... And then the undead start exploding!?

Rating: 7/10 (4 October 2008)

I rarely feel the need to write reviews of movies on IMDb only when I'm extremely conflicted about a film. This one certainly qualifies I had always herd about the film but never knew much about it only that it had something to do with Vampires which is odd since I consider myself a great appreciator of Tarantinos work.
From the first few frames I knew it had something to do with Tarantino and 2 minutes into the dialog I had no doubt that he wrote it. The first half of the movie plays out flawlessly just as you would expect a Tarantino screenplay to do and Rodrigeuz does some wonderful directing and editing which compliments Tarantinos writing beautifully. Then suddenly without warning your slammed over the head with beyond over the top Rodriguez style 'zombie exploding' gore akin to planet terror and your wondering how someone could have snuck into your living room and changed the DVD without you noticing. The blood and puss bath is followed by Tarantinos one of a kind dialog and most thoughts of ending the film there have subsided. But your still left with the initial shock of the sudden about face from respectable film in the same league as Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs to a film thats so gore oriented its difficult to take seriously until after the film has ended and you've been able to vent about it on IMDb.
Don't get me wrong I still love this film and enjoyed it immensely even though its ripe with continuity errors and it almost becomes a different film half way through you would still be an idiot to turn it off at that point. There's still Tarantinos extremely human characters in very extraordinary circumstances and a great story around that. And to be fair the gore does allow some very clever comic absurdity as only Rodriguez can provide but its taken far beyond the level needed and if it were more restrained this film would have a 9 not a 7 on IMDb, have an audience drawn in by topnotch film making not exploding corpses and would be a very brilliant film rather then a very good film.