Grindhouse is more of a concept film than anything else. Kind of a parody, kind of an homage, kind of a post-modern examination of a bygone species of film—the exploitation films of the past (Actually, they’re still being made, but they go straight to DVD or end up on the Sci Fi Channel). The originals were done on the cheap, usually sensational, frequently gratuitous, and always lacking the polish and shine of mainstream Hollywood feature films. In other words, they were crappy movies, but not always intentionally crappy. So the idea was to remake these kinds of movies as a double feature and include a few fake previews of coming attractions, and show everything as one bladder-bustingly long movie. All together, Grindhouse comes in at more than 3 hours long. Although it must be said that, much like the original movies, if you have to leave for a bathroom break, you won’t miss much if you time it right.
Planet Terror is the zombie gore-fest extravaganza directed by Robert Rodriguez. In it, a military bio-weapon is released on a small Texas town with the usual results. Brains are eaten, limbs are ripped off, and chaos ensues. The special effects make-up is especially gooey, squirty, messy, and nasty. It’s on the level of John Carpenter’s The Thing, or George Romero’s original Dawn of the Dead, or even last year’s excellent Slither by James Gunn. The dialog is atrocious and unbelievable, but that fits with the Grindhouse aesthetic. And the performances are sometimes equally bad, but some are pretty impressive. Falling into the bad category is the physically stunning Rose McGowan. She has many of her glorious attributes on display here, but acting isn’t one of them. In the impressive category, we have more to choose from, like Freddy Rodriguez, Michael Biehn, and Jeff Fahey. After seeing Michael Biehn in this, it really made me wonder why he never made it big. He’s got screen presence and charisma in spades. But it is really Freddy Rodriguez that makes the biggest impression. He displays what it takes to make an action hero successful, and he makes it look easy. But despite spectacular explosions, over-the-top make-up, and Rose McGowan wearing a machine gun for a leg, Planet Terror is curiously boring. It seems too self-conscious and tries too hard. Like the worst of the movies that it is referencing, the characters and situations are never believable enough to care about what is happening to anyone on the screen. Rodriguez takes all of the surface tropes of the exploitation horror film and elevates them to the point of satire, but no affection for the genre comes through with it. Rodriguez thinks these films are stupid, and that feeling comes through in the finished product. That’s what makes Planet Terror more of a patronizing parody, and not an affectionate homage. As a counter-point, last year’s Slither takes the opposite approach. James Gunn’s love for genre movies was evident in every scene in that movie, and that’s why it comes across as an homage.
Death Proof is considerably more successful as a movie and not just as a parody. Quentin Tarantino knows how to write realistic dialog and believable characters, and that’s what works in this movie, not to mention the edge-of-the-seat car chases. It’s also a much smaller story and you get to know the characters before bad things happen to them. And when it does happen, it’s all the more tragic because you care about them. That’s what elevates Death Proof above the psycho-killer movies it is patterned after. In most of those movies, the victims are nearly anonymous. The plot of Death Proof is this: a killer named Stuntman Mike chooses his victims, stalks and toys with them, and then kills them with his specially reinforced stunt car. In the ensuing wrecks, he is the only that can walk away. That is, until he picks the wrong victims, who decide to take revenge into their own hands. This is when Death Proof changes from a psycho-killer movie into a woman’s revenge movie, so we get two films in one. Overall, the acting, dialog, and direction are great in this movie. Or more precisely for a Tarantino film, not as good as Pulp Fiction, but better than Kill Bill. Kurt Russell is perfect as Stuntman Mike. Sydney Poitier and Vanessa Ferlitto are beautiful and convincing as victims. Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms, and Zoe Bell are at first endearing and then deadly as the revenge seeking vigilantes. It was especially nice to see Zoe Bell in a speaking role. She’s the stunt person who doubled for Uma Thurman in Kill Bill and achieved cult-level fame for stunt doubling for Lucy Lawless in “Xena, Warrior Princess.” It is her performance and stunt work in Death Proof that makes Death Proof one of the most genuinely suspenseful action movies in recent memory. This car chase is without a doubt one of the best ever committed to film. Death Proof only stumbles near the end, when Stuntman Mike goes from being a terrifying boogeyman to a pathetic loser. The revenge that is enacted on him is so extreme that it almost turns the audience’s feelings towards him into pity, which seems like a miscalculation on Tarantino’s part.
The previews deserve their own mention. Robert Rodriguez’s Machete is probably the best of the bunch. It could work as a short film on its own. Edgar Wright’s Don’t is the funniest and the most clever. Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving is a gross-out free-for-all slasher-fest. Ick. Rob Zombie’s Werewolf Women of the S.S. is mostly dumb, except for a scenery-chewing cameo by Nicholas Cage as Fu Manchu.
As far as the total movie-watching experience goes, I have to say that seeing Grindhouse in a modern multi-plex is really unfaithful to the original movies that this is based on. To really see Grindhouse as it should be seen, wait for it to get to your local second-run theaters, if you are lucky enough to have them—the more run-down the better. That will be more true to the spirit of the films. And go late at night with lots of friends. Walking out of the theater when it is still daylight is just plain wrong.
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