The film that pays homage to the old school B indie, slasher, explotation double feature experience. Packed complete with fake trailers, scratched film, missing reels, and bad audio, this film does create a great illusion of authenticity. At least halfway in my opinion. I was surprised to find myself enjoying the first feature, Rodriquez’s “Planet Terror”, way more than the second, Tarantino’s “Death Proof” being that I would call myself a way larger Tarantino fan than Rodriquez. But I’ll get to that later.
They set the mood so well with this picture. The cheesy “feature presentation” animations, and the fake movie trailers were really entertaining. Then Planet Terror begins. It was everything I expected and held my attention from start to finish. It is definitely a wonderful nod to any terrible 70’s slasher, sci fi, zombie, body snatchers film you’ve ever seen, paired up with a modern day environment (sort of) Although, there were moments I felt were a little “too good” for what the movie was trying to mimic, you easily forget about it when you see some goofy special effect or hear that old style soundtrack. As bloody and gross as this movie is, I felt it was completely appropriate and totally fit in with the Grindhouse title.
Then comes “Death Proof”. As I said before, I am a Tarantino Fan. I was ready to see Rodriquez be put in his place with something like Kill Bill kung fu recreating perfection. Meaning, I figured he’d simulate the style perfectly and “Planet Terror” would pale in comparison. I was wrong. Here’s some advice if you choose to go see Grindhouse. If at any point during “Planet Terror” you get hungry, need a bathroom break, want to make a phone call, or just stretch your legs, go visit an old relative, well as soon as Death Proof starts just get up and go take care of it. Because I guarantee you by the time you get back, You wont have missed a thing. You could go outside, order a pizza, wait for it to show up, EAT THAT PIZZA, maybe hit the bathroom on the way back, and still get back to your seat before the entire point of this movie happens. The point of this movie is this: “Tarantino loves Uma Thurman’s Stunt Double, and wanted to shoot a car chase with her.” Death Proof does not try to simulate the old beat up style to the extremes that Planet Terror does, except for a few slow reel change gags and a missing scene which is fine. But where this movie fails is that rather than paying homage to any style of film, Tarantino only “talks about” old car chase films he (I’m sorry, I mean the characters) used to enjoy. It is incredibly boring and almost pointless until the last 10 minutes. And saying that is giving it too much, because really you’re just relieved that you got to actually see something exciting and action packed again before the credits rolled after sitting through Tarantino pay tribute to himself for over an hour. With all of his pulp fiction references, reservoir dogs camera maneuvers, Kill Bill re-occuring characters, talkie talkie talk talk never ending diolog, as well as his second appearance in the movie, he could have worn a shirt that said “I Love Myself” and I wouldn’t have been surprised. Death Proof, to me, did not fit in the grindhouse category at all, other than it recreated the feeling you get while sitting through a boring indie film that you can’t wait to end.
Everyone will defend "Death Proof" with the end as why they loved it. And that’s why I’m saying go order a pizza, because the end is all it’s got.
