Xsploitation

Xsploitation is a slang term used to refer broadly to the film meta-genre known in more formal circles as "exploitation films"; formally defined as "a film that tries to succeed financially by exploiting current trends, niche genres, or lurid content, more specifically suggestive or explicit sex, sensational violence, drug use, nudity, gore, destruction, rebellion, mayhem, and the bizarre", exploitation films also cover indy films from countries outside of America, though even those often attempt to compensate for lack of funding, talent or other "serious' quality by relying on extreme violence, gore, sexual scenes and shock. The meta-genre largely emerged in the 60s as a result of the waning of the morality-enforcing Hays Code in hollywood, and it proliferated throughout the 70s via "grindhouse cinema"; cheap movie theatres and drive-ins that would happily show these near-underworld b-movies in bulk to attract profit. Whilst their highlight waned in the 80s as movie theatres and particularly drive-ins faded out of the public zeitgeist, the genres live in, to varying extents.

Now, what does that have to do with /tg/? Well, aside from being an interesting basis for more "modern" themed RPGs if you have a group with suitable sensibilities, this article is mainly here for two reasons. Firstly, there's a blaxsploitation sourcebook for d20 Modern called "Solid! The d20 Blaxploitation Experience", which is all about using D20 modern to run your own blaxploitation-themed campaigns. Secondly, the Wretchedverse calls its d20 Modern equivalent "Wretchsploitation", and naturally is all about drawing from the many subgenres of xsploitation to run Red Room Gaming's unique brand of sleazy Low Fantasy in a more modern environment.

In case you ain't figured it out yet, "Xsploitation" is a pun referring to how most of the many subgenres are called "(X)sploitation" films. It is possible for them to overlap, too - "The Cars That Ate Paris" is both a Carsploitation film and an Ozsploitation film.

There are more genres than these, but these are generally the biggest ones - for example, "Deepsploitation" was a genre for horror/sci-fi films set in underwater locales that ran for about a year between 1989 and 1990.

Biker Films

Films exploiting motorcycle culture for their plots.

Blaxploitation

Despite the name, which immediately causes a nervous rash in certain kind of people, blaxploitation films were created by and for African-Americans. See, in the 30s-50s, there weren't a lot of good roles for African actors, so around the 60s, a lot of creative African-Americans decided "screw this, we'll make our own!" and started shooting their own films based heavily on '70s Afro-American culture of the time, always with Afro-American heroes in the lead.

Cannibal Films

Primarily created by Italian and Spanish directors, whose home countries had much more lenient laws about censorship and violence, these are sploitation films about Westerners venturing into the rainforests of South America and Asia and promptly meeting horrible deaths at the hands of cannibalistic tribes that'd been isolated from civilization. Also notorious for their use of real animal deaths for added gore and shock value.

Canuxploitation

A generic term for any b-movie produced out of Canada, many of which were actually created as tax shelters or by American directors who were exploiting said tax shelter rules to get out films that American producers had shut them down on. Particularly associated with horror and slasher films. Cronenburg's movies are some of the most well-known Canuxploitation films amongst horror movie buffs. The genre technically only existed during the period of 1974 to 1982, when the laws that allowed it to flourish were created and then died.

Carsploitation

Films focused on car racing and spectacular car crashes.

Chambara

A Japanese sploitation genre centering around samurai in much darker and edgier stories than the traditional jidaigeki film making; antiheroes, nudity, sex, and lots of blood are the hallmarks of this genre, which takes its name from the Japanese onomatopoeia for swords clashing. Hugely popular in manga of the 70s.

Giallo

An Italian-created horror subgenre, a blending of murder-mystery and suspense films with a killer steadily and often quite spectacularly picking off multiple victims over the course of the film. The ur-genre from which the slasher film subsequently grew.

Mockbusters

A more "modern" sploitation genre, mockbusters are b-movie cash-ins that deliberately style themselves after a recent big blockbuster movie release.

Mondo Films

Also known as "Shockumentaries", these quasi-documentaries focus on sensational topics and sheer shock to attract an audience with their unflinching focus on the taboo.

Monster Movies

Also known as "nature-run-amok", these movies center around one or more mutated or otherwise unnatural animals, such as prehistoric beasts somehow awakened in the modern era, attacking humans and forcing them to fight for their life. Notable subgenres include Sharksploitation; films about killer sharks that took off after the famous film Jaws, Animal Attack films, which remove the supernatural element and just focus on the all-too-real horror of being hunted by predatory beasts, and Kaiju, which focuses on super-sized mutant monstres.

Nazisploitation

These films milk the infamous reputation of the Nazis for shock and lewdity, combining softcore BDSM pornography with gore and violence.

Ozploitation

As with Canuxploitation, but Australia. Because Australia did it too. These were usually done by Australian directors, though, and often play up Aussie concerns and culture. This genre's actually alive and well to this day, since Australia is still trying to develop its own answer to Hollywood.

Redsploitation

This is to Native Americans what Blaxploitation is to Afro-Americans.

Sexploitation

Sploitation films defined predominantly by their heavy use of sex and sensuality, being at least as graphic as any softcore porno. Subgenres are the Japanese "Pinku Eija" ("Pink Films") and the Brazilian Pornochanchada.

Slasher Films

One of the most famous sploitation subgenres; victims are stalked by an insane murderer and killed off. An Americanization of the Giallo genre, cross-pollinated with Splatter.

Spacesploitation

Space-centric horror and action b-movies.

Spaghetti Westerns

Italian-produced Westerns with more grim, gritty plots and characters, defined by the use of antiheroes, moral ambiguity and gore.

Splatter Films

Also known as "Gore Films", because these aer horror films that focus on graphic gore and violence to scare the audience.

Vigilante Films

Films that focus on anti-heroes willingly breaking the law to get revenge against those who wronged them. A notorious subgenre is the Rape-N-Revenge Film, where a woman... well, she gets raped and she tortures & murders those who did it for revenge, what were you expecting with a title like that?!

Women in Prison Films

Films about... well, women's prisons. Expect lots of lesbian sex, nudity, and BDSM trappings like rape, sadism and humiliation.

Zombie Films

Horror movies about zombies. Duh.