by Patrick Bromley
This year marks our 15th year (!!!) as a site and our 12th year of Junesploitation, our annual celebration of exploitation and genre films. What started as a selfish excuse for me to spend a few weeks watching '70s and '80s grindhouse fare has exploded into a yearly tradition with many, many participants both on our site and on social media. Thank you for that!!
Most of you know the drill by now, but for those of you new to Junesploitation, here's how it works: each day of the month has its own theme, and you're supposed to watch a movie that ties into that theme. How you interpret the connection is entirely up to you, which means if you have no interest in exploitation or genre movies that's ok and you can still join in! If you're not into sword & sorcery movies, check out Now You See Me on June 5 Magic! day. Not a fan of Hong Kong Action? Check out M:I 2 on June 24. This month is supposed to be fun -- an excuse to watch movies every day and talk about them with one another. There are no "right" movies to watch. It's participating that gets you in the spirit, not watching a bunch of cheap, violent sleaze. That stuff is just a bonus.
If you do like those kinds of movies, though, or if you're willing to give them a shot, it's super easy to participate in Junesploitation thanks to streaming services. Netflix isn't a ton of help, but Amazon Prime Video and Tubi have a deep library of titles and there are a couple of streaming platforms (like Shudder and Screambox) devoted to just these kinds of movies. A few other streamers have a number of titles you might want to check out this month. And while I rarely advocate watching movies on YouTube, there's a lot of cool and obscure stuff to be found there if you're willing to look. Stay tuned for our annual Junesploitation Primer for help on where to find some good titles, though by now most of you know where to look.
Here is this year's schedule, as always featuring a several new categories and some returning favorites:
June 1 – Italian Crime!
June 2 – Zombies!
June 3 – David Carradine!
June 4 – Blaxploitation
June 5 – Magic!
June 6 – Giallo!
June 7 – Kung Fu!
June 8 – Heists!
June 9 – Free Space!
June 10 – Jess Franco!
June 11 – ‘90s Action!
June 12 – Cartoons!
June 13 – Friday the 13th!
June 14 – Free Space!
June 15 – Revenge!
June 16 – ‘80s Comedy!
June 17 – Fulci!
June 18 – Rock and Roll!
June 19 – Free Space!
June 20 – Exploitation Auteurs!
June 21 – Westerns!
June 22 – Teenagers!
June 23 – New World Pictures!
June 24 – Hong Kong Action!
June 25 – Wings Hauser Tribute!
June 26 – Eurosploitation!
June 27 – Free Space!
June 28 – Cannon!
June 29 – ‘80s Action!
June 30 – Italian Horror!
Thank you to our regular readers and commenters @ACasualListener and @Zillagord for suggesting some of this year's new categories! And, as always, thanks to our very own Doug for designing the calendar!!
It's almost June!
Lets F@#$ing Go!!!!
ReplyDeleteDo for it!
ReplyDeleteThe calendar is here! And there is less than two weeks to wait before the fun commences.
ReplyDeleteI am delighted that you found my suggestions helpful, Patrick.
Many may groan about a Jess Franco day, but I am thrilled to see him included. I always watch at least one Franco film for Junesploitation, and I have a stack of Severin and Kino releases to choose from for that day. If anyone has any questions about the immense Franco filmography, I can offer suggestions to steer you toward what you might like. The films made before 1975 tend to be his best work, but there is much enjoyable trash - depending on your tastes - made after that. In my opinion, the films he made with Soledad Miranda are his artistic peak. His work from 1962-66 is the most conventional in story and style.
David Carradine... The challenge is which film to choose. He was in so many over the years. If you can find Sonny Boy available, that offers one of Carradine's most interesting performances.
Oh my !!!!! Let's do this !!!
ReplyDeleteLove the way this gets my brain working, sketching out my month. Love the categories. Can’t wait to see what everyone is watching.
ReplyDeleteAwwwwww yeah!!
ReplyDeleteI buy tapes throughout the year just for this reason. There’s a few categories this time where I’ll probably have to take the party inside and spin a disc though.
Thank you Patrick for continuing to do this. It’s always a highlight of the year and I guess I better get a Bluesky account going.
Happy 15th anniversary! Finished my list earlier today and I am sooo looking forward to June. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteYeehaw! I'm tempted to just follow this year's calendar graphic, which would apparently mean getting pretty cozy with something called Mulva 2: Kill Teen Ape next month.
ReplyDeleteYou think you can just jump in for Mulva 2 and understand the complex plot machinations?
Delete.
You've got time..i suggest seeking out Mulva 1: Create Teen Ape. And then work your way thru the box set.
Mulva 3: Zombie Teen Ape!
Mulva 4: Season of the Witch 2 (an underrated, unauthorized crossover sequel to Halloween 3)
Mulva 5: D@mn Dirty Teen Apes!
Mulva 6: Baba Oriley (aka Teen-ape Wasteland)
but seriously, i LOVE the graphic and am stoked patrick put Black Dynamite on there. Hoping that drives more people to discover the flick. I think its brilliant.
I had to Google "Mulva movies" and several title variations to convince myself that those were (very hilarious) joke titles. The two real movies are so insane that the others seem plausible! And I'd watch every one of the fictional entries (I'm especially bummed there's not really a Mulva 4: Season of the Witch 2; Create Teen Ape made me laugh the hardest).
DeleteBlack Dynamite is great and I haven't seen it in a while. The graphic knows what it's doing!
annnnd now im going to have to google Mulva movies...going in...afraid. it absolutely sounds made up.
DeleteBeautiful!
ReplyDeleteMy current list, I assume I'll change picks as we get closer to June https://boxd.it/H9gYW
ReplyDeleteWow, some killer picks here! Wondering what the connection between Friday the 13th and Deranged is, mostly because I'd like to watch something besides a Friday the 13th movie and would love some insight! Also-- I was looking at Evil Toons for my Cartoons selection, and I appreciate that you picked Wishman as your auteur! Hope you have an outstanding Junesploitation!
DeleteThat is a nice list. Black Tight Killers was one of my favorite watches last year. The kooky action and 1960s style is very entertaining. Lady Frankenstein is a personal favorite largely because of the lead actress, Rosalba Neri.
DeleteLast night I was pulling out discs from my collection in preparation for next month. There are several options ready to go for the days I have not made up my mind about. Auteur day is one of those. Choosing Joe D'Amato gives me a chance to get into the Black Emanuelle set, but my plans for a John Hayes day (for a free day) go back several years. I will see which one wins out in a month.
Casual: I watched Emanuelle in America a little while back, it was a wild one! Looking forward to your list!
DeleteWoot woot! I can't wait to put together a tentative list this weekend. Best movie month of the year.
ReplyDeleteAwesome! Thanks for considering my category suggestions! I am looking forward to the challenge of picking my flicks. I will have an additional challenge this year, as I will be buying a home and moving this June, but I will do my best show up daily, read and leave comments, and watch my movies (even though I might have to do some double and triple features). Stoked for this, my third year of participating in Junesploitation! I'll be back soon with my sagacious, salacious exploitation selections!
ReplyDeleteThis will of course be the correct Friday the 13 - the Friday the 13th of JUNE, as it is in stated the 1980 movie. And it's 45! A once in a lifetime celebration.
ReplyDeleteI'm tempted to make every Free Space! movie a Space! movie. But I know I'm going to be seeing a ton of great recommendations throughout the month, and I'll want to fit in some stuff that other people enjoyed and mentioned here.
ReplyDeleteSo far I have not made any decisions about free days except for a 1950s drive-in movie day. (I always cover the 1950s in some way, which was made easy last year by the Roger Corman themes.) Maybe a sci-fi day. What I generally save for free days - Jess Franco and other European exploitation flicks - is covered in the categories this year.
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