Bartman, Patron Saint of Awesomeness, Albert Muller, janbottig, Gil, Chris, Mike Young, Dan Snyder, and to FTM's own Doug, Adam Riske, JB, Melissa Henderson, Mike Pomaro, Heath Holland, Erich Asperschlager and Mark Ahn...and to anyone else I may have forgotten or overlooked. Stuff like this is fun because of all of you.

Thanks to any of the readers who followed along every day but maybe didn't participate. Hopefully we made it look fun enough that next year you'll join in, whether it's for a few days or for the whole month.

Those of you who are new to us this Junesploitation, I really hope you'll stick around. I'm proud of our site and our community kicks dick all year long.

We're lucky to have all of you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Junesploitation forever.

92 days until #ScaryMovieMonth.