Grind This!
Horror. Lots of it. Bleeding out of the theatres like a sick passion.
That’s all right. I managed to get a seat pretty well up front of the audience on Friday night to see the Grindhouse. I wouldn't miss a good severed leg if I can help it.
The Grindhouse is a double movie feature which is a nice throwback to the 1970s drive-in flicks that is schlock full of b-budget stuff. There are a lot of weird ideas going on in some of those double features during its highlight years and the current film brings it back with far more exaggeration. And enough gore to satisfy the lust of any horror fan.
Several nice touches were made for the film. The splices and cuts in the film, making it look old, along with missing reels in the most pivotal scenes such as the lap dance bit, made Grindhouse feel like it belonged to the 1970s outhouse. But it never distracts from the telling stories that are straight in-your-face kind, pulling no punches. They go for the guts. Literally.
Lots of nice familiar faces, big heavyweight actors like Bruce Willis and Michael Biehn gave their turns in likable performance amongst the chaos of the flicks. You couldn’t help but like Michael Biehn as the stalwart cop whose favorite line is, “Those sonofabitches.”
There’s a real feeling of drive-thru atmosphere in Grindhouse as you get to watch mock trailers of movies that gives advertising to coming movies.
The only problem is, unfortunately, is the film will be chopped into two movies in countries outside of the USA. I’m not sure why the decision was made in countries like Germany to give it two separate movies rather than a single entity.
They’ll lose the whole flavor of what Grindhouse is supposed to be: a double billing of movies that can take up half an afternoon (a waste of time to some) and set off an exploitation of offensive material. It’s not something you would bring your kids to see.
The first half was Planet Terror starring Rose McGowan as the go go dancer who gets her leg
ripped off and replaced with a machine gun that raids the living daylights out of zombies. Just the idea of this woman going around with an automatic weapon and walking on it gives the film its flavor. It’s also very funny. Brutally so.
It’s probably the one I like better of the two. The ideas and concepts in the film are hilarious. There’s a swell of comedy against the backdrop of horror that goes on as the world is plagued by infected zombies looking for a bite. Some gory scenes do hark back to the best of George Romero’s dead movies.
The second half of the Grindhouse horror fest is the simply titled Death Proof with Kurt Russell starring as the manic Stuntman Mike who likes to driving people off the roads and into their deaths. This was directed by Quentin Tarantino who is best known for Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. It’s actually not a bad flick with some excellent dialogue between some of the female leads. Though I have to admit I didn’t understand the linear storyline, with bits of it not making sense. Plus I thought there was a missed opportunity of not finding out how Stuntman Mike got his scar.
Tarrantino is a pig as usual.
But it’s not bad. It does suffer in comparison to the overly exaggerated gory piece of filming that was Planet Terror which is exception in storytelling. And at the same time giving the horror fans what they’re looking for most. A good gross-out.
Rated R for blatant violence, gore, sex, drug use and all that other good stuff.
This is the Grindhouse, folks. Enter if you dare.
That’s all right. I managed to get a seat pretty well up front of the audience on Friday night to see the Grindhouse. I wouldn't miss a good severed leg if I can help it.
The Grindhouse is a double movie feature which is a nice throwback to the 1970s drive-in flicks that is schlock full of b-budget stuff. There are a lot of weird ideas going on in some of those double features during its highlight years and the current film brings it back with far more exaggeration. And enough gore to satisfy the lust of any horror fan.
Several nice touches were made for the film. The splices and cuts in the film, making it look old, along with missing reels in the most pivotal scenes such as the lap dance bit, made Grindhouse feel like it belonged to the 1970s outhouse. But it never distracts from the telling stories that are straight in-your-face kind, pulling no punches. They go for the guts. Literally.
Lots of nice familiar faces, big heavyweight actors like Bruce Willis and Michael Biehn gave their turns in likable performance amongst the chaos of the flicks. You couldn’t help but like Michael Biehn as the stalwart cop whose favorite line is, “Those sonofabitches.”
There’s a real feeling of drive-thru atmosphere in Grindhouse as you get to watch mock trailers of movies that gives advertising to coming movies.
The only problem is, unfortunately, is the film will be chopped into two movies in countries outside of the USA. I’m not sure why the decision was made in countries like Germany to give it two separate movies rather than a single entity.
They’ll lose the whole flavor of what Grindhouse is supposed to be: a double billing of movies that can take up half an afternoon (a waste of time to some) and set off an exploitation of offensive material. It’s not something you would bring your kids to see.
The first half was Planet Terror starring Rose McGowan as the go go dancer who gets her leg
ripped off and replaced with a machine gun that raids the living daylights out of zombies. Just the idea of this woman going around with an automatic weapon and walking on it gives the film its flavor. It’s also very funny. Brutally so.
It’s probably the one I like better of the two. The ideas and concepts in the film are hilarious. There’s a swell of comedy against the backdrop of horror that goes on as the world is plagued by infected zombies looking for a bite. Some gory scenes do hark back to the best of George Romero’s dead movies.
The second half of the Grindhouse horror fest is the simply titled Death Proof with Kurt Russell starring as the manic Stuntman Mike who likes to driving people off the roads and into their deaths. This was directed by Quentin Tarantino who is best known for Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. It’s actually not a bad flick with some excellent dialogue between some of the female leads. Though I have to admit I didn’t understand the linear storyline, with bits of it not making sense. Plus I thought there was a missed opportunity of not finding out how Stuntman Mike got his scar.
Tarrantino is a pig as usual.
But it’s not bad. It does suffer in comparison to the overly exaggerated gory piece of filming that was Planet Terror which is exception in storytelling. And at the same time giving the horror fans what they’re looking for most. A good gross-out.
Rated R for blatant violence, gore, sex, drug use and all that other good stuff.
This is the Grindhouse, folks. Enter if you dare.
posted by K.M. Paters at 6:28 PM
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