In the 1980s, Sweden’s youth culture was carried away by Bruce Lee, THE KARATE KID, and hip-hop, ushering a new wave of counter-culture and youth rebellion. Combined with Sweden’s own version of the “video nasties,” which elevated otherwise rote actioners to must-see status (among them Mats Helge Olsson’s essential, homegrown breakout VHS hit NINJA MISSION), delinquency was on the rise. And just as it swept midwestern American mini-malls, taekwondo made the juvenile offenders’ feet their weapons of choice.

The new subculture, known as “kickers,” was immortalized in the most unlikely of fashions: STOCKHOLMSNATT, a highly polished feature docudrama financed by Sweden’s state-owned telephone company and made for compulsory viewing to discourage payphone sabotage. This was a big mistake: a trend that most people weren’t even aware of went national, and the young hood stars, who played fictionalized versions of themselves, became icons. Years later, in 1993, SÖKARNA, featuring similar cast members, extended the core essence of STOCKHOLMSNATT into a more mature, sex, drugs, and violence-fueled portrait of Stockholm on the brink of full-on social collapse.

While one might be tempted to imagine Sweden as a bunch of blonde haired, blue eyed babes in a cultural bubble, the kicker films are unique in their frank acknowledgement of social problems, racial tensions, immigration and transatlantic cultural (re-)reappropriation. They’re a thrilling window into an obscure international subculture and, at the very least, unbelievably entertaining—if not always intentionally. And as Swedish Sensationsfilms author Daniel Eckeford argues, they represent the culmination of decades of violence and smut in Swedish films before relaxed censorship and the floodgates of the internet gave young punks less to kick back against.

STOCKHOLMSNATT
aka STOCKHOLM NIGHT/THE KING OF KUNGSAN
Dir. Staffan Hildebrand, 1987
Sweden, 45 min.
In Swedish with English subtitles

FRIDAY, AUGUST 7 – 10:00 PM
MONDAY, AUGUST 10 – 10:00 PM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 22 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, AUGUST 27 – 7:30 PM

STOCKHOLMSNATT is a true gem: a super stylized, state-supported 1987 quasi-docu-drama made for compulsory viewing in Swedish schools and designed to wean teens off a generally non-pervasive wave of random jumpkicking crimes—a non-trend that the movie then inadvertently popularized, making unlikely folk heroes out of its juvenile delinquent stars and christening Sweden’s “kicker” subculture.

Martial arts outlaw Paolo Roberti, already a notorious youth criminal, was hired to play himself as a young Italian Swede struggling with identity and feelings otherness. And like a lot of lost teens, he works this out through delinquency and violence, uniquely in this case by jumpkicking stuff like windows, people, and payphones, and really I guess just anything he can ram his foot into. His best friend, Quincy Delight Jones III (Quincy Delight Jones III, son of Quincy Jones and Swedish supermodel Ulla Andersson), tries to steer him on the right course, partially through the power of righteous positive synth jams. Parties, beatdowns, smash-n-grabs, teen romance, and a whole lotta jumpkicking ensue. Will any lessons be learned? Yes: jumpkicking stuff is awesome.

Transcending national borders, STOCKHOLMSNATT is the most overwhelmingly 80’s object ever made. It’s seriously like if Billys Idol and Squier had a jumpkicking movie baby. The music and fashion is so incredibly on-point, and it’s the kind of movie where when something sad happens there’s an epic guitar wail and suddenly Paolo is standing in a stairwell in the Kungsträdgården metro station while his long beautiful hair is backlit by neon and random fog rolls down the stairs (cue progressive baby-to-troubled-teen photo montage). It’s like this gritty glossy punchdance-fueled neon-neo-realism aesthetic filtered through badly failed corporate anti-vandalism propaganda. There’s even Swedish beatboxing and rapping. If anything, the seamless synthesizing of hair metal, synth pop, and hip-hop is a major feat in itself. Actually, maybe this is just a feature-length expansion of the Aerosmith/Run-DMC “Walk This Way” video, only mixed with the Michael Jackson video where he transforms from panther form and smashes a car.

I don’t want to spoil anything but I seriously have to tell you about this one part where Paolo and his hoodrat friends smash a window to steal a diamond-studded jean jacket with tiger-print lapels and when they’re running down the street and the cops try to stop them Paolo just JUMP KICKS one. Hahahahahahaha. AND THE COP DOESN’T EVEN TRY TO REACT. He’s just as stunned as we are that this curly haired punk is ramming his foot into his chest. Hahahaha. This movie makes jumpkicking look seriously fucking cool.

SÖKARNA
Dir. Daniel Fridell & Peter Cartriers, 1993
Sweden, 108 min.
In Swedish with English subtitles

FRIDAY, AUGUST 7 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, AUGUST 16 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19 – 10:00 PM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 22 – 10:00 PM

Set in the world of teen delinquency, crime, drug addiction, race conflict, and violence, SÖKARNA (literally “The Searchers” or “The Seekers”) follows a couple of low-rent hoods weaned on nascent Swedish hip-hop and Taekwondo whose sole virtue is that they enjoy beating the shit out of skinheads. Existence is bleak: but after leader Jocke is sentenced to jail time for a violent mugging, life goes off the rails when he reenters society with some new friends. Jocke plunges into a world of high-stakes robberies, violent shakedowns and mob deals while smoking, snorting, shooting, and freebasing his way straight to Hell.

SÖKARNA is considered by author Daniel Ekeroth to be the explosive culmination of the trajectory of Swedish “sensationsfilms” that began in the early 1950s. At once horrifyingly disturbing and giddily cheesy, the film is a wickedly warped portrait of society on the brink set to an awesome/awful backdrop of Neneh Cherry-style Euro R&B. (Although controversial Swedish G-Funk classic “Shoot the Racist” by Infinite Mass is actually pretty hardcore. Appropriately, the movie does begin with Jocke throwing a neo-Nazi under a subway train.) SÖKARNA is further noted for its unique tone that elevates urban realism into something slightly suggesting dystopian science fiction: it’s like the Swedish BASKETBALL DIARIES with a tincture of CLASS OF 1984.

Adding to the film’s legend is the incredible fact that in 1996, nearly three years after it’s release, amateur leading man Liam Norberg—who also has a small role in STOCKHOLMSNATT and had run a Taekwondo shop with star Paolo Roberti—was convicted of of the largest cash heist in Swedish history, which had taken place in 1991. (There are undeniable shades of Scorsese’s GOODFELLAS in both this historic real-life crime and the Lucchese/Lufthansa heist as well as the films’ aesthetic exuberance.) In fact, alongside unbelievable state subsidies, Norberg’s stolen money had partially financed SÖKARNA’s production. For his role in this legendary heist, Norberg and his collaborator received whopping five year prison sentences. The third accomplice, Dragomir Mršić, recently consulted and provided his voice and likeness to the popular video Swedish video game PAYDAY 2 and even had a decent sized role in Doug Liman’s EDGE OF TOMORROW. Way to keep it real, Sweden. Norberg, meanwhile, is back in the national spotlight as an outspoken born-again Christian.

This Summer™, Spectacle is pleased to show a trio of earlier works by the great, madcap Spanish auteur (anti-auteur?) Álex de la Iglesia, better known of recent for his Elijah Wood-starring The Oxford Murders and his surrealist drama of the Spanish Civil War, The Last Circus. de la Iglesia’s howlingly funny body of work is marked as much by its wanton bloodshed and suffering as it is by a dexterity with words and aphorisms – hat-tips to the audience that there are no holy cows in this world.

Trigger warning: films include murder, rape, kidnapping, human sacrifice, drug use, live experimentation and acts of terrorism. 

ACCIÓN MUTANTE (MUTANT ACTION)
Dir. Álex de la Iglesia, 1993
Spain, 90 min.
In Spanish with English subtitles

THURSDAY, JULY 2 – 10:00 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 10 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, JULY 25 – 7:30 PM

For those of us for whom DEMOLITION MAN wasn’t Boschian enough, there’s ACCIÓN MUTANTE! The film takes place in a dystopian near-future where a band of inept mutant troglodytes have made it their mission to target only the world’s most attractive – the other 1% – by blowing up sperm banks, attacking gyms and spas, etc. Led by the Frankensteinian Ramón (Antonio Resines), the  kidnap Patricia (Frédérique Feder), a glowing socialite bride-to-be, and haul her to the off-planet mining colony where Ramón has arranged to collect ransom money from her post-Francoist generalissimo father – but of course, things get more complicated en route. Awash in blood and metal, de la Iglesia’s nihlistic debut (produced by Pedro Almodovar!) is both a rib-brusingly hilarious satire of 90s society and a production of surprising detail and muscularity, likened often to the early collaborations between Jeunet and Caro.

EL DÍA DE LA BESTIA (THE DAY OF THE BEAST)
Dir. Álex de la Iglesia, 1995
Spain, 103 min.
In Spanish with English subtitles

MONDAY, JULY 6 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 10 – 10:00 PM
TUESDAY, JULY 28 – 7:30 PM

After discovering the Antichrist will be born Christmas Eve, mousy but determined Basque theologian Ángel sets off for Madrid to be evil as possible in hopes of gaining Satan’s trust and stopping the Apocalypse before the holidays. He’s new to sin, but gets help from a friendly local metalhead in kidnapping TV psychic and paranormal investigator Cavan to help them out. Comic book goofiness barely disguises underlying social commentary – one priest stealing dead men’s wallets can’t compete with an overzealous, trigger-happy police force or xenophobic hate groups running amok.

PERDITA DURANGO
Dir. Álex de la Iglesia, 1997
Mexico/USA/Spain, 121 min.

THURSDAY, JULY 2 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 15 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, JULY 28 – 10:00 PM

Starring Rosie Perez and Javier Bardem’s worst on-screen haircut, PERDITA DURANGO is a violent whirl of sex, drugs, and ritual murder weaving across the U.S./Mexico border. Still mourning her sister’s death, Perdita joins Santeria priest/drug runner Romeo on his latest run – delivering frozen human fetuses to a beauty company in Vegas for processing into fancy face cream. To spice things up, they kidnap two clueless American teens to screw and sacrifice along the way. de la Iglesias’ portrayal of America as land of the Square blurs with Perdita and Romeo’s Latin world of brutal vitality, creating a cartoonish existence where investigator Dumas (played by James Gandolfini) perpetually getting slammed by cars is slapstick, violence and sex are indistinguishably intermeshed, and the only common ground is Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass.

By the early 1970s, fallout from construction of Cross Bronx Expressway, misguided rent control policies leading to insurance fraud and arson, and economic stagnation drew international attention to the South Bronx as one of the most shocking instances of urban decay in United States history. As buildings blazed and lots turned to rubble, families struggled in tenement housing while police contended with an epidemic of gangs, drugs and prostitution; in the meantime, a revolution was happening with street art and the birth of hip hop.

BRONXPLOITATION takes a look at the northern borough as represented on film and video as an area of social, economic, cultural and commercial exploitation, but also one of enduring spirit and creative renewal. Through documentary and fiction alike, the series visits hip hop’s origins in dance parties amid apocalyptic rubble, rides alongside police patrolling the country’s most dangerous streets, sits inside gang hangouts, and examines the public perception of the Bronx crimewave, whether through a housing tenement under attack by vicious thugs or an Italian exploitation movie set in a sensationalized future Bronx.

80 BLOCKS FROM TIFFANY’S (BEST OF SPECTACLE)
Dir. Gary Weis, 1979
USA, 67 min.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17 – 10PM
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 18 – 5PM
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24 – 7:30PM

Special thanks to Gary Weis

A legendary cult documentary equally infamous for its subject matter as well as its scarcity, director Gary Weis traveled uptown in 1979 to provide an unflinching, hilarious, and sometimes shocking depiction of the South Bronx neighborhood and, in particular, two African American and Puerto Rican gangs known as the “Savage Skulls” and the “Savage Nomads.”

Facing severe sociopolitical decay throughout the 70s, the South Bronx is portrayed as a crime-infested, all out no-man’s-land war zone where the battle lines are drawn between warring factions of youth street gangs.

Commonly referred to as the real life version of THE WARRIORS, the film is a brilliant snapshot of a bygone era and a stark reminder of the damage that had been wreaked on parts of New York throughout the 70s; the abandoned districts, burnt-out buildings and human waste serving as the end point for a decade of mismanagement and unaddressed social problems. Spectacle is proud to present this landmark work in a brand new remastered version.

1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS

Dir. Enzo G. Castellari, 1982
Italy, 93 min.

FRIDAY, JULY 3 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, JULY 9 – 10:00 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 31 – 7:30 PM

Medieval in its brutality and psychedelic in its execution, 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS is among the crowning achievements of exploitation master Enzo G. Castellari (THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS, KEOMA, THE BIG RACKET). And at that, it’s one of the most compellingly over-the-top, guttural pictures to capitalize on the 1970’s South Bronx crime wave. Handily cribbing from both ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and THE WARRIORS, it presents a dystopian future scenario in which the Bronx is quarantined as a mob-ruled No Man’s Land lorded over by colorful gangs marked by their flamboyant dress and manneristic quirks. Into this anarchic world a young heiress flees her evil capitalist father, who employs a mercenary army to slaughter its way through the gangs who variously harbor and fight over her.

This is perhaps the most lavish, colorful and explosive production of both Castellari’s career and the Italian post-apocalypse subgenre it inspired. Its highlights include epic slow-motion shootouts, sword-vs-hockey stick brawls, creepy mimes with nunchucks and a legion of mounted police officers strapped with flame throwers roasting out the gangs against the backdrop of the Manhattan skyline. The cast includes blaxploitation stalwart Fred Williamson alongside Vic Morrow in his penultimate role.

THE POLICE TAPES
Dir. Alan & Susan Raymond, 1977
USA, 88 min.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1 – 10:00 PM
TUESDAY, JULY 7 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, JULY 13 – 10:00 PM
SUNDAY, JULY 26 – 7:30 PM

Special thanks to Alan & Susan Raymond

An alarming and distressing look into the tumultuous work of the 44th Precinct police officers in the South Bronx (a one square mile area that, in 1976, had the highest crime rate in New York City), THE POLICE TAPES peels back the skin to reveal a city at war with the civil servants assigned to serve and protect them.

Utilizing some of the earliest Portapak video equipment available, filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond capture raw scenes of domestic violence, crime, and murder as well as the officers who gallantly try to maintain a sense of order in a neighborhood coming unraveled. What emerges is an uncensored portrait of a community fighting the consequences of urban poverty and the law enforcers’ difficult task of remaining righteous in a soul-crushing job.

A vital landmark in cinema vérité, THE POLICE TAPES influenced everything from HILL STREET BLUES to COPS and kickstarted the future Oscar-winning careers of Alan and Susan Raymond. To this day, the film maintains its striking power.

TENEMENT
aka GAME OF SURVIVAL aka SLAUGHTER IN THE SOUTH BRONX
Dir. Roberta Findlay, 1985
USA, 94 min.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 8 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, JULY 16 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, JULY 27 – 7:30 PM

Special thanks to Roberta Findlay

Channeling NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD by way of DEATH WISH, this unabashedly sleazy thriller features a group of honest Bronx tenants fed up with the junkie punks squatting in their basement, who pass the time indiscriminately using rats as target practice and food alike. The residents call the police to remove the trespassers, but when the gang is released from booking that night, the vengeful siege begins. TENEMENT is a pat, fast-paced and action-packed thriller, but one of an uncommonly debased sensibility.

Director Roberta Findlay is best known for her sexploitation and hardcore films including ALTAR OF LUST and THE CLAMDIGGER’S DAUGHTER. Concurrently she and husband Michael created 1976’s SNUFF, inspiring outrage and widespread protest for its allegedly featuring actual murders later revealed to be a marketing ploy. Following Michael’s death, Roberta continued directing hardcore until becoming persona non grata among the industry for SHAUNA: EVERY MAN’S FANTASY, a hardcore documentary about drug addicted pornographic actress Shauna Grant’s shotgun suicide cashing in the following year.

But if anything pushes Findlay’s movies beyond the usual level of discomfort, it might be how shockingly well-made and entertaining they are despite an absolute disregard for taste and morality that makes LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE appear Puritanical in compare. Very clearly shot on location amid the rubble and decay of the decimated burrough, TENEMENT is a sleazy exploitation movie, to be sure, but one which by mere virtue of its existence is a bold, agitational indictment of a city squeezed through the bowels of Hell.