JAFA'S  FREE PREVIEW PHOTOS and MOVIE REVIEWS

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TUNNEL VISION, NOBLE CAUSE CORRUPTION BEHIND DRDON'S WRONGFUL 
PROSECUTION AND WRONGFUL CONVICTION--------------------->>>Read More

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The Progressive Art Project Presents
DrDon's complete special effects video collection on PPV

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GET THE COMPLETE WORKS OF DRDON ON DVD AT: WWW.SERIALKILLERSUNDERGROUND.COM

The following is the expert opinion of Dr. Barry Grant concerning the artistic merit in DrDon's films.

REF:Rv.SMITH November 7, 2002 

   The following is my expert opinion on the visual materials by Don Smith in the above legal proceeding. 

Much of my published research on popular cinema has focused on the film genres of horror and action, often considering questions of gender representation. Mr.Smith's work, which I downloaded and watched on my computer, would seem to fall into the category of exploitation, specifically "horror exploitation." 

   Cinema is a cultural and economic institution or network that includes such very different forms of film making as esoteric experimental films, documentary, mainstream movies and exploitation films. This latter kind of film making or practise, like the others, has an identifiable history and traditions, a recognizable set of visual and stylistic conventions, a distribution network and fan subculture(Schaefer 1999). 

   The nature of Mr. Smith's work is entirely consistent with the conventions of horror/exploitation cinema. The term exploitation film refers to a film with sensationalist value that often exploits a contemporary issue or subject or capitalizes on more prurient aspects of hit(mainstream)movies. Blaxploitation movies,for example, were action movies with tough black characters that broke new ground in the representation of black people on American movie screens during the time of the civil rights movement and racial rioting in the 1970s; while sexploitation offered scenes of nudity and sexual activity. Other notable exploitation genres include rock and roll movies, mondo films(frequently cannibal films or atrocity films), women in prison movies and slasher movies. The latter two kinds often feature female nudity and violence directed toward women, sometimes both together. 

  The history of exploitation films goes back as far as the silent era. Certain producers and studios, such as American International Pictures(AIP), specialized in making exploitation films. Many film makers viewed the opportunity to work in exploitation films as apprentice work. Roger Corman's New World Pictures was known as a studio that provided invaluable experience for many of todays important mainstream directors, including John Sayles, Jonathan Demme and Peter Bogdanovich, who began their careers working in exploitation cinema. 

   Until the 1990s, exploitation films had a market niche as a staple "B" movie fare in urban downtown theatres and in drive-in cinemas. However, the exhibition circuit for exploitation horror films has disappeared in the last two decades, with the advent of home video, as most are now released as straight-to-video(no theatrical release), a less expensive option for producers. 

   Originally the term "exploitation film" had a negative connotation, with an implication that such films were cheaply made with poor production values, and that they were crass or crude in tone. But as Cook(1976)argues, the marginal nature of exploitation cinema within the film industry as a whole in fact allowed for a relaxation of constraints of aesthetic taste and political perspective. This view is demonstrated by the movies of a director such as Stephanie Rothman, whose films "Student Nurses"(1970), "The Velvet Vampire"(1971) and "Terminal Island"(1973) have been interpreted as feminist statements(Peary 1977). Many classic horror films concentrate on sexual themes and have sexual content (Grant 1996), and they typically link sex in some way to violence and death. This pattern is obvious in films such as "Dracula"(most versions),with the vampire's sexual seduction of his victims and bites to their neck, and more subtle in other movies like "Creature from the Black Lagoon"(1954).

  Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho"(1960), the pivotal movie that changed the direction of all horror films to follow, brings sex, violence and death together in the famous shower murder scene and in the psychiatrist's explanation of Norman Bates pathology in the film's conclusion. Most film scholars, myself included, understand this pronounced proclivity of the horror film as arising from the fact that the genre is fundamentally concerned with presenting materials of psychological repression and cultural taboo. This is the main function and affective power of the genre and this is why horror movies present shocking, transgressive and disgusting imagery (that which is monstrous or horrible). 

    Exploitation horror films, which by their very nature seek to commercialize vice(Schaefer), unsurprisingly emphasize and exploit sex and violence more than highbrow horror films like "The Shining"(1980) or "The Sixth Sense"(1998). Exploitation films tend to focus on the human body, particularly the female body, as the site of horror. This is true of cannibal films, gore, splatter or meat movies. According to McCarty(1984), such movies are less interested in frightening viewers than mortifying them. This response is solicited largely through images of graphic violations of the human body and the violation of good taste. Probably the most common image in horror movies is that of "the beast in the boudoir"(Greenberg 1975; Grant 1996). Most often in such scenes the monster or killer is coded as male, the victim female. Typically, her vulnerability and sexuality are heightened because she is an attractive woman minimally clad, and sometimes completely nude. Certainly the overwhelming number of victims in horror and exploitation movies are female, and the bodily violations of women typically receive more visually detailed representation than that of bodily violations than male characters. This victimization of women is particularly evident in slasher movies, which developed largely as an exploitation of commercial movies like "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"(1974)and "Halloween"(1978), although its lineage of course can be traced back to "Psycho"(1960). 

   Slasher films typically feature psychotic males who set about systematically killing an isolated group of young people in increasingly gruesome ways, with the torture or pursuit of the female characters given extended treatment. Perhaps the most recognizable convention of the slasher movie is the use of a hand-held camera to signify the killer's point of view, a stylistic technique that would seem to encourage some degree of morally questionable identification with the perpetrator. This technique is taken to the extreme in some contemporary computer games, such as "Grand Theft Auto" and "Carmegeddon", which lock the player exclusively in the visual perspective of the game's character who the player must control to commit criminal and violent acts. In games such as "Soldier of Fortune" and "Unreal Tournament 2003", the player has the character even commit murder. However, Clover (1992) and other critics have argued that even though a good deal of these films'screen time is taken up showing women tortured, frightened, and humiliated, ultimately they are empowering for women because, as in the end of "Halloween" and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (1986), the female hero survives and conquers the monstrous killer threatening her. The empowerment of the intended victim is given an explicit pro-feminist twist in some movies such as"Halloween H2O"(1998).

   Mr.Smith's work focuses on female victims, and in this it is all too typical of the exploitation horror form of film making I have referred to. Many of these films are readily available in Canada from local video stores, mail order companies and online retailers. Yet at the same time Mr. Smith's work tends to avoid the subjective camera techniques of slasher movies in favour of more neutral setups. Thus his work, The works in question, do not marshall the expressive techniques of film making for the purpose of encouraging viewers to identify with the killer to the extent that many horror exploitation movies do. Moreover, since they are short, Mr.Smith's works are not stories or narratives, but merely events that unfold before the camera. Hence there is no time for viewers to form a bond of identification with the killers, to whom we have no relation because they receive no character development. 

   The relative artistic merit of Mr.Smith's work resides primarily in the special effects. The acting and other production values of the works are equivalent to many horror exploitation movies, better than some, less convincing than others. This is also the case of the special effects. Mr. Smith shows the impact of bullets or other weapons on bodies, but does so without the use of squibs(the technique of choice since Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch"(1969), a technique that emphasizes the violent impact of bullets on the body. Indeed, Mr.Smith's work shows surprising restraint in his treatment of the gore effects compared to the more sensationalised approach of many exploitation movies. 

   Mr.Smith's work focuses on female victims, and in this it is all too typical of this form of film making; yet at the same time it tends to avoid the subjective camera techniques of slasher movies in favour of more neutral set ups. In short, Mr.Smith's work fits within this recognizable distinct tradition of film making, and does not show anything that hasn't already been done in the genre in films readily availailable in Canada. 

  Mr.Smith has posted his work on his website. In the last few years, the internet has become both a legitimate and significant site for film promotion and self promotion in the film industry. It is potentially more effective and certainly less expensive than preparing a portfolio of film or video clips. Film makers and film scholars alike have their own web sites. Many studios make previews of their films available on the web, and now film makers are even making short films expressly for release on the internet. The pre-marketing of "The Blair Witch Project"(1999)included the creation of websites about the history of the supposedly real Blair Witch in an actual Maryland town, a marketing ploy that convinced many people that the film was a real documentary, and is in large part the reason for the film's astonishing commercial success. 

WORKS CITED: 

Exploitation Films and Feminism. Screen 17, no. 2 (1976): 122--127.Grant, Barry Keith, ed. 

The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film . Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996. Greenberg, Harvey, M.D. 

The Movies on Your Mind. New York: Dutton/Saturday Review Press, 1975. McCarty, John. 

Splatter Movies. New York: St. Martin Press, 1984. Peary, Danny. Stephanie Rothman: R Rated Feminist. 

Women and the Cinema,ed. Karyn Kay and Gerald Peary. New York: Dutton, 1977. Schaefer, Eric. 

Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!: A History of Exploitation Films, 1919-1959.
Durham, N.C. and London: Duke University Press, 1999. 

Respectfully submitted, 
Dr. Barry K. Grant, Ph.D. 
Professor of Film Studies and Popular Culture 
Director, M.A. Program in Popular Culture 
Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario

Linly Spears is a Canadian actress and model who has acted in numerous films for the erotic horror community. See some of her erotic death scenes on Pay Per View.