Grindhouse, a double-feature that’s split
Thu 18 October 2007
Lauren Kesby, Journalism
Intended to play homage to the 80s sexploitation B-grade double-features played in US ‘Grindhouse’ cinemas, Grindhouse instead became Robert Rodriguez’s and Quentin Tarantino’s biggest flop.
The double-feature included Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof and ads by other film directors Eli Roth, Edgar Wright and Rob Zombie.
When Grindhouse was released in the US it grossed only $US11 million, $US10 million short of the producer’s worst-case prediction, shocking everyone involved.
Planet Terror is the first cab off the ranks and, for Robert Rodriguez fans, is by far the more enjoyable of the two movies. It is a typical zombie film, except it has characters like Rose McGowan’s Cherry Darling who is a stripper with a gun for a leg, Freddy Rodriguez’s El Wray who plays the hero of the story and Marley Shelton’s Dr Dakota Block who kills her patients with an array of needle cocktails.
Of course, like all B-grade films , in Planet Terror the ‘zombie’ virus is caused by those nasty government types, and the ‘good’ guys get their happy ending... despite still being on a zombie infested planet. All in the name of good clean fun.
Death Proof is far less ‘bloody’ than Planet Terror because like most Tarantino films it is dialogue driven. It follows the conquests of the psychotic stuntman Mike, played by Kurt Russel, and a myriad up-and-coming, or already Hollywood’s hottest, female talent as the objects of stuntman Mike’s car-chase fantasies.
For those who prefer Quentin’s snappy dialogue to Robert’s action-fests then Death Proof won’t let you down, but it does have some action sequences, and a lap dance that is sure to engage audiences.
B-grade does not mean Bad-grade either. The directors have purposely deleted scenes, and cut it ‘badly’ for the purpose of B-grade, but all-in-all these are two of the best films that have been released recently.
Grindhouse was definitely meant to scare males with scenes involving Quentin Tarantino’s penis melting off, and Naveen Andrews of Lost, collecting gonads as souvenirs from unwilling participants. But the female audience will also feel discomfort, and may flinch, watching Eli Roth‘s ad Thanksgiving when a bouncy teenager does the splits onto a knife’s long sharp blade.
Unfortunately, Grindhouse is not being released in the UK, Australia and a number of other countries due to the Weinstein Brothers deciding it will appeal more to audiences if the films were released separately. So expect to see the recut, non B-grade versions of Planet Terror and Death Proof gracing the screens. If the original Grindhouse is what you want then I’m afraid that’s too bad... but maybe not. Perhaps Grindhouse will gain notoriety with its DVD sales and become a cult classic in the same way as popular film Donnie Darko.
Source: Lawrence, W 2007, EMPIRE Magazine, November 2007 Issue, "Maybe it was just a plain bad idea...", pp. 69-71
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