Set the Way-Back Machine thirty years to 1977. Find the dingiest theater you can find or better yet, a drive-in. You’re ready now to experience the thrill ride that is ‘Grindhouse.’
Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez have teamed-up to bring you two action-packed, high octane, luscious babes galore films. Presented as a classic double feature, complete with “trailers” for future classics ‘Grindhouse’ is poised to be an audience favorite when it opens in the US on April 6th.
The first film is Rodriguez’s ‘Planet Terror,’ a run-for-your-life Zombie movie.
Cherry (Rose McGowan) is a hard as nails exotic dancer in a small town. On the night she happens to run into her ex with a shadowy past Wray (Freddy Rodriguez) a strange virus envelops the town and turns the majority of the population into flesh eating zombies. A small band of survivors, including a doctor (Marley Shelton) trying to leave her psychotic husband (Josh Brolin), the Sheriff (Michael Biehn) and his BBQ restaurant owning brother (Jeff Fahey), a self-serving scientist who may have been responsible for this whole thing (Naveen Andrews) and a pair of high-strung twins is gathered up by the military and a plan of escape is formulated. After all, they must go on in order to keep the human race alive!
Tarantino follows closely behind with a sort of slasher movie on wheels called ‘Death Proof.’
Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) has quite the eye for the ladies. He’s set his sights on local DJ Jungle Julia (Sydney Tamiia Poitier) and her friends.
But it’s not a round of drinks he’s looking to provide; it’s an up-close encounter with his killer car. Having proven his deadly supremacy on the road he zones in on the next group of unsuspecting females: Abernathy (Rosario Dawson), Kim (Tracie Thoms), Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Zoe (famous stuntwoman Zoe Bell). The women are in town shooting a film when Zoe gets a bug in her ear about finding a special car from a local and taking it out for a spin.
Little do they know that Stuntman Mike has other plans for their impromptu joy ride. But Stuntman Mike may have bitten off more than he can chew this time. These girls don’t play that way.
There is a lot happening in both movies: both have a plethora of stars, many recognizable faces from the past, both are unrelenting in graphic violence (this is a hard R for a good reason) and both play a gentle homage to the exploitation B-movies of the 70’s by making the acting just a little over the top and the writing slightly sub-par.
The zombies in ‘Planet Terror’ are gooey and gross; the car crashes in Death Proof are frightening. You will adequately squirm in your seat.
There is a biting (literally in some cases) humor throughout each film that makes the ridiculousness of a girl with a machine gun for a leg worth applauding. Clearly these guys are playing to their strengths. And the movie trailers provided by genre greats: Rob Zombie, Eli Roth (‘Hostile’), and Edgar Wright (‘Sean of the Dead’) are perfectly executed and in the spirit of the whole project.
It’s great to see Kurt Russell back on the big screen, chock-full of attitude. Stuntman Mike is disarmingly charming in a Ted Bundy kind of way. Zoe Bell and Tracie Thoms are my new personal heroes. Tracie Thoms pretty much steals every scene she’s in - in ‘Death Proof.’
Standing side by side, both are good but I’d have to say Death Proof is the better film. Planet Terror has a lot of plot lines going on and characters to keep track of, (although a Tom Savini cameo is always welcome!). Really, you’d rather just watch them dispatch the undead. But even Death Proof has the usual painfully clever Tarantino dialogue sequences that I’m pretty sure are a modern addition to these exploitation films. I don’t think they sat around a greasy spoon diner table discussing dating habits in ‘Cannonball!’ (1976).
Anyone who walks into the theater to see ‘Grindhouse’ expecting anything other than 3 hours of crashes, flying body parts, and hot girls needs to go and see something else this weekend.
This kind of film is unapologetic and tenacious. If you’re looking for meaningful dialogue and longing glances you may want to try Reign Over Me in theater 5.
Grindhouse
MPAA Rated: Rated R for strong graphic bloody violence and gore, pervasive language, some sexuality, nudity and drug use.
Your Talkback on this Story