T&R's perfectly rendered drive-in exploitation trip

Rating: 10/10 (24 October 2009)

After Grindhouse was released, it seemed in vogue to hate on Tarantino. Not sure why. Sure, he has his signatures all over Deathproof, from the foot fetishes and the insider talking thing. But his films have always been like that.
Grindhouse was incredibly risky, and for that it paid the price. I don't know many people who liked both Planet Terror and Deathproof equally. Yes, they're both exploitation pictures, but one's a zombie movie and the other is a gear head horror flick.
The real joy of seeing Grindhouse --- and yes, I mean Grindhouse, not Planet Terror or Deathproof in their separate editions --- is the production values of the Grindhouse production and how they perfectly mimic the quality and aesthetic sensibilities of all the popcorn crunchers that were fixtures of drive-ins in the early to mid '70s.
If you don't get a smile on your face seeing the multi-colored concentric circle wash of the title cards for "Prevues (sic) of Coming Attractions" and "Our Feature Presentation" then you weren't there, and that's going to take away some of the appeal. The trailers are hilarious --- from the growling narrator over the "Machete" preview to the awesomely bad slasher-film era parody "Thanksgiving" to the hilarious lampoon of the trailer for "Don't Look In The Basement." They even have a still montage of food from a local Tex Mex joint!
I've been able to take or leave a lot of Robert Rodriguez's stuff. He's got a great visual style and he keeps Planet Terror's boiled and leisioned tongue firmly in it's cheek. There are some great bits from some of the best actors working today. Freddie Rodriguez and Rose McGowen ooze charisma as a professional gun wrangler and his go-go dancer girlfriend, who has a secret jones for stand-up comedy. Josh Brolin and Marley Shelton nearly steal the movie as a husband-wife doctor team with a borderline psychotic relationship that the zombie plague infecting their Texas town only serves to stoke. If there's a weak link in Grindhouse, it's Planet Terror, however...it's not that it isn't entertaining, it's that there isn't a substantial narrative (it's explosion-gunfire-explosion-gunfire-gunfire-gore-plot) or anything happening that you haven't seen a billion times before in a straight zombie picture.
I like Deathprood much better, simply because it's such a richly sick, twisted original storyline. Sure, there have been vehicular homicide pictures before but most are more stupid than scary. MAJOR SPOILER: The scene where Russell traps McGowen in his car's crash box and literally uses his car to beat the living crap out of her is one of the scariest and most disturbing "kills" I've ever seen. It's just so over-the-line bizarre, I find it fascinating. Ditto with the four way car crash scene. Many people got very irritated at Deathproof for it's talkiness. My response to this complaint is A) See the Grindhouse cut...it's far more economical and tight (the additional footage is very arbitrary) and B) I've always thought the McGowen kill scene should come right AT THE START of the movie --- I think it's a mistake to open with another backseat car dialog ala Reservoir Dogs. Do we really need 5 kills in less than 10 minutes? Russell's performance is beyond creepy, all the women in the film rock their sexuality and personalities with a breezy easiness, and the soundtrack is PHENOMENAL, consisting of another of QT's immaculately selected samplers of pop and soul obscurities.
Grindhouse is not perfect, but if you long for the days of the drive-in, complete with scratchy film stocks, cigarette burns, missing reels, and crackly soundtracks, this is the real deal. Why they haven't released it in it's original format on DVD is beyond me, just as why they haven't released Kill Bill in a box is beyond me. Catch it on cable if you can...it may be the only way you'll see these films in these versions for a while....and I think it's clearly the best way to see them.