Grindhouse Review

Written by: TheDemon   

I attended this greatly anticipated movie yesterday.  I am not as crazy about it as most, but I did enjoy the first of the "double feature." 

Grindhouse--put together by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino--is a throwback to 1970s movies of the same genre:  blaxploitation movies, poorly dubbed kung-fu movies, or very soft core pornography.  There are actually two full feature movies in one, complete with those advertisements of  "prevue attractions" for  those of you who are old enough to remember that we all saw at the local drive-in!  Ah, nostalgia.

The first featurette was "Planet Terror," directed by Rodriguez.  This movie is so over the top that it would be almost impossible for anyone not to like it.  This one runs the gamut of excess from "not-so-special" effects, to exploding squibs that look like contain two gallons of blood in each one, to really "bad" acting, to some of the funniest one-liners you'll ever hear.  The very attractive Rose McGowan stars as Cherry Darling, a stripper/comedian who has just gone through a breakup with her boyfriend and can't seem to hide her pain while she dances in a bar akin to the "Titty Twister" in "From Dusk to Dawn"--although nowhere near as nice.  Anyway, she quits her dancing gig and tries to leave the town only to be sidetracked (not to mention almost run over) by incoming soldiers.  Seems these soldiers have been exposed to some sort of contaminant that turns them into--you guessed--flesh eating zombies. 

As stated before, I really enjoyed this one.  The gross-out factor on this movie (on a scale of 1 to 10) was at least an 11!  Great acting, great directing, and just a whole lot of fun all the way around.

Now, for the bad news.  There's a second part, a/k/a Quentin Tarantino's contribution of "Death Proof."  It should have  been called "A Bunch of Girls Sitting Around Talking" because that's about all it was.  Endless conversations between gal pals that I wasn't interested in hearing (and I'm sure you won't be either).  In his homage to "White Line Fever" and the original "Vanishing Point," you get some great car race sequences, but that's just about it.  Kurt Russell plays the bad guy in this one, and the final "act" just didn't make sense to me.  Basically, you can sum up this part as "Road Rage Meets BIGGER Road Rage."  I have heard that Tarantino is planning on recutting this part of the movie and premiering it at Caanes.  Take a little tip, Quentin, you can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit.

So, there you are.  Planet Terror alone was worth the price of admission, but then wasn't that the way those old double features played??!!  Enjoy, but be prepared to be real sleepy during the second featurette.