Grindhouse

Audience Reviews

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Abraham S Mar 18, 2019 I'm down with great directors trying new ideas, but this concept ain't gonna work. B-movies only work if the people involved have not a clue in the world what they're doing. Its strong acting comes equipped with terrible plots that don't flow. A weak script that is uninspiring and boring. Useless characters and too much campy cheese that its impossible to swallow. Having a 3 hr run time to a pair of boring films doesn't help us here. A viewing experience that tries to be unique, but it comes across as pathetic and forgetful. See more

Hagrid S Mar 12, 2018 you can see the parts where quentin directs it which are rather good and the parts where he doesn't which sucks. most of it sucks. See more

Finn S Oct 21, 2017 I originally saw this in the theater and loved it! I was too young to have seen this sort of double feature this film is a loving homage to, but I did grow up watching a ton of these sorts of exploitation films on VHS, which re-watching this film brought back those video store memories. Maybe for a home video release of this double feature they should have added some cheesy Vestron Video opening and replaced the missing reels and burnouts with VHS tape splices and tracking errors. Or maybe that's another Rodriguez/Tarantino film for another day? I'd recently watched both of these films separately and gave "Planet Terror" ***** and "Death Proof" ***1/2. "Gindhouse" in it's original theatrical presentation as a double feature, complete with mock trailers for fictional movies, falls somewhere in between. Edgar Wright's "Don't" trailer is the best. It looks most like it was a real movie and has a hilariously coda at the end, but a close runner-up is Eli Roth's "Thanksgiving" as a very funny send up of holiday themed slasher films (i.e. "Halloween," "Mother's Day," "April Fool's Day," "Black Christmas," etc...), but Rodriguez's "Machete" trailer and Rob Zombie's "Werewolf Women of the SS" are also hilarious send ups of various exploitation film sub-genres. I also greatly appreciated the faux grain in the "Grindhouse" version over the cleaned up individual releases. As to the merits of the two films on their own, see my previous individual reviews below: Planet Terror (2007) ***** I think this might arguably be Robert Rodriguez's best, and he has some pretty ones ("Sin City" is probably a close second). Rodriguez is not an arthouse director by any means, but he is a director of wildly entertaining films and I think this may be his most entertaining, though I'll also say this film probably has the narrowest audience appeal. The story is a zombie one about a government experiment gone wrong that infects the populace of a small Texas town, but this film is unique in that it was one half of Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's "Grindhouse" double feature, that tried to recreate the experience of going to rundown theaters and watching low budget explorations films of the 1970s, complete with fake exploitation film trailers, damaged film prints, and missing reels to round out the experience. That's what I think limits the film's appeal to a wide audience, because not only does Rodriguez embrace the visual aesthetics of these films, he also fully embraces the ratcheted up sex and violence of these same exploitation films that he's celebrating, which is not going to appeal to all audience members. I can't speak from personal experience in regards to attending grindhouse theaters, but I can attest to watching many of these films during the VHS heyday. Those VHS video gems did include cheesy trailers for cheap low budget films and often did include poor film transfers that included damaged film prints, so even for a gen-xer like me, this film provided a lot of nostalgia. Freddy Rodríguez is the hero of the film who helps save his stripper girlfriend, Rose McGowan, from zombies. In the process McGowan loses her leg, which is eventually replaced with an M-16. Josh Brolin plays a terrifically villainous doctor after his ex-wife Marley Shelton. I think this was the first film I saw him in where I realized this guy can really act and isn't just the guy from "Goonies" and "Thrashin'". You also have Jeff Fahey, Michael Biehn, Fergie, Nicky Katt and Bruce Willis. A great touch is that Willis is never shown in the same shot as the rest of the cast, which was a favorite trick of exploitation films who would hire one major (usually fading) start to film one or two days worth of footage that could be inserted into the rest of the film, then giving producers the opportunity to boast about the films' fabulous cast. Rodriguez pretty much summed up this love letter to exploitation films of yore when he said, "The posters were much better than the movies, but we're actually making something that lives up to the posters." and he absolutely did! Death Proof (2007) ***1/2 As a complete film, I'm not sure this one quite comes off, but in terms of being a love letter to grindhouse cinema, it's filled with wonderful touches throughout that make it an absolute treat for fans of 1970s exploitation flicks (which I came to love in the 80s on VHS). Touches that I loved in "Death Proof" were the faux scratched up print, the costumes that looked both contemporary and period, the missing scenes, the film's title change ("Quentin Tarantino's Thunder Bolt" that appears onscreen for a split second), bad rack focusing, the film title font choice, the subtle reference to other classics like "Gone in 60 Seconds" in the film's opening title sequence or references to cheerleader and muscle car movies or to voyeuristic giallo films or even dialogue references to classics like "Vanishing Point" or "Big Wednesday," and then there's the casting of Kurt Russell, which that in and of itself is enough to evoke nostalgia from 80s Gen-Xers who should be thrilled to see Russell getting to play a badass once again. The story is one of the film's weak points, which is unusual for a Tarantino film. The story follows two separate sets of beautiful women being stalked by serial killer Stuntman Mike (Russell) and his Death Proof car, but maybe the implausible story and gaps in logic are part of Tarantino's homage to exploitation cinema. Another complaint is that some of the dialogue, particularly in the first half of the film, although entertaining didn't seem to serve either the story or character development, which Tarantino usually does so well. But again, Tarantino may just have been riffing and having fun with this freewheeling film. But for all it's flaws, this is still a highly entertaining film and it's impossible not to enjoy the badass showdown between Stuntman Mike and the second set of women, who happen to include amazing stuntwoman Zoe Bell. This film should have made Zoe Bell an action star, but that may not have happened since there are so few female action roles in Hollywood. Tarantino really knocks it out of the park with the film's final chase and action sequences, which are greatly aided by Tarantino's excellent choice of music (though the music choices throughout the film are great). If you had any misguided belief that this was a throwaway film on Tarantino's part, he again proves himself as a true "cinema guy" and does deliver some moments of pure cinema (moments that could not be captured in books, animation, comics, or any medium outside of film). Besides any scene with Russell, I think my favorite moment of the film is was when Zoe Bell is on the hood of the Dodge Charger and Tarantino has the camera go into close-up on Rosario Dawson's face, who is at first terrified by Bell on the hood and then slowly comes to the realization that Bell is loving it, as Dawson breaks out into a smile. It's a great performance by Dawson, but Tarantino's slow zoom and patience to hold on Dawson are just brilliant. Like most Tarantino films, this one features a deliciously eclectic cast, that besides Russell and Bell includes Rosario Dawson, Rose McGowan, Jordan Ladd, the underrated Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Eli Roth, Michael Parks as Earl McGraw and James Parks as Edgar McGraw, Marley Shelton, and Nicky Katt. Although this film is likely Tarantino's weakest film, it's still a solid film and well worth watching. See more

Kylo S Aug 8, 2017 Best flick of its kind I've ever seen. To put it in Corey's words: That was kinda awesome.

Leia M Jul 30, 2017 I honestly don't have the hard on everyone else does for these films. I mean, yes...they're well done. It's typical Rodriguez and Tarantino. When I watch it, I generally skip Death Proof all together. See more

Poe R Jun 26, 2017 Planet Terror was better than slow starting Death Proof. Fake previews were pretty cool.

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Grindhouse

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