We finally decided to watch Grindhouse: Planet Terror (2007), and I don't know why we waited. As I'm sure you know, Grindhouse was a double bill B-movie extravaganza, with one movie directed by Quentin Tarantino, and this one by Robert Rodriguez.
It starts with stripper Rose McGowan quitting her job and getting stuck at a lonesome BBQ joint run by Jeff Fahey. By coincidence, her old boyfriend, Freddy Rodriguez (no relation) comes by in his "Wray's Wreckage" truck - but his friends call him "El Raye".
Meanwhile, a bunch of soldiers led by civilian (?) Bruce Willis are picking up a mysterious gas from Naveen Andrews. When it goes sideways and some one is about to get their balls chopped off, that someone releases the gas, and everyone starts going crazy and eating each other. Seems bad.
Meanwhile again, Dr. Josh Brolin and his cold wife Marley Shelton are on the night shift at the hospital. They begin to notice people coming in with scratches that become necrotic as the patients become aggressive and bitey.
Eventually McGowan gets a scratch on her leg and has to come in to get it amputated. If you've seen the poster, you know that eventually she gets a machine gun prosthetic.
This is a good old-fashioned stupid gore fest. And by old-fashioned I mean the film is scratched and there's a reel missing (handy for "With a leap they were free" cliffhanger solutions). There is a trailer and the classic "Our Feature Presentation" bumper. The trailer was for Machete, which looked so good, they actually made it.
So, a total ball. Freddy makes a great hero - just a working stiff with an ex-stripper ex-girlfriend who busts his chops, but he steps up when he needs to. Also, he is a firearms expert who never misses - and the police won't let him have a gun for most of the movie. In fact, they cuff him for about the first half. McGowan is a stripper with a lot of useless talents that actually come in handy. The Brolin/Shelton subplot was maybe more than we needed, and I have no idea what we were supposed to think of Fahey's BBQ. Everyone said it was the best in Texas, but no one would touch it. Except maybe the zombies.
Also, Bruce Willis is not in most of the movie, so it's even got that going for it.
Should we watch the other half of the double bill. Deathproof? I think we like Rodriguez more thar we like Tarantino.
1 comment:
I liked Deathproof better. If you get it as a single movie, you get to see the "missing reel" (a lap dance, essentially). And of the previews, the one I wished they turned into a real movie was the Thanksgiving-themed one.
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