Planet Terror (2007) Review
Written by: BlackTequilaKiss
"It's a mad house. A MAD house!", oh how this one line summed up the whole movie. Part of the Grindhouse Double Feature this is a rip-roaring fest from beginning to end.
This is Gun-Toting Mayhem at its best!! This is just utterly fantastic!
The plotline is probably known world-wide but I'm gonna be awkward and echo it again!
After an experimental bio-nerve gas is accidentally released at a remote U.S. military base in Texas, those exposed to the gas turn into flesh-eating, mutating zombies out to kill. Amid the chaos a few select people are forced to band together to survive through the horrors. They include: Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan) a go-go dancer, Wray her shadymechanic boyfriend, a strong willed doctor called Dr. William Block and his wife, Dakota Block and Sheriff Hague as well as an assortment of various other people. Forced to fight back against those infected before they overrun the town and the world.
The force of this movie works due to three key factors:
The Cast
The Storyline
& The Director.
A cast that includes Rose McGowan as Cherry, Freddy Rodriguez as Wray, Josh Brolin as the good doctor, Mary Shelton as his respective other half and Michael Biehn as the Sheriff is always going to be ready-made as a great cast list. Add to this fact you have the likes of Bruce Willis and Jeff Fahey you know you are in for a ride. Each superb in their standing role. On the topic how can you not love Rose McGowan sporting a gun for a leg or Mary Shelton for her splendid beauty, just for these two reasons the movie was a rollicking success of fun! That said the rest of the cast are stellar and hold their own two cents in making the movie work as an whole.
Overall the plot is nothing new to the slate but it is the way in which the plot is contrived that gives it such an edge. In the grain of B-Movies and using little nods to a bygone era of classic zombie movies it adds a little extra to the mix. Thus the film is not so clean-cut but more grainy and imagined. And hence the last factor:
What less did we expect from Robert Rodiguez! This is the guy who gaves us From Dusk till Dawn & Sin City. Sticking to his utmost best he pulls out a movie that is all things ticked. Gorey, funny, action-packed and filled with memorable moments it is without question his finest movie in a while and deserves the respect heaped upon it. Thank god he had the gall to do a movie that we can love the absurdness of.
Hilarious, splattered with blood and smattered with action this is a fun ride from end to start. And quite frankly if Rose McGowan dancing as a go-go dancer doesn't get you going then you are a lost cause. Otherwise watch, rejoice and love the madness that is Planet Terror!