Ten Days of Terror!: Grindhouse

Film: Grindhouse
Format: Bluray from Somonauk Public Library through interlibrary loan on rockin’ flatscreen.

There are problems with reviewing Grindhouse on this blog. The primary problem is that on the They Shoot Zombies, Don’t They list, both of the two major parts of Grindhouse (Planet Terror and Death Proof) appear as separate listings. What’s a blogger to do in this case? If I write about the two movies here, I have nothing to write about when it comes to those reviews. Do I simply call this a triple feature? Do I review them here and review the missing scenes replaced in the full versions of the films? Instead, I figured I’d look at the part that links the two films: the fake (kinda) trailers.

There are four of them, and evidently there might be a fifth that was tapped in at some point, even if it wasn’t on the disc that I got. At the very least, it wasn’t on the version of the film(s) that came from the library, and it wasn’t in the version that I saw in the theater. That being the case, I’ll look at the four that are in the theatrical version. On the disc, they are in this order: Machete, directed by Robert Rodriguez; Werewolf Women of the SS, directed by Rob Zombie; Don’t, directed by Edgar Wright; and Thanksgiving, directed by Eli Roth. On the disc, Machete comes before Planet Terror and the other three come between the two movies.

Ten Days of Terror!: Planet Terror

Film: Planet Terror
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on the new portable.

Why didn’t Grindhouse work? I mean, I would point at least in part to just how disappointing the Death Proof side of the film was, but that can’t be all of it. Grindhouse was a great idea for a movie. We got two short films that were specifically grimy and designed to look like they’d been through a ringer. They were short on plot and long on violence and ridiculousness. And they contained a collection of fake trailers that were generally very funny. Gun to head, Edgar Wright’s trailer for Don’t is probably my favorite moment in the collection. That said, Planet Terror is actually a fun stand-alone film.

Planet Terror is a zombie film in the same way that 28 Days Later is a zombie film. What this means is that there are creatures that act like zombies, but they aren’t actually reanimated dead. Our zombie agent is a gas that turns people affected by it into creatures with exploding pustules that clearly want human flesh, except when it’s plot-necessary that they don’t. And the infected are brainless flesh eaters except for those points in the film where it’s important that they have fully human intelligence. Look, no one watches Planet Terror for the plot.

School's Out Forever

Film: The Faculty
Format: DVD from Peru Public Library through interlibrary loan on basement television.

Some tropes are bulletproof enough that they can take a lot of different forms. The basic story behind The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, both the Jack Finney novel and the various incarnations of the movie, are one such trope. The Faculty, produced in the late ‘90s, is one such version. This is very clearly a take on the idea of pod people, and more specifically the idea of aliens coming to Earth and taking over the bodies and minds of the people in a small town with an eye toward grander conquest. In fact, as should be expected, The Faculty explicitly references Finney’s work, albeit incorrectly (but we’ll get to that later).

I’m going to assume that you at least know the broad strokes of the basic story. Alien critters arrive on Earth and, through one means or another, start to take over, control, or otherwise dominate the minds and bodies of the locals. We’re more or less led to suspect that high school football coach Willis (Robert Patrick) is the first victim. He quickly infects fellow teacher Karen Olson (Piper Laurie), and the pair then turn the school principal (Bebe Neuwirth).

Off Script: From Dusk till Dawn

Film: From Dusk till Dawn
Format: DVD from Cortland Public Library on The New Portable.

Readers of this blog should know by now that I will go out of my way to avoid watching a lot of Tarantino films. I get tired of him very quickly, and I’ve said for years that Tarantino would be a lot better if he stopped trying to be awesome and instead tried to be good. So what do I have to say about From Dusk till Dawn, which features him not as the director, but as screenwriter, executive producer, and featured actor? I’ll say that Tarantino is a better director than he is actor, although that’s hardly a shocking opinion.

Anyway, From Dusk till Dawn is from the early years of George Clooney’s movie career and long before he started to get serious about the movies he was making. This is from his pre-Batman & Robin days, when he was just a good-looking actor on his way up. And since this is a vampire horror/action movie, that’s probably not surprising.