As if Mark Hartley’s 2008 documentary, Not Quite Hollywood, weren’t deliriously entertaining enough, the director follows it up with the equally outrageous Machete Maidens Unleashed! Whereas Quite cast its probing eye on Australia’s deep history in exploitation film, Unleashed examines the Filipino revolution in moviemaking, even if much of that wave was due to American invaders — namely one Roger Corman.

While the Philippines was home to many a native production, it wasn’t until director Eddie Romero dipped his toes into horror with the likes of Terror Is a Man and the Blood Island trilogy that local audiences gave a damn, not to mention dollars. When Corman launched New World Pictures, he found he could make his cheap women-in-prison opuses even cheaper by shooting there, bringing an authentic bungled-jungle look to his Hollywood product.

Chock full of interviews with the movement’s filmmakers and performers who remain alive (plus John Landis), the excellent Unleashed also considers the careers of Cirio H. Santiago (Savage!, TNT Jackson), Bobby Suarez (Bionic Boy, One-Armed Executioner) and pint-sized actor Weng Weng (For Your Height Only, The Impossible Kid), all of whom helped keep the industry busy. So active was the Asian republic that Corman eventually parodied his productions there with Hollywood Boulevard, and Francis Ford Coppola turned it into a war zone with Apocalypse Now.

With intriguing sidebars on the safety measures not taken by Filipino stuntmen and the film fandom of shoe addict Imelda Marcos, Unleashed showcases so many movies of questionable quality — Twilight People, Beyond Atlantis, Vampire Hookers (“Blood isn’t all they suck!”) — that you’re advised to keep a notebook handy. Your “must-see” list will grow by the dozens. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.