Josh’s post on Friday of what the filmmaker describes as an “epic parody trailer from SecretSauce.TV [which] spoofs the likes of Transformers, G.I. Joe and Michael Bay,” got me thinking about the history of schlocky filmmaking. Affordable movie-making equipment (i.e., auto-adjusting digital cameras that don’t chew through film at $450/minute) and access to heavily-trafficked distribution channels (YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and their ilk) are churning out fare of this flavor and quality at a rate that would make the heads of the people responsible for those $49 sofa-size paintings you can buy at art expos at the Meadowlands spin. Last Summer, there was a whole ‘Sweding’ movement: funny, low budget remakes of blockbuster movies as introduced by director Michel Gondry in Be Kind Rewind, like this one for Tron:

The Summer before that, it was mashups, like this one combining the Lord of the Rings Trilogy with the Star Wars sextilogy (am I allowed to say ’sextilogy’?):

But where did it begin? People have been making schlocky movies for just about as long as the medium has existed. But intentionally schlocky movies? Giving it a minute’s thought, the answer is yes: W.D. Richter with Buckaroo Banzai and Mike Hodges with Flash Gordon were clearly not setting out to make high art. So intentionally schlocky movies with little or no budget? You could argue Ed Wood or Uwe Boll fit this category, though many believe these two jilted visionaries are examples of what happens when enthusiasm meets lack of talent (note to Mr. Boll and the Wood estate: I think you’re both awesome).

So intentionally schlocky movies with little or no budget that make no effort to take themselves seriously? Oh, boy. I think you see where this is leading: porn. Sextilogy, indeed. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the inspiration (or at least precedent) behind today’s crop of budding filmmmakers is the porn industry. The low production value. The bad lighting and patchy sound work. The (intentionally) cheesy dialog and singular attention to solid plot work. The… oh, wait. I lost my own attention on that last point.

Yeah, okay, so maybe I was wrong about the porn thing. Maybe it’s India.