Grindhouse (Double Bill)

DEATH PROOF (18)

D: Quentin Tarantino

Momentum (Quentin Tarantino, Erica Steinberg, Elizabeth Avellan & Robert Rodriguez)

USA 🇺🇸 2007

111 mins

Thriller

W: Quentin Tarantino

DP: Quentin Tarantino

Ed: Sally Menke

Kurt Russell (Stuntman Mike), Rosario Dawson (Abernathy), Zoe Bell (herself), Tracie Thoms (Kim), Rose McGowan (Pam), Sydney Tamila Poitier (Jungle Julia), Jordan Ladd (Shanna), Vanessa Ferlito (Arlene), Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Lee)

Kurt Russell delivers a wickedly creepy performance as Stuntman Mike, a maniac with a vendetta against women who uses his 'deathproof' car as his weapon of choice.

If it weren't for his cameo appearance, you'd be forgiven for not realising this was a Quentin Tarantino film, it doesn't have many of his usual trademarks and is merely his own tribute to exploitation and splatter films of the 1970's, complete with scratchy cuts and edits, amateur sound dubbing and karate kicking heroines.

The movie was released as part of a 'Grindhouse' double bill with Robert Rodriguez' Planet Terror, which wasn't quite as good as this film.

6/10

PLANET TERROR (18)

D: Robert Rodriguez

Dimension (Robert Rodiguez, Elizabeth Avellan & Quentin Tarantino)

USA 🇺🇸 2007

105 mins

Action/Science Fiction

W: Robert Rodriguez

DP: Robert Rodriguez

Ed: Robert Rodriguez & Ethan Maniquis

Mus: Graeme Revell

Rose McGowan (Cherry Darling), Freddy Rodriguez (El Wray), Josh Brolin (Dr. William Block), Marley Shelton (Dr. Dakota Block), Jeff Fahey (J.T. Hague), Bruce Willis (Lt. Muldoon)

The second part of the 'Grindhouse' double bill, following Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof.

For those not in the know, Grindhouse is movie slang for a run-down, fleapit cinema which was best known for showing cheap schlock, exploitation and splatter movies during the 1970's and 1980's, defunct since the birth of VHS tapes.

As far as tributes go, the two films hit the spot. They're both a load of nonsense but that's precisely the point.

Robert Rodriguez' contribution to the double bill concerns a virus which turns its victims into zombie-like creatures, complete with bursting bloody pores and all other things ghastly.

It's cheap, disgusting fun but isn't anywhere near as entertaining as Death Proof, which certainly had a better story. Planet Terror starts very well but soon descends into complete and utter lunacy. Perhaps this was intended considering the genre of film that it's attributed to, but it's a much weaker second part to the double bill.

4/10