America’s decline as a centre of industry and innovation is well-documented by people much smarter than me. Equally distressing is how it has lost so much ground to Japan as an exporter of exploitation movies and cinema’s other forms of grubby, gonzo excess. But two movies that make their Toronto premieres at the Over The Top Fest’s new film component — at the Royal, the NFB and Innis Town Hall until Sunday — are bold throwbacks to a time when America’s filmmakers weren’t so damn timid.

The first is Frownland (4*; May 1, 9:15pm, Royal), a wilfully abrasive and very darkly funny New York story about a socially maladjusted coupon-book salesman. It’s been one of the breakout Amerindie flicks of the past year and for good reason. This first feature by Ronald Bronstein — a projectionist who spent five years working on Frownland, shooting it on gloriously grainy 16mm — is aggressive, confounding and divisive. In a phone interview last week, Bronstein says that even he’s surprised by the passions that Frownland elicits, especially in its admirers.

“People just stick a flag in it,” he says. “I don’t have any casual fans. Hopefully that has to do with what the film does, but it also has to do with how anemic and pasteurized the American independent film community has become. There’s such a staunch gap separating the kinds of challenging fare you see on the museum circuit right now and what you’re seeing on the first-run market, which all tends to be, in one form or another, disposable entertainment.” He’s not alone in missing the days when more people “liked to put on boxing gloves when they went to the movies.” (See www.eyeweekly.com for more Bronstein Q&A action.)

Another underground sensation in whatever constitutes the underground these days, Pop Skull (4*; May 2, 9pm, Innis) is far more of a genre piece yet it too is unusually audacious. In Adam Wingard’s first feature — made for a reported $3,000 — a pill-popping slacker in Alabama descends into full-blown psychosis with the help of some pesky ghosts. With its tricked-out visuals (beware of heavy-duty strobe effects) and menacing sound design, Pop Skull capitalizes on its poverty-row aesthetic to authentically scuzzy and mind-bending effect.

Over The Top’s freak factor will be further increased by the presence of Crispin Glover. The actor and auteur returns to town for the second screening of his surrealist fantasia What Is It? and the Canadian premiere of his 2007 follow-up, It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine! Potentially more shocking than the new film’s mix of sex, murder and cerebral palsy is the fact that Variety gave it a positive review.

The slate of worthy documentaries includes Blood, Boobs & Beast (3*; May 3, noon, NFB), an affectionate portrait of Don Dohler, a B-movie maker from Baltimore whose lack of cult cachet is mystifying to such admirers as J.J. Abrams. Patrons of OTT’s music events may be more interested in Deerhoof’s Milk Man Ballet (3*; May 3, 4:30pm, NFB), an indescribably odd performance doc of a children’s ballet featuring the San Francisco indie icons.

And lest the fest’s American representatives think they will go unchallenged, Japan makes good on its reputation for mayhem with the fest’s gore-soaked closer. The Machine Girl (3*; May 3, 11:55pm, Royal) is a ridiculous but thoroughly entertaining piece of post-Kill Bill exploitation that pits ninjas, yakuzas and ninja-yakuzas against a vengeful schoolgirl with a machine gun where her left hand used to be. Konichiwa bitches, indeed.