Grindhouse

Grindhouse: A grindhouse is an American term for a theater that mainly showed exploitation films. . . . Grindhouses were known for non-stop programs of B movies, usually consisting of a double feature where two films were shown back to back. (Wikipedia)

I saw Grindhouse (the film) on Friday night. The house was about half full but it was an enthusiastic crowd, obviously fans of the type of over-the-top entertainment promised by the combined directorial firepower of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino in full-out film geek mode. None of my friends could (or wanted to) make it but with a rowdy crowd ready for a rowdy movie, I was not alone.

Shown at the start of the movie and between the two features are several fake trailers from other directors. While some are better than others, they were all great fun and added to the whole "Grindhouse" experience. My personal favorite was Eli Roth's trailer for the horror film, "Thanksgiving" (if for no other reason than that my friends and I made our own horror film entitled "Thanksgiving" around 30 years ago). (Crap. I'm old.)

The first feature of the night was "Planet Terror" directed by Rodriguez as an homage and satire of every gory zombie flick made during the sixties and seventies. It starts fast and never stops, delivering zero scares but plenty of "No way!" moments throughout. It's audacious, funny and I loved it. The crowd around me also seemed to be loving it. Everything, from the graphic gore effects to the cheesy music was dead on.

After the second batch of trailers came the second feature of the night, Tarantino's "Death Proof," about a serial killing stuntman who uses his car to kill vulnerable young women. I have been a big fan of Tarantino since Pulp Fiction and have seen pretty much everything he's directed or written.

What was my reaction to Death Proof?

I almost walked out.

Now I never walk out of movies. Never. And yet, I was shifting in my seat, trying to decide if I should just leave to end the misery. I couldn't believe it at the time.

A few spoilers follow.

"Death Proof" starts out slowly and goes nowhere fast with the story of four, unappealing, annoying, self-absorbed young women who chat with each other solely through Quentin Tarantino's trademarked hip, profane dialogue. Unfortunately, the style of dialogue that was sophisticated and interesting in Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown is here tedious to the extreme because these women have nothing interesting to say. And this dialogue goes on and on for forty minutes. Absolutely nothing else happens.

Finally, there's a brief action sequence, four new women are introduced and, unbelievably, we go through the exact same thing AGAIN! Unappealing characters, forty minutes of pretentiously self-aware dialogue followed by an all-too brief action sequence. Holy crap!

What made it worse for me is that the two most sympathetic characters in parts one and two of Death Proof were played by Vanessa Ferlito and Zoe Bell (as herself). I don't mean to focus on their looks, but Ferlito has drugged-out eyes and a "just punched in the face" look that I find massively unappealing. Zoe Bell, a Kiwi stuntwoman of obvious skill and target of Tarantino's latest geek-crush, is just odd looking. Normally, I wouldn't comment on such a thing, but since the camera was focused on both actresses in close-up for most of Death Proof, it really bugged me. Superficial, I'm willing to admit, but there you go.

To the good, the action sequence at the end was quite harrowing. I was squirming in my seat because it was so tense. Sadly, it wasn't enough to make up for the 80 minutes of prior tedium.

In the end, I found Death Proof uninteresting, self-indulgent, badly referential to other, greater, Tarantino films, and a huge disappointment.

If you like campy horror and zombie movies, go see Grindhouse for Planet Terror. But take my advice and walk out when the opening credits roll for Death Proof.