November marks the US presidential election at a time when the United States has never been more torn. But the land of the free and the home of the brave has been an illusion for some time. Criticism of the American dream was seeping into genre and exploitation films from the post-Vietnam 1970s and the Reaganomics 1980s. In addition to their high cult content and spicy pulp factor, the three B to Z films -made in USA- are all subversive sociopolitical allegories.

The aftermath of Vietnam and the main character's post-traumatic stress disorder are the subtext of "House", a delightful horror comedy full of ghosts, living dead and other vipers. In the unfairly forgotten "Massacre At Central High", director Renee Daalder plays with the conventions of the 1970s teen film and revenge thriller and portrays a high school where bullying, populism and oppression are the order of the day. Flopped at the box office, the film is now an icy foreshadowing of the Columbine shooting and other massacres committed by students in American schools. Finally, "The Ninth Configuration" navigates between camp and seriousness, the profane and the religious, and manages to capture the spiritual crisis of modern civilization in an insane representation of the post-Vietnam and Cold War Zeitgeist.