Trash, Blood, and Celluloid: Revisiting Andy Milligan and the World of Exploitation

Choose Your Grindhouse Adventure

Grindhouse cinema wasn’t one-size-fits-all. It was a seedy buffet of gore, sex, sleaze, and underground rebellion.

Pick your poison below, and I’ll offer you a Milligan film plus a companion exploitation gem to double-bill it with.

If you crave Sexploitation Sleaze…

Milligan Pick: The Degenerates (1967)

 Trashy, talky, and dripping with DIY theatricality, this is Andy at his most luridly commercial.

Companion Film: Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965, Russ Meyer)

 The ultimate celebration of sex and violence, with powerhouse women and unapologetic sleaze. It’s a campy, violent counterpoint that redefined exploitation cool.

If you’re hungry for Gore and Grand Guignol…

Milligan Pick: Torture Dungeon (1970)

A medieval fever dream of betrayals, torture, and DIY gothic grandeur, with Milligan leaning into Shakespearean ambition.

Companion Film: The Wizard of Gore (1970, Herschell Gordon Lewis)

 The “Godfather of Gore” is at his most outrageous, staging bloody magic tricks gone wrong.

If you’re drawn to Queer Underground Cinema…

Milligan Pick: Seeds (1968)

A tangled, dysfunctional family psychodrama that merges sexuality, repression, and hysteria… revealing Milligan’s personal obsessions and queer-coded fury.

Companion Film: Pink Flamingos (1972, John Waters)

The filthiest film alive, but also a radical queer manifesto in disguise. An essential ode to underground defiance at its most iconic.

If you delight in Gothic Period Trash…

Milligan Pick: The Body Beneath (1970) 

A color-saturated, vampire-infested gothic romp shot in a graveyard, with handmade costumes and a warped fairy-tale energy.

Companion Film: The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (1967, Harald Reinl)

A low-budget Euro-gothic dripping with atmosphere and theatrical excess.

If you can’t resist Bad Taste Black Comedy…

Milligan Pick: The Weirdo (1989)

 One of his late-career oddities, following a socially awkward young man in a twisted coming-of-age tale. Cheap, grimy, and both funny and disturbing.

Companion Film: Basket Case (1982, Frank Henenlotter)

Another gutter-level New York story of outcasts, grotesque family ties, and blackly comic mayhem. Equally scrappy but packed with heart and mutant brotherly love.

If you want to Face the Extreme…

Milligan Pick: Carnage (1970)

A gory, ghostly horror about a haunted mansion dripping with murder and melodrama. Less known than his other titles, but pure Milligan in its violence and nihilism.

Companion Film: Cannibal Holocaust (1980, Ruggero Deodato)

 The pinnacle of grindhouse shock, and one of the most controversial films ever made. This is exploitation at its most infamous, with the same willingness to shock at all costs.