Middle of the road grindhouse that does no one any favours

Rating: 2/10 (17 August 2007)

I kind of try to understand it, but it still makes not sense. Two perfectly good filmmakers decide to make a grindhouse double bill to re-live their past: so far so good.
But, they've done it too well. Rather than make masterpieces (of even the pretty good examples) of the (sub)genre, they have made exact simulacrum of middle of the road mid-80s grindhouse cinema. The lack of achievement matched to the uncompromising nature of the presentation (bad images, heads walking through shot, fading prints) makes this the worst possible entry point into the genre.
Planet Terror - frequently inaudible, but don't mind as the dialogue never gets good, mixed with murky images derived from the well of "The Beyond:, "Nightmare City" et al, but with actors reduced to posture instead of script and a hardcore desire to reduce every element into incomprehensibility in an effort to recollect the nihilistic abandon of Fulchi (in particular) and many other Euro trash auteurs. Biehn and Fahey give their all and show what genuine B actors with skill can do to an otherwise unredeemable script: they make it work, but their scenes are few and far between and in the mean time many a decent actor falls into the pit of bad acting, not realising that the point of these films for many was seeing good work in bad circumstance. It's an absolute blow out, and no surprise that this fares the worst of the two on international distribution.
Death Proof (or "Quentin Tanrentino's Thonderbolt" as the briefly seen title card would have it is very different - this a film created from an obsession with 70s and 80s would- be road movies rather than Roderiguez's Fulchi-Avati explosion, and hampered by an abundance of dialogue - it's a full 40mins before we really get to the meat of the picture, a standout performance by Kurt Russell as Stunkman Mike, who really deserves a better film than he's given here with it's "women talking - they get killed by mike - he scopes some other hotties - he tries but fails to kill them and turns the serial killer stereotype on it's head as he turns into a screaming wimp once he's injured. Sure, there are laughs to be had - not least the abrupt ending, but still it's a serious film maker wanking til he does his next work (and what an obsession with women's arses he's developed since we last saw him in action).
in all, neither film is satisfying - if only they had decided to use the tropes to make stand-out exemplars of the genre rather than going for easy hits for the fans.
A genuine grindhouse night is better made in your own home with the likes of The Blood Spattered Bride, The House With the Laughing Windows, The Strange Case of Mrs Wardh, The Beyond, Nightmare City, Spasmo, The Case of the Scorpions Tail, Death Walks at Midnight and Zeder in any order or combination making for a much more satisfying reliving of the old grindhouse days, when you sat down not knowing if you were going to be amazed by events on screen or touched up.
In terms of the trailers, they just add insult to injury by being far, far more entertaining that either of the main features. Standouts are Machete and Don't. But all of them are better than the features and this is never a good thing.