‘The Sexplorer’: the sci-fi porno Quentin Tarantino called his “favourite British film”
When it comes to championing obscure cinema, Quentin Tarantino is second to none. Throughout his career as a prominent filmmaker, Tarantino has acknowledged that he has been influenced by a wide variety of films – ranging from Asian masters such as Wong Kar-wai to erotic exploitation flicks that most people have forgotten.
In fact, Tarantino has been a fan of grindhouse cinema since he was a budding cinephile. The term is usually used to refer to American theatres, which became famous for primarily screening low-budget horror and exploitation features that rarely managed to enter the mainstream consciousness through popular culture.
While recalling his relationship with grindhouse cinema at that age, Tarantino revealed the amount of objectively bad films he saw, which provided the perfect balance to the canonical classics. The director said: “We saw a lot of bad movies. I’ve never been of the ‘so-bad-it’s-good’ school. Very rarely was it so bad it was good.”
He added: “You hoped for the best, and you bought your ticket, and then in five minutes you’re like, ‘Oh, yuck, Jesus fucking Christ!’…but then you go see Joe Dante’s Piranha, written by John Sayles, and all of a sudden, ‘Hey! This is a good Jaws rip-off!’ Back then, it seemed really good because you weren’t expecting it. Stephen King had a line about this, right on the money. He said, ‘You gotta drink a lot of milk before you can appreciate cream.’ And in the genre we’re talking about, you gotta drink a lot of bad milk before you can appreciate milk.”
Due to the poor distribution network of these films, the prints were often in poor shape. Not just that, the original visions of the directors were frequently compromised by producers and other agents in the production process. That’s also the reason why many of these works haven’t been properly preserved at all.
Tarantino noted: “By the time the film stumbled into your town, you had no idea what you were going to see. The print could be spaghetti by that time. It’s beat-up, there are jump cuts in it, reels could be missing or faded, or out of order, maybe a projectionist sees a nude scene he likes and snips it out for his own collection.”
When he was asked to name his favourite grindhouse films of all time, Tarantino included many notable additions, such as Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and John Carpenter’s Halloween. However, one of the most interesting additions to his list is Derek Ford’s 1975 campy sci-fi porno – The Sexplorer.
Also known as The Girl from Starship Venus, this B-film is truly something special. It tells the story of a young girl from Venus who decides to explore the Earth, starting her journey with Soho in London. A bizarre snapshot of 1970s London, this is a grindhouse essential for fans of the genre who also have a special connection to the city.
In 2007, at the Los Angels Grindhouse Festival, Tarantino actually presented The Sexplorer, which contributed to a surge in the film’s popularity. It is now regularly cited as Tarantino’s “favourite British film”, which is incredible publicity for a forgotten B-flick from the ’70s. Luckily, it has been digitised and is available for free on YouTube.
Watch the film below.
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