Jack Hill

Coffy and Foxy Brown made Pam Grier a star, and both came from Jack Hill, who had already shot a run of women-in-prison pictures in the Philippines. A nurse hunts the drug pushers who hooked her younger sister in Coffy; a woman goes after the gangsters who shot her boyfriend in Foxy Brown. The cult favourites are Switchblade Sisters, about a girl gang, and Spider Baby, about an inbred family living in a crumbling mansion.

Signature

• Women leading the action, from prison breaks to revenge (The Big Doll House, Foxy Brown).
• Blaxploitation built around Pam Grier.
• Exploitation budgets, with a sense of humour about their own excess.
• Early horror oddities, including the Merrye family of Spider Baby.