Two films that wouldn't even play at the grindhouse

Rating: 4/10 (7 April 2007)

The term "Grindhouse" is now a marketing tool because few people seem to know its meaning. There are exploitation films, and then there are so-called grindhouse films. Films in both categories were mostly made with extremely LOW BUDGETS! And that was part of their "charm". They were outrageous and entertaining but not too slick like Hollywood films.
Exploitation films, which range from John Carpenter or Friday the 13th kind of horror films to ultra violent action films, like Karate or Blaxploitation films, were, for the most part, widely distributed but mainly played in various specific theaters that rarely ran big, grade A Hollywood movies. Then there are the grindhouse films, which only played in specific movie theaters, mostly quasi-porno theaters, a mix of porn and ultra trashy and violent films. Films like NEW YORK RIPPER, BLOODSUCKING FREAKS or CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST played in those theaters, along with the x-rated stuff. Real grindhouse films contained a good amount of sex and violence AND sexualized violence.
This new film, which combines two films as a double feature (which were very common back then) are more exploitation films than grindhouse films. If you think anything in GRINDHOUSE can compete with something like NEW YORK RIPPER, well, you're just kidding yourselves. It's not even funny. And that's why all of this is so effin wrong. The filmmakers just chickened out and created modestly trashy and yet EXPENSIVE retro horror/action films which would not even play at real grindhouse theaters. In the end, Quentin and Rodriguez show very little respect for a genre that they say they worship. They WISH this overdirected film could be seen in the same league as those classic trashy films.
Why spend $100 million for something this generic? People at Troma must be laughing at the excess of it all.
If you see this movie, see it for Rose McGowan (which is why I rate this 4 stars) but aside from her, there's no point of seeing this useless homage when you could rent or buy DVDs or even out-of-print videos of real grindhouse films and experience the real thing first hand. Not this fake overdone and over-hyped stuff.