Sex, action, blood, guts and fast cars, Grindhouse has it all and then some

Rating: 9/10 (7 April 2007)

People loved to be scared. I don't know what's the fascination of it all but it's true. I don't mind paying 10 to 11 dollars to lose a night of sleep. But horror films don't do that to me anymore but instead gross me out. It's cool but I'd like to see the horror genre get back to basics. Grindhouse, the latest effort by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, while not as scary fails to disappoint. One of the reasons I decided to go see this film was because of the way it was presented. Grindhouse is an homage to the old double features in the 60-70's and includes everything associated with them (missing reels, grainy presentation, fake trailers and etc.) The first of the two films was Rodriguez's "Planet Terror". This one was about infections that has turned all of the towns citizens into zombies. We also get to meet the main characters Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan), a stripper equipped with a gun for a right leg (long story, you'd have to see the movie), and El Rey (Freddy Rodriguez). The last film was Tarantino's "Death Proof", which is about a former stuntman (Kurt Russell) who gets kicks out of stalking young ladies and killing them. However, I left the theater torn between which one of the double features I enjoyed. In "Terror", Rodriguez gave us a somewhat satirical look at 70's horror films (where 2006's Slither miserably failed) from the camera angles down to the John Carpenter-esquire film score. Whereas "Proof" is typical Tarantino. It's very chatty and not as fast paced as "Terror", until much later, but easily enjoyable. Grindhouse clocks in at 3 hours and 11 minutes but it never slows down to the point that you can fall asleep. Grindhouse also delivers some well needed originality as far as today's horror films go. It's not only my favorite film of the year, so far, but one of my favorite films period.
Grindhouse - ***1/2 out of ****