GRINDHOUSE (2007) - QUENTIN TARANTINO AND ROBERT RODRIGUEZ REVIVE THE DOUBLE FEATURE

 

Between the 1950's and early 1980's many large American cities had a "grindhouse" cinema located somewhere within them. A grindhouse cinema was usually a sleazy, low rent theatre that would be open all night and would show mainly B-movies and exploitation films usually in double or triple bills. Schlocky sci-fi would find itself on the same bill as a kung-fu movie, cheesy horror films would exist cheek by jowl with spagetti westerns, Blaxploitation heroes would jostle with porno thrillers for the audience's attention. In these cinemas ANYTHING could happen onscreen  (and sometimes offscreen  - these cinemas could attract some pretty dubious patrons at times).

Filmmakers Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez have both gone on record as being fans of this type of cinema, in fact many of thier own films have been known to draw more than a little inspiration from these guady "classics". So it came as no surprise when in 2007 the pair released thier own tribute to the grindhouse cinema experience. With Grindhouse the pair intended to have a double bill - a film directed by Rodriguez and a film directed by Tarantino in the grindhouse style complete with overacting, cigarette burns on the picture, missing reels and tons of sex, violence and gore. Furthermore the film would also contain fake trailers directed by other genre names also done in the grindhouse style. The aim was to recreate this lost cinema going experience - Rodriguez and Tarantino would provide the entertainment, it was up to the audience to provide thier own knife slashed dubiously stained seating.

Seeing as Grindhouse is basically a (slightly unconventional) anthology movie I'm going to be reviewing it in the format that I usually reserve for anthology movies - where I review each segment with a capsule review. So you won't be getting the usual indepth blow by blow review for the main films in the double feature. Instead, like the film itself, I want to give more of an impression of the overall experience of watching it, because if nothing else Grindhouse IS an experience.

The film opens with a few authentic looking adverts and then we dive jnto our first fake trailer, Robert Rodriguez's Machete.

This trailer stars Danny Trejo as a badass Mexican vigilante who's preferred method of taking down the bad guys is with a (you guessed it) machete. We get high octane, OTT sex and violence in a rapidly cut two minutes of utter insanity. We see Machete flying through the air on a motorbike with a machine gun strapped to the front, we see Machete getting it on with a gang boss's wife and daughter, we even get a gun toting preist in the form of Cheech Marin. It perfectly captures the tone of what a B-movie action film from those days was like and also perfectly sets the tone for what's in store for the audience for the next few hours. 

Machete was eventually made into an actual film by Rodriguez in 2010 and in true exploitation movie style we'd already seen all the best bits in the trailer. A sequal followed in 2013 - Machete Kills - which was far superior to the original (and even dafter), unfortunately the promised third film - Machete Kills Again...In Space - has yet to materialise. Hopefully it will soon, Danny Trejo's not getting any younger.

Next up we get the first full length film in this extravaganza  - Rodriguez's Planet Terror.

In this outing Rose McGowan plays sexy and disillusioned Go-Go dancer Cherry Darling who has just caught up with her mysterious drifter of an ex-boyfriend El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez chewing the scenery in classic B-movie style). Cherry and Wray pick the wrong night to be reunited though, as in a nearby military base an experimental gas is accidentally leaked which starts turning people into marauding flesh eating mutants.

The action is thick and fast, the gore is literally all over the place (heads explode, people melt, EVERYONE ends up covered head to toe in slimy gooey splatter). At one point Cherry loses her leg, for a while she has a table leg housed into her stump but eventually replaces it with a machine gun and later on a mini-gun. This, of course, allows her to enter the mutant blasting action in full-on ridiculous style. Its all one hundred percent comic book style stuff and is a LOT of fun.

The scenes where Cherry is hobbling around on a wooden leg look VERY convincing - so convincing in fact that its difficult to tell how they where done. Obviously they didn't really cut one of Rose McGowan's legs off, so I'm guessing it was done via CGI but you really can't see the join - its an A-list special effect in a Z-grade style film. Its literally too good to be in a supposed grindhouse film.

Along the way Cherry and Wray are joined by an insane cast of supporting characters including a sexy lesbian Doctor - Dakota Block (Marley Shelton), a rapey military commander (Quentin Tarantino) with a melting penis, a psychotic military scientist/gangster - Dr Abbington (Naveen Andrews) - who collects the severed testicles of those who displease him in a jar, and many, many more.

Planet Terror is a riotous horror comedy that perfectly captures the reqired sleazy, cheesy grindhouse mood. The film was later re-released in a standalone version with added scenes and its this later version that most people will have seen and be familiar with, but for the real full experience I'd advise watching it as part of this double feature, in the way that it was originally intended to be seen.

Plus can you believe that's actually Bruce Willis under all that monster makeup ?...

Next up...it's trailer time. This time we get three spoof trailers in a row. First of all we get Rob Zombie's Werewolf Women Of The SS...

This is a Nazisploitation/horror crossover complete with a deranged Nazi Scientist (Bill Moseley), camply sinister Nazi officers, leather clad Nazi dominatrixs and best of all the sheer insane genius of...Nicolas Cage as Fu Manchu...

Its completely bonkers. Please Mr Zombie, PLEASE make this into an ACTUAL film - I'll bear you several strong sons if you do (I'm a man...so this would actually be physically impossible but you get the point...).

The next fake trailer is Edgar Wright's Don't which seems to be a take on your typical trashy 70's Euro-horror flick.

This fake trailer is really on point in getting the look and feel of the type of film it's representing absolutely spot on. There's no attempt to convey any type of plot (other than it's set in a haunted house) its just a series of flashing, stroboscopic, psychedelic images of white eyed people, creepy children, dead bodies and Nick Frost in a nappy.

Great stuff and like Rob Zombie's contribution I'd love to see this actually get made into a proper film by Wright and Co.

Our final fake trailer comes in the form of Eli Roth's Thanksgiving. This one actually has been made into a film (in 2023) and is currently available on streaming services (I've yet to see it, but you lot will be the first to know when I have...).

This trailer is for a holiday themed slasher film about a madman going round killing people at Thanksgiving. We get a beheading at a Thanksgiving parade, several 30 year old teenagers getting despatched and a trampolining cheerleader doing the splits onto a sharp knife that's just been thrust through her trampoline's base (ouch). Amusingly all this carnage is taking place whilst ripped off music from Stephen King and George A Romero's Creepshow plays on the soundtrack. Oh, and the trailer ends with our friendly neighbourhood psycho killer having sex with a Thanksgiving turkey that's had one of his victim's heads sewn onto it. All whilst a horrified, captive all-American nuclear family look on. Genius. I wonder if that scene made it into the new full length version.

Finally  - last but by no means least - we get our second full- length feature of the evening - Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof.

Bizzarely enough Death Proof is itself basically two films in one - it's story is in two parts, both of which are directed in different styles. The first part deals with a group of young women who are out for a night of partying in a local dive bar. Once there they encounter Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) who unbeknownst to them is a serial killer - only Mike doesn't use a knife or a gun or even his bare hands to kill his victims - he uses his car. A specially converted vehicle which he uses on film sets -its frame is reinforced in such a way that the driver is able to survive any car crash, the car is essentially "death proof" (hence the title). However, the same cannot be said of his victims - Mike uses his car to crash into other people's cars causing thier deaths. This is the fate that befalls the first group of girls as he drives into them in a high-speed head on collision. Killing them all instantly.

Its quite a brave move to kill off all your main characters half way through a film, yet this is exactly what Tarantino does here. As usual he's taken a lot of time to build his characters up via just letting us be party to thier conversations. Tarantino's trademark quick fire, irrelevant dialogue comes into play here but for some reason its not quite as effective as it was in Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction. It almost slows the story down in parts, but this is just a mild quibble as it's still entertaining enough. I just think by this point the device had started to become a bit overused (in the late 90's pretty much every other film was featuring scenes of irrelevant "Tarantinoesque" dialogue, so by 2007 it had become a bit of a cliché even for the master himself).

We still become attached to these characters though, especially Butterfly/Arlene (Vanessa Ferlitto) who is built up to be the story's main character.

The bar scenes are great, everyone seems to be having a good time but theres still an air of menace hanging over everything courtesy of Mike. When the car crash murder scene comes it's absolutely harrowing and very graphic, it makes you wonder what sort of horrors traffic police must face on a day to day basis.

The film then enters into it's second half. Where the first half was set on a dark rainy night and took place almost 95 percent indoors, the second half is set on a blazing hot sunny day and takes place on the wide open roads. Here we meet out second group of girls - this time they are all part of a film crew. The main character is Zoe Bell who plays herself. Bell is one of Hollywood's top stuntwomen so its interesting to see her play a fictionalised version of herself. Considering shes not actually an actress she does a good job in carrying the second half of the film as she and her friends come up against Stuntman Mike who's pegged them down to be his latest victims.

Zoe and friends embark on a relaxing afternoon of stunt driving and Mike makes his move. What follows is not one but two of the best car chases ever put to film. The first is when Mike tries to ram the girls off the road whilst Zoe is performing a stunt where she's strapped to a car bonnet.

This is high speed edge of the seat action, it goes on for what seems like ages and is absolutely great.

The second car chase comes only a few minutes later when the angry girls chase down the now injured Mike. Kurt Russell is great as Mike, in the first half he's a creepy but charming lunatic, by this point he's injured, afraid and is coming to realise that this time he's bitten off more than he can chew. It's really satisfying seeing this arsehole pleading for his life as Zoe and friends run him off the road.

Eventually our avenging angels cause Mike to crash, they drag him bodily from his smashed up car and no amount of pleading or blubbering like a big fat baby from Mike stops them from kicking the living shit out of him.

THE END. HOORAY !!!! Just when you think its all over and this film(s) can't possibly give you any more...you get THIS...

He gets his head stoved in !!!!!! That just HAS to be a killing blow.

Despite a few slow moments Death Proof is an absolute thrill ride. It certainly makes you wait but its well worth it for the payoff.

And that's it for Grindhouse...but wait...for cinema goers in Canada got to see an extra fake trailer - this was a competition winner for a Grindhouse trailer contest and the winner was Hobo With A Shotgun (directed by Jason Eisener, John Davies and Rob Cotterill).

This trailer stars David Brunt as a homeless man who is tired of being pushed around and getting hold of a shotgun, goes on a criminal killing rampage (at one point he kills a peadophile Santa Claus). This trailer is just as mental as anything else we've already seen in Grindhouse and I can see why it won. It was later also made into a full length feature in 2011 with Rutger Haur replacing Brunt as the titular hobo. (This film will be reviewed very soon on Tales From The Back Room).

So did Rodriguez and Tarantino's experiment work ? Largely I'd say yes. Grindhouse didn't do very well at the box office sadly - In 2007 it wasn't as common to have films with a runtime of over three hours as it is now, and I think a lot of cinema goers where put off by the prospect of being in a cinema for such a long time. If this was released nowadays I'm sure nobody would give the runtime a second thought and it would probably be more successful.

In a bid to claw a bit of thier money back, the studio rereleased both Planet Terror and Death Proof in extended cuts and in a more digestible form these two films did prove to be moderately successful on thier own. So not all was lost.

I think it's a shame that Grindhouse didn't catch on with mainstream audiences at the time as it would have been nice to see further entries and double bills to the series. However, the years have been kind to Grindhouse. The original double bill has become a cult classic and the fake trailers alone have spawned enough spin-off films (Machete 1 and 2, Hobo With A Shotgun and Thanksgiving with hopefully more to come) to make it all seem worthwhile. Plus Grindhouse did inspire interest in it's subject matter and in recent years there have been a slew of low budget "grindhouse style" films hitting the DVD shelves. So all in all I'd say that in the long run Grindhouse succeeded in doing what it set out to do...it just took it a few years to get there.

Out of the two films I'd say that Death Proof is the better film, but Planet Terror is the most fun (it certainly feels more authentically "grindhouse" than Tarantino's offering). Ultimately they're both good movies though and the combined double bill (plus fake trailers) makes for an entertaining nights viewing. In fact, the only problem I have with it is that these movies are actually way, way too good to be real grindhouse films...but I can live with that.

Overall 5 thrill-packed double features out of 5.

ART -

Not only do we get a selection of retro-style poster art for the two main features...

...we also got some decent mock-up posters for the fake trailers.

As with the actual trailers themselves, I think these posters all manage to hit the mark spot-on.