Pure, Unapologetic, Double Feature Insanity and How I Love It So

Rating: 10/10 (11 April 2007)

I hate most horror films. Predictable, I find them with the typical demon or demon-like killer disposing dumb adolescents with creative fashion that isn't really creative. Thanks but no thanks. I'll stay home. However, give me a horror film where the hunter kills dirty and mean, and the prey fights back dirty and mean, and I'm there.
That's what "Grindhouse" gives me, being the latest cinematic partnership between Quentin Tarantino ("Pulp Fiction", "Kill Bill") and Robert Rodriquez (the El Mariachi saga, "Frank Miller's Sin City") that celebrates the exploitation films of the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s and is a swift, hard and righteous kick to cookie-cutter, assembly line cinema, running at a jumbo 191 minutes (three hours and eleven minutes). Don't complain about the running time.
Rodriquez's "Planet Terror" is a raw, bloody steak, and you'll need a spine to eat it, after seeing the first mock trailer (later on that one). A deal between mercenaries goes bad, unleashing a deadly virus over a town that kills and turns its citizens into pus-coated, cannibalistic zombies.
Our (anti) heroes: ex-solider-cum-grungy auto mechanic El Wray (Freddy Rodriquez of "Six Feet Under", no relation to the director) who's the Mexican Jet Li with switchblades; syringe-loving doctor Dakota Block ("Sin City's" Marley Shelton); the Hague brothers, a hard-boiled sheriff (Mike Biehn of "Aliens") and a BBQ-loving cook (Jeff Fahey of "Silverado"), and go-go dancer Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan of "Charmed") who perfectly emotes comic book-like pity and fury when her right leg is ripped from her by zombies but gets a machine rifle to replace the limb. Holy Bruce Campbell and hell hath no fury The bad guys are memorable too, including Bruce Willis's Lt. Muldoon, who wanted me to hum the theme song from "G.I. Joe: The Animated Series" because he looked the hero Flint, from the show and toy line, with a three o'clock shadow. Tarnatino's fun as a henchman who can't keep in his pants and gets his (no spoilers!) and you'll remember Josh Brolin (James's son) as Dakota's mean doctor hubby, William Block.
After three hysterical trailers spoofs (more on them later), Tarantino delivers "Death Proof" like a pizza delivery guy with ten extra cheese pies and a keg of beer. Three gal pals (Vanessa Ferlito; Sydney Tamilla Poitier, daughter of the Oscar legend and Jordan Ladd, Cheryl's kid) go on a road trip for sex, beer, weed, music and guys, but the girls become the targets of a sociopath stunt driver, simply known as Stuntman Mike (a delightfully sinister Kurt Russell), who gets his sexual highs by committing vehicular homicide. He even gets Ms. McGowan (a sweet, blonde hippie chick in this tale) as a victim tease before disposing the other three.
However, Mike meets his match in off-duty members of a film crew, played by Rosario Dawson ("Sin City" "Clerks 2"), Tracie Thoms ("Cold Case"), who could be the 21st century's Pam Grier and real-life stunt woman Zoe Bell (doubled for Lucy Lawless in "Xena" and Uma Thurman in "Kill Bill"). Their other compeer, the equally sweet, tadpole-like Mary Elizabeth Winstead ("Live Free or Die Hard"), stays behind at a used car seller's home as (again, no spoilers!) while the three test (and stunt) drive the guy's car and collide with Mike (literally), but they get him. Boy howdy, do they get him
The four fake trailers are a pip. Directed by Rodriquez, "Machete" (might be a direct-to-DVD film) has his cousin, Danny Trejo, as an illegal Mexican immigrant embroiled in an assassination plot. Look out when he hurls his machete (heh!) if you're a bad guy. Cheech Marin of the comedy duo, "Cheech and Chong", has an jaw-dropping part as a gun-toting priest! The other trailers are sandwiched between "Proof" and "Terror"; "Don't" is a take on British Gothic horror by Edgar Wright ("Shaun of the Dead", "Hot Fuzz"); Turkey Day is a day for killing in "Thanksgiving" by Eli Roth (the Hostel films) and Nicholas Cage will shock you as criminal madman Fu Manchu in the self-explanatory "Werewolf Women of the SS" by Rob Zombie ("The Devil's Rejects", the Halloween remake).
I don't know if this film will resurrect the double feature (it should), but I know it's a brilliant trip. This cinematic asylum recollects the days when R-rated films were R-rated films. Hell, the film shows (digitally) the wear, tear, bumpiness and missing reel announcements of a film reel that's been put in too many film projectors. There's also ads and bumpers from the past intertwined in the mix.
Without any social cowardice, Mr. Rodriquez and Mr. QTarantino have given a beautiful homage to outlaw and madman filmmakers Howard Hawks, John Ford, John Carpenter, George Romero, Sam Raimi (yeah, THAT Sam Raimi), Sergio Leone, Monte Hellman, Peter Yates, Sam Peckinpah, Paul Schrader, Irving Klaw, H.G. Lewis, Ed Wood, Russ Meyer, Andy Sidaris and others I'm not familiar with but otherwise should be.
The actors are so game. Thoms and Bell of "Proof" should work together again. Should so the maltreated career wise Biehn and Fahey in "Terror". Electra and Elena Avellan (sisters of the film's producer, Elizabeth Avellan) are also fun in their brother-in- law's segment as the chatty babysitters of the Blocks's son, Tony (Rebel, one of the director's sons)who ends up...nah, that'd be telling. Even Naveen Andrews ("Lost") as a scientist in "Terror" and Poitier are notable as they meet ugly demises.
What more can I say? The film's a mandatory entry in the year's best film list (mine already has "300" and TMNT"). If you're a damn prude, don't watch this film and stay home. Read a book. Jog. Make love to yourself. Shame on you, if you wait for the DVD after its' theatrical run. However, if you love movies and watching them in the theater, "Grindhouse" is your house.