The sleaze-filled saga of an exploitation double feature. Two full length feature horror movies written by Quentin Tarantino & Robert Rodriguez put together as a two film feature. Including fake movie trailers in between both movies. See:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0462322/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grindhouse_(film)

Planet Terror

8/10

The Rodriguez contribution to Gridhouse will set the bar higher for future zombie movies. This movie is a roller-coaster ride of schlock, horror and gore with every welcome stereotype you could hope for. It's most pleasing that Planet Terror unfolds in the traditional way expected from zombie movies: introduction, suspicion, threat, defence, seige, escape, slaughter, redemption. Following the tradition will guarantee a respected place for Planet Terror in the roll call of zombie movies.

I was alternately laughing and cringing throughout the movie. (more later, I've run out of time)

Deathproof

1/10

This Tarantino movie fails abysmally at every level. The dialogue is mostly a painfully long and tedious string of pseudo-cool banter between the large cast of lading ladies. Tarantion's trademark hip dialogue works reasonably well in Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction, but is stretched beyond tolerance in this movie. I can't even imagine teenage girls would find this dialogue interesting. The ladies in the cast either can't act very well or aren't trying, and sadly, the lead stunt lady Zoe Bell is most obviously not a professional actor. I thought for a moment perhaps that the wooden acting was a deliberate part of the fake B-grade movie presentation, but it wasn't good bad acting, it was bad bad acting. The action scenes are obvious set pieces and they fail to excite. The ride-on-the-car-bonnet scene was clearly filmed at a safe driving speed and then edited in an attempt to make it look fast and scary, but it didn't work. I had been told that the final car chase was one of the best ever filmed ... bollocks. During the chase I kept looking at my wrist, wishing I had a watch there so I could figure out how long I had to wait until we went for dinner.

This movie drove me for the first time in at least 20 years to actually walk out of a movie. After 15 minutes of the girly dialogue I was bored shitless and wandered into the foyer to buy a snack. They were closed, so I wandered around the empty theatre, read the posters and patted the cat. I returned to the picture after about 20 minutes, just in time I hoped for the final chase. I was a bit early, but I managed to sit through to the end.

Has Tarantino exhausted his repetoire and skills?

Back to: Movies