Grindhouse: half enjoyable, half lame

Rating: 5/10 (14 April 2007)

I'm a fan of Tarantino but not much of one of Rodriguez and it came to my surprise when I found Planet Terror to be much more entertaining than the bloated Death Proof. If I didn't know any better, I would say Tarantino has never seen a 70s grindhouse film. His half was filled with bad dialogue that sounded like it was left on the cutting room floor of his other films and the characters were uninspired and cringe-inducing. I actually wanted all of them to die and was rooting for Kurt Russell's Stuntman Mike. Planet Terror, on the other hand, was great fun and while it still wasn't exactly a "grindhouse" movie (I don't remember any zombie movie from the 70s OR 80s being that well made) it worked as a stand-alone gore flick. Even the fake trailers were amusing, including Eli Roth's Thanksgiving and my personal favorite, Rob Zombie's Werewolf Women of the SS.