Grindhouse Theater: Nacho Cerda's Trilogy of Death

The following films belong to The Trilogy of Death (aka La Trilogia De La Muerte) collection by the renowned Spanish filmmaker Nacho Cerdà.

The Trilogy of Death series features the following films...

Awakening (1990) The first short film only runs for eight minutes. It tells the story of a boy for whom time stops upon falling asleep in a classroom. The plot revolves around an out-of-body experience with a bizarre twist.

Aftermath (1994) The next film in the trilogy runs at a significantly longer time of thirty-two minutes. It is by far the most sickening and disturbing part of the series. The film features a mentally deranged mortician who gets off by defiling and mutilating female corpses and finally resorts to full blown, hardcore necrophilia. Viewer discretion is strongly advised and this part is not for the weak or squeamish.

Genesis (1998) The thirty-five minute finale shows the life of a sculptor whose artwork comes to life while he turns to stone, with his work gradually consuming him and shutting out everything around him.

Ultimately, the trilogy represents the three stages of life, and in each instance, Cerdà shows how vulnerable we are to the whims of elements beyond our control; time, others, and material possessions respectively.

grind

A grindhouse is an American term for a theater that mainly shows exploitation films. It is named after the defunct burlesque theaters located on 42nd Street in New York City, where 'bump n' grind' dancing and striptease were featured.

In the film Lady of Burlesque (1943) one of the characters refers to the burlesque theatre on 42nd Street, where they are performing stripteases and bump and grind dances, as a "grindhouse".

The introduction of television greatly eroded the audience for local and single screen movie theatres, many of which were built during the cinema boom of the 1930s. In combination with urban decay after white flight out of older city areas in the mid to late 1960s, changing economics forced these theatres to either close or offer something that TV could not. In the 1970s these theatres were put to new use as venues for exploitation films, either adult pornography and sleaze, or slasher and dubbed martial arts films from Hong Kong.

Grindhouse films characteristically contain large amounts of sex, violence or bizarre subject matter. One genre of film featured were "roughies" or sexploitation, a mix of sex, violence and sadism. Quality varied, but low budget production values and poor print quality were common. Critical opinions varied regarding typical grindhouse fare, but many films acquired cult following and critical praise. Double, triple, and "all night" bills on a single admission charge often encouraged patrons to spend long periods of time in the theaters. The milieu was largely and faithfully captured at the time by the magazine Sleazoid Express.

By the 1980s, home video and cable movie channels threatened to render the grindhouse obsolete. By the end of the decade, these theaters had vanished from Los Angeles's Broadway and Hollywood Boulevard, New York City's Times Square and San Francisco's Market Street. By the mid 1990s, these particular theaters had all but disappeared from the US. Very few exist today.