Grindhouse, yo.
My mom hates horror movies. So, of course, I wasn’t one of those kids who was brought up watching Nightmare on Elm Street about a decade younger than the target age, and I was always jealous of them. I still feel a certain amount of rage when I hear friends talk about the movies they got to see in theaters when I was still stuck going to see talking-animal cartoons with my parents. I can’t help it. I knew what I liked even then, and boy, it sucked, because I also knew how deprived I was.
While I wasn’t allowed to watch R-rated movies at age 10, I was a huge fan of the Spy Kids trilogy. In increasing order, which seems to be the exact opposite of everyone else’s memory. And it would be a while before I learned the director of those films was a bit more famous for making grisly horror movies. When that information got to me, I didn’t know whether to be disillusioned or thrilled, so I settled on the comfortable balance between both that I seem to be perfecting. I think I did read at some point a while ago that he specifically decided to make the films so his kids could watch some of his work, but I never expected that 7 years later he would be working on a visual nightmare featuring a woman with a machine gun for a leg.
I knew nothing about Quentin Tarantino as a kid, obviously, so nothing to say there.
I remember first seeing the trailer for a movie called Grindhouse in 2007. It was obviously brutal, fast-paced and thrilling, and the next thing I remember is my mom (yeah, remember her?) recoiling in terror every time we saw it on TV. I never thought much of it until recently, when the "hey, I can watch whatever I feel like now!" mentality is suddenly hitting me and helping me recall every messed-up horror movie I saw advertisements for in my younger days.
What I didn’t know is that this "movie" is actually a 4-hour double feature. I had to obtain both halves separately, and unbeknownst to me, accidentally watched them backwards. Death Proof, Tarantino’s half, was meant as the second feature, but I watched it first, and that met with some interesting results. The story centers around two groups of young women in Texas and a crazed stuntman who stalks and executes them in staged car accidents.
It’s a strange but original story, but as much as I loved it - it was gritty, sexy and nostalgic of late nights of horrific entertainment at drive-in movies - I was surprised by its tameness. Nearly all of the violence is reserved for the last 10 or 15 minutes of both acts of the film, and the majority of time is spent introducing the two groups of main characters and generally building suspense. Not that that’s a bad thing in the slightest - it was actually a bit refreshing after the gorefest I expected to see. It was just a surprise, partially because, well, it’s Tarantino, and especially after what I remembered the trailers being like. But maybe I was just overly impressionable back then? Maybe I remembered it being more extreme than it really was?
Hardly. Everything I expected and then some came flying at me with Planet Terror. I had no idea it was a zombie film, but more importantly, it’s a zombie film with an added shot of grotesqueness so strong you just can’t look away. The infected humans ravaging the town aren’t the walking dead so much as infected with a secret government-harbored disease, covered with throbbing boils, cannibalistic, and also fully capable of talking. That really should make them less scary, but hearing drawling voices emerge from those horribly disfigured heads…yeah, I’m amazed I slept so well that night.
Again, this man directed Spy Kids. And then made this. A movie that shows a gratuitous shot of a zombie rapist’s balls melting off. I’m sure I’m not the only one who needs to let that sink in for a bit.
And again (again), the only thing close to a negative comment I have to make is surprise at the timing. The stripper with the machine gun leg, who seemed to be the most iconic image from this film, didn’t receive said weapon until about 20 minutes before the film ended. It doesn’t make her roaring rampage of slaughter any less epic, though. (Though I do wonder how she controls her body to fire that thing…)
I already mentioned the nostalgic qualities of these pieces, which I’m probably too young to do, but I also need to reinforce that by mentioning the efforts that were actually put into giving them these qualities. Aside from the soundtrack and posters advertising the film, certain parts of the movies themselves have a distinctly grainy, old-fashioned look intentionally applied to them. This becomes most infamous during a sex scene near the middle of Planet Terror, when the film burns away right before the female lead is (finally) shown naked, and cites a “missing reel” apology from the theater. When it cuts back, after an unknown amount of time has passed, THE BUILDING IS ON FIRE. What happened? We’ll never know. That’s the beauty of it.
I’ve also failed so far to gush about my ridiculous love for the song played over the credits of Death Proof, so I'll just pin it up here.
Click to viewAWESOME. It just makes me want to go out and become a sexy, ass-kicking female assassin in a fast car every time I listen to it.
Now I’m off to send a begging email to Rob Zombie and try to make Werewolf Women of the SS a reality.
I'm sorry, Mommy. I really do love you.