Double Thrill and Scare for the Price of One

Rating: 7/10 (29 September 2007)

When Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez created Grindhouse, they are bringing movie fans the culture of grindhouse cinema, which explores B-flicks, which usually accompanied with explicit sex and violence.
Tarantino comes out with 'Death Proof', a thriller about 8 girls who met a psychotic stuntman coming after their lives with a car. Rodriguez whipped out with 'Planet Terror', about a group of human beings fighting their way out from human beings infected with a virus that turns them into zombies.
And it is a 3 months difference for 'Death Proof' and 'Planet Terror' to be released in cinemas in Singapore, for Grindhouse was separated into 2 different movies outside US. But, at least, we are fortunate to watch 2 full length version of the movie.
Quentin Tarantino - 'Death Proof': In summary, it is about 8 girls who had 2 different encounter with Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell), a diabolical movie stuntman who gets the thrill of killing girls in his stuntman car. The first encounter took place from a pub, where 5 girls meet up for a drink, and Stuntman Mike follows. He executes his plan and 14 months later, he picked up the other 3 girls from a convenient store.
For fans of Tarantino, Death Proof is the mirror image of his 2 previous production, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. The wordy conversations of the girls about men, career and life takes up most of the duration of the film. For those who are expecting thrills and actions seen in Kill Bill, you will be slightly disappointed, for there isn't much action over here. However, you will still get the thrill from the breath taking car-chasing scenes. Just bear with it if you are not used to wordy dialogues in Tarantino's movie.
Robert Rodriguez - 'Planet Terror': About a group of military personnel lead by Lieutenant Muldoon (special appearance of Bruce Willis) which releases an experimental bio-weapon onto the town, which turns human beings into cannibalistic zombies once contracted to it. Cherry (Rose McGowan), a go-go dancer, lost her right leg to some zombies in an accident. She was send to the hospital by her boyfriend, El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez), where the hospital sees several people infected with the bio-weapon, showing symptoms of becoming a zombie. As more people becomes zombies, Cherry and Wray gathers the remaining survivor not infected by the virus, including a married lesbian doctor Dakota (Marley Shelton) and her father, Sheriff Hague (Michael Biehn), Lewis the cook and other surviving personnel. Together, they will have to get rid of all zombies and leave the town.
Compared to 'Death Proof', 'Planet Terror' fills in more action, thrill, gore, sex and fun. Rodriguez do throw in interesting and witty dialogues in 'Planet Terror', so as not to make it look so dull, such as 'it's go go, not cry cry', as spoken by Cherry to a survivor when getting the truck from the zombies.
But a Rodriguez movie without lots of action is not a Rodriguez movie. With the style of gun shooting from his El Mariachi trilogy and Sin City, you get something new in Planet Terror. For example, Cherry had a machine gun fixed on her right leg and with her go-go dance skills, she does a one-woman show against the zombies.
Rodriguez also takes references in other classic horrors and thrillers, such as John Carpenter's Assault on Precident 13, George Romero's Land of the Dead and popular drama series, General Hospital. With the combination of the 3 show, you get one of the memorable scene, where the hospital turns into chaos, where zombies attack the human beings.
Grindhouse: In whole, Tarantino and Rodriguez have revived the definition 'Grindhouse' in their feature. This was seen by creating scratchy prints on their movies, poor quality prints melted under the heat with the old projectors, discolored prints in certain scenes, and missing prints. This is something that is considered unacceptable and avoidable with today's technology. Grindhouse also means that the grindhouse cinema is part of the unique culture in the cinema history, where movies that were forgotten remains alive with the help of grindhouse cinemas, such as the Chinese kung fu classics from the 70's to the rare foreign fares that has little market value in the cinema industry.
To make Grindhouse a real and memorable experience, 4 bogus trailers were created. Sad to say, only 'Machete' was featured before 'Planet Terror' in Singapore, while no trailers were seen before 'Death Proof'. 'Machete' is another B-thriller starring Danny Trejo as Machete, an ex-Federale who was betrayed by his boss who hires him to assassinate a senator. Survived from the attack, he gets his best friend, a priest, to take revenge on his boss.
2 films and 4 bogus trailers for the price of one. This is a rare treat to movie lovers. For those who want some mindless fun, go for 'Planet Terror'. For those who want some space for thought, go for 'Death Proof'. If you want to have a great experience, go for Grindhouse. It will not disappoint you.