by Andrew Kasch
Evil hitchhikers … teenage werewolves … samurai cannibals … ventriloquist dolls … You won’t find a single one of these things in Grindhouse, and that in and of itself is a wonderful thing. After months of insufferable cinematic garbage, the hyped Rodriguez/Tarantino machine has burst forth like a mighty serpent to rain down fiery baptism on all the sinners. So how does it all measure up?
For the uninitiated, Grindhouse harkens back to the era of B-movie theaters famous for cranking out exploitation double-bills in the1970s. The prints were battered, the chairs hurt your ass, and the interiors were cleaned maybe twice a year, but you would consistently get your money’s worth in over-the-top sleaze and splatter. Today, many of us re-live the good ol’ days each month at the Grindhouse Film Festival in Los Angeles (co-helmed by Tarantino himself), and this is the ultimate attempt to bring that experience to the masses.
The first and best half of this three-hour double bill is Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, a gore-drenched zombie love-fest that gets the ball rolling in a big way. If you’ve seen the trailer, you already know the full story: An engineered virus escapes into a small town (these things tend to happen) and turns unlucky souls into bloated walking corpses. Things go to hell pretty fast, so it’s up to a small band of survivors – comprised mostly of criminals, lawmen, doctors, and strippers - to survive the horde, battle the military, and save the day. In other words, take From Dusk Till Dawn, mix in some old school Peter Jackson, and hit frappé.
This is a film that moves like a nitro-fueled bus of flaming nuns at the Indy 500! Not a single dull moment is to be found as we watch a dream cast of character actors - each with their own deadly talent - stumble from one jaw-dropping set-piece to the next, wasting virtually everything and everyone in their path. From relative newcomers Freddy Rodriguez and Marley Shelton to hardcore genre vets like Michael Biehn and Jeff Fahey, this ensemble is one of the most memorable you’ll ever see in a genre film. Robert Rodriguez shows off his flare for blowing up everything in sight, throws red stuff in all directions, and even invents new (and truly sick) bodily functions for the undead. Set to a perfect John Carpenter-esque score, Planet Terror is a masterpiece of excess and sets the bar high (probably too high) for what follows.
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1 - Lisa McKay
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