Grindhouse A Review by Marya Diederichs When my husband and I first saw a trailer for GRINDHOUSE, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's double-feature ode to exploitation, we looked at one another in awe. Motorcycles? Monsters? One-legged women with prosthetic weaponry? That looked like a good time at the movies! Prior to the release of GRINDHOUSE, I was under the completely groundless assumption that the two features were shorts. I expected each to be between 45 and 60min in length, adding up to one typical feature's runtime. Once GRINDHOUSE opened, I learned that each contribution was a full length movie by itself. At that point, I must admit that my enthusiasm took a nosedive. On the plus side: hooray for two movies for one ticket price! On the downside: if the movies in question aren't enjoyable, the theater seat will feel mighty uncomfortable by half-way through the second feature. Nevertheless, I'm a fan of both directors and good or bad, GRINDHOUSE promised to be a unique experience.

Most readers of “The Ax-Wound” probably know the gestalt behind the word “grindhouse”. For those who do not, grindhouse movies are typically low-budget, exploitation shockers, full of sex and violence. Think lurid splatter in tones of glowing red and orange. Think gratuitous nudity for no special reason. Think the grimy but fun movie-houses of a pre-Giuliani Times Square. That is the aesthetic that pals Rodriguez and Tarantino attempt to recreate in GRINDHOUSE. Their essential dilemma was that while some true grindhouse movies are so bad that they reach a kind of odd perfection, others are just plain bad. The two films that comprise GRINDHOUSE; Rodriguez' PLANET TERROR and Tarantino's DEATHPROOF, both succeed on some levels. Rodriguez sticks more closely to the core concept than Tarantino. As a result of this, his film is the weaker of the two.

PLANET TERROR stars Freddy Rodriguez and Rose McGowan along with a host of others (including cameos by Stacy Ferguson of the Black Eyed Peas, Bruce Willis, and horror master Tom Savini). PLANET TERROR is a send-up of every zombie, flesh-eating virus, and “end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it” blood-fest that's ever graced a dollar theater. In grand grindhouse style, the plot is at best incidental. There's something about a released toxin which causes ordinary citizens to morph into cannibalistic monsters. Their pus-filled boils pulsate and drip, spilling puddles of goo onto tile floors and carpeting. Overflowing wounds spray bystanders, thus spreading the apocalyptic pathogen. The gore in PLANET TERROR is often reminiscent of a Troma film. Most of this is an excuse for the film's most iconic set-piece: McGowan's character, gogo-dancer Cherry Darling, loses a leg to the hungry hordes. This prompts her boyfriend El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez) to fashion her a replacement limb from a machine gun. She then wipes out impending herds of infected by lifting her leg and blowing them away. It's a whooping good time, especially with a rowdy audience. On top of all this, Rodriguez worked hard post-production to capture the grindhouse feeling. The color is super-saturated in PLANET TERROR, concentrating those reds and oranges. In one scene, a transparent red gel slowly covers the screen as if the projector is malfunctioning. There are scratches here and there throughout. A sex-scene abruptly disappears, and a card reading “reel missing” flashes on-screen for several seconds. A second missing reel occurs later, just as a character is about to reveal critical information.

Female characters are the focus of much of PLANET TERROR. The men are mostly beside the point, simply creatures to be destroyed, menacing bullies, or tragic figures. As the battle for survival rages, the womens' clothing becomes more tattered and revealing. In contrast, they are all the more formidable for having lost the costumes of everyday life. In schlock tradition, there is the obligatory attempted rape of a female protagonist, foiled in a most grisly, yet satisfying way.

I should mention at this point that both directly before PLANET TERROR and immediately after, viewers are treated to a selection of faux trailers. Guest directors including Eli Roth and Rob Zombie provide priceless contributions to the grindhouse project. Roth's THANKSGIVING, a holiday themed slasher movie, is hysterical (and arguably the best work he's ever done). THANKSGIVING's tagline: “White meat! Dark meat! All will be carved!” has become an oft-quoted in-joke around our house. Edgar Wright's (SHAUN OF THE DEAD) spoof of seventies-era British horror DON'T! is a close second.

Tarantino's contribution to GRINDHOUSE, DEATHPROOF, is a completely different take on the grindhouse tradition from PLANET TERROR. If you're a fan of Tarantino's chatty, pop-culture obsessed screenplays you won't be disappointed here. On the other hand, if the long rambles of previous Tarantino works made you restless, you'd do well to take a bathroom break or fast-forward through the first twenty minutes of DEATHPROOF. You won't miss a thing essential to the plot. I typically enjoy the breezy dialogue myself, but even I thought Q could have cut a bit here. The plot of DEATHPROOF revolves around a serial killer who calls himself “Stuntman Mike” (Kurt Russell). Stuntman Mike has an unusual method of killing his female victims. He uses his automobile as a weapon. As Mike explains, his matte black car, decked out with a painted skull and a silver hood ornament, was specially designed for use in cinematic automobile crashes. The driver's compartment is practically indestructible. Mike stalks women, waiting until they are driving their cars on lonely roads. He then rams them with his specialized “deathproof” car, killing them, but walking away with only minor injuries himself. The first half of DEATHPROOF follows a group of twenty-somethings who capture Mike's attention in a local bar. The second half finds a different group of females who meet Mike while they are attempting to perform their own death-defying stunt on a country back-road. That is the entire plot, and that's all there needs to be. DEATHPROOF is edge-of-your-seat cool once you get past the slow beginning. Much of this coolness is owed to actress and real-life stuntwoman Zoe Bell (Uma Thurman's double in KILL BILL). Bell basically plays a version of herself here, opposite Rosario Dawson and Tracie Thoms as her two buddies. The lengthy climax of DEATHPROOF takes the audience on an unbelievable chase scene, during which Bell lies across the hood of a speeding, swerving car while holding fast to two leather belts wrapped around the window posts. No special effects, green-screen or CG was used. That's really Bell, hanging on for dear life. It's a breathtaking sequence, followed by a resolution that had the theater audience clapping and cheering. DEATHPROOF is a great little film. The thing is, while it may have nods to grindhouse tradition, especially in one horrifyingly graphic accident sequence, DEATHPROOF is much too slick and too original. Tarantino tries the scratched film trick once or twice. He even throws in a missing reel gag during the movie's first third, but when DEATHPROOF hits it's stride, those techniques are abandoned. The aforementioned chase with Bell could never have been attempted in a real grindhouse movie, as least not to this degree. As a result, Tarantino cheats the thesis and comes away with a better film for having done so. I felt a little bad for Rodriquez, as it's clear he worked hard to emulate true grindhouse. Tarantino plays along for awhile, but isn't about to sacrifice the end product for a gimmick. Of interest to Ax-Wound readers is DEATHPROOF's clever use of the “last girl” (albeit this time it's a trio of last girls). It's difficult to expound upon this aspect without giving away too much of the proceedings. In short, DEATHPROOF plays as a sort of twisted fable. The cruel, frivolous and vain get torn to pieces before they even know it's coming. The strong endure, confront, and come out swinging.

As a last note, I've read some reports that due to poor performance stateside, GRINDHOUSE will not hit theaters as a double-feature in Europe. Rumor has it that DEATHPROOF will get a solo theatrical run, while PLANET TERROR won't be released at all. Time will tell if this is indeed the plan. Yet another rumor is that Eli Roth had such a blast filming his THANKSGIVING trailer that he is turning it into an ultra low-budget feature. That is either the best idea ever, or a colossal miscalculation. I hope for the former, and can't wait to find out!

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GRINDHOUSE
2007
191 min
Rated: R
DIR: Robert Rodriguez (PLANET TERROR) and Quentin Tarantino (DEATHPROOF)

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