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For the film of the same name, see Grindhouse (film). For the basketball arena, see FedExForum.



Due to these theaters' proximity to controversially sexualized forms of entertainment like burlesque, the term "grindhouse" has often been erroneously associated with the burlesque theaters located in urban entertainment areas like 42nd Street in New York City,[1] where 'bump n' grind' dancing and striptease were featured.[2]


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,[2] either adult pornography and sleaze, or slasher horror and dubbed martial arts films from Hong Kong.[3]



The Robert Rodriguez film Planet Terror and the Quentin Tarantino film Death Proof, which were released together as Grindhouse, were created as an homage to the genre. Similar films such as Machete (also by Rodriguez), Chillerama and Drive Angry have appeared since. The video games Red Dead Revolver, House of the Dead: Overkill, Wet, RAGE and Shadows of the Damned serve as homages to the grindhouse movies. The author Jacques Boyreau released the book Portable Grindhouse: The Lost Art of the VHS Box in 2009 about the history of the genre.[4] The field is also the focus of the 2010 documentary American Grindhouse.


  1. ^ David Church, "From Exhibition to Genre: The Case of Grind-House Films," Cinema Journal, vol. 50, no. 4 (2011):
  2. ^ a b "Grindhouse". Retrieved 10 September 2014. 
  3. ^ "Cult Couture: THE GRIND-HOUSE". Fangoria. 

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