Planet Terror

"Planet Terror" (2007, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, Rodriguez International Pictures, Troulemaker Studios, Dimension Films).

It's a Sci-Fi horror gore-fest! It's an action movie! It's a love letter and an homage to the B-Movies of old! It's a Grindhouse inspired piece of genius!

Go-go dancer, Cherry Darling, (Rose McGowan) throws in her diamanté studded hooker-boots in search of a new meaning in life.

Meanwhile, Dakota Block (Marley Shelton) decides to leave her creepy husband, Dr. William Block (Josh Brolin) for her lesbian lover, Tammy (Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas).

And the crazed Lieutenant Muldoon (Bruce Willis) makes a transaction with a bollocks-obsessed madman named Abby (Naveen Andrews) of a biological weapon called DC2 (codename "Project Terror") which goes decidedly wrong and is released into the air, turning everyone into mutated zombie creatures.

In order to save the world (or at least themselves) Cherry, her tough guy ex, El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez) and Dakota must team together with Abby to fight the zombies and escape!

Oh, and Cherry loses a leg and replaces it with a machine gun.

...Double oh, and it's all done in the fabulously gritty Grindhouse style.

Sound like fun? Well, it is!

The opposite of serious with absurdly low budget, explosive, gross-out effects (high on the goo factor) and a star cast with their tongues in their cheeks and a sense of fun in the air.

One of the best nods to the Exploitation and Grindhouse genre with a cheeky wink and some gloop to go with it. Perhaps a little longer than it needed to be, but still one of my favourites.

[Image: Rodriguez International Pictures]

 

Hani

Death Proof

"Death Proof" (2007, Quentin Tarantino, Troublemaker Studios, The Weinstein Co., Dimension Films) is a Grindhouse film about a killer in a stunt car whose favourite victims are young, drunk bimbos.

Kurt Russell plays 'Stuntman' Mike, an ageing Hollywood stuntman who stalks young, attractive women and drives about in an old stunt Chevy Nova (and later a Dodge Charger) which he maintains are 'death proof'.  He then proceeds to demonstrate this by using it as a weapon, for you see, it is only 'death proof' for him!

But his reign of terror can truly not last forever, and maybe, just maybe, one day he'll meet his match!

A fun modern Tarantino exploitation film which aims for the Grindhouse vibe, complete with the Grindhouse-y camera-work we have come to know and love. The first half of this film is pretty great with lots of bar scenes and build-up followed by some truly disturbing scenes with our charismatic antagonist. It does slow down in the middle, but generally the car chase scenes make up for those bits and the film picks up the pace for last few acts.

I adore Kurt Russell, and he's very good at bringing this asshole character to life. Stuntman Mike is a complete douchebag! The character completely epitomises the sleazy and the entitled. It's hard for me to not love a character portrayed by Kurt Russell, but Stuntman Mike is really hard to like. And that's a great thing!

Most of the other characters, outside of a few of "The Girls" are mighty disposable, but it's a movie about a maniac in a car, so I wasn't expecting much in the way of character development. I was pleasantly surprised, however, to find such a good build up of our main victims. And, in true Tarantino style, we also get to enjoy their brutal, brutal deaths.

Kurt Russell delivers a fantastically creepy stalker character who has a very nasty side, and we have some cameos in the forms of Eli Roth, Rose McGowan, and Mr. Director himself. Stuntman Mike is also pitted against some truly strong characters including stuntwoman, Zoë Bell, and the kickass Tracie Thoms and Rosario Dawson.

"Death Proof" starts off promisingly with some good dialogue, some creepiness, some lap-dancing and then some horrorshow brutality. Although the film wonders a little in the middle, this is completely typical of the Grindhouse genre and makes it all the more fun when it picks up the pace again. While it's far from Tarantino's best film, it's still a entertaining thrill ride and, as ever, a vehicle for his foot fetishes...

[Image: Dimension Films]
 

Hani

From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter

"From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter" (2000, P.J. Pesce, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, A Band Apart, Los Hooligans, Dimension Films) is the third film in the franchise, and a prequel to the original film.

Set in the 1900s in Mexico, American author Ambrose Bierce (Michael Parks), a drunk who is experiencing weird flashbacks, has hitched a ride with a young married couple, John (Lennie Loftin) and Mary Newlie (Rebecca Gayheart), who are spreading the 'word of God' via free bibles.

Their coach is attacked by a band of highwaymen lead by Johnny Madrid (Marco Leonardi), who has just narrowly escaped the hangman's noose and kidnapped the hangman's daughter Esmeralda (Ara Celi). The attackers find nothing of value in the wagon.

Soon everyone congregates (seperately) at a secluded inn which we know from previous films to be the 'Titty Twister'. The barman is also our good ol' friend Razor Charlie (Danny Trejo), this is the same character as in the original movie.

Although the vampire princess Santanico Pandemonium is played by Selma Hayek in the original film, it is revealed in this film that she is none other than Esmeralda. Dun dun dun!

A fun little period gore comedy, the plot goes back to the original setting and style. Most of the vampire action is in the inn itself, and again there are a lot of boobs and vampire ladies wearing very little clothing.

As much as I liked the fight scene music, I thought the original film's was better, but on the whole I enjoyed this film for the humour and the complete ludicrousness of it all.

[Image: Dimension Films]

Hani

From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money

"From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money" (1999, Scott Spiegel, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, A Band Apart, Los Hooligans, Dimension Films) is the sequel to the comedy vampire gorefest, "From Dusk Till Dawn".

This time, we follow a band of criminals on a bank job (rather than two criminals after their bank job), lead by Luther (Duane Whitaker), although our main character is Buck (Robert Patrick). Our other members of the unhappy heist are Niles (Muse Watson), tough guy Jesus (Raymond Cruz) and weakest link Ray Bob (Brett Harrelson).

I love the opening scene for this movie. It's awesome for a good many reasons, but mainly it's particularly good because it features Bruce Campbell! Did I mention my love of Bruce?

So this is kind of a Mexican vampire version of "The Thing". Who's a vampire? Who's dead? Who's not what they appear? and so on...

Danny Trejo returns to his role as the vampire barman, Razor Eddie this time though (as Charlie was killed in the first movie), and obviously we have the obligatory scenes in the 'Titty Twister' bar.

There's a lot of cheesey gore, but none as good as the first film's, and although Tarantino and Rodriguez have again managed to create a film that begins with one story before jumping randomly into vampiredom, it's just not got the same oomph that the first one had. There is a hilarious scene with a vampire bat in the shower, however. And the pervy ones of you will be happy to again see a lot of boobs.

A bit of fun and sleaze this film isn't pretending to be anything it's not.

Most of the bite scenes are done in bat form, though, which got a bit old after a while... But there's some good carnage at the end, a lot of creative vampire deaths and they seemed to favour some of the more interesting camera angles, including: water-bowl-cam, fang-cam, car-bonnet-cam and skull-cam!

[Picture: Dimension Films]

Hani

From Dusk Till Dawn

"From Dusk Till Dawn" (1996, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, Dimension Films, A Band Apart, Los Hooligans) is a gore fest action/crime/comedy/horror from Rodriguez and Tarantino.

From the onset, the film appears to be about two criminal brothers who are on the run from the feds and police, and are also in the middle of a heist worth a lot of money if they can get to Mexico and meet their contact, Carlos.

The brothers are Seth Gecko (George Clooney), the smooth, arrogant and haughty 'leader' and his younger and more sinister brother, Richie Gecko (Quentin Tarantino), who is a volatile sex fiend, rapist, murderer and all 'round crazy person!

We meet the brothers as they attack a petrol station/liquor store clerk (John Hawkes) and his only customer, the local Ranger McGraw (Michael Parks) after Richie begins to feel a bit twitchy. I always remember this scene the best, as when I was younger I was particularly intrigued with the 'shot through the hand' bit. Gross!

They move on to a motel, leaving a mess in their wake, and extract the terrified bank cashier lady from their car trunk. And we get to find out just how crazy Richie really is!

Soon the guys need a ride, and some innocent looking 'friends' to help them get across the border, and so they kidnap an ex-minister, Jacob (Harvey Keitel) and his two children, adopted son Scott (Ernest Liu) and daughter Kate (Juliette Lewis). Jacob is having a crisis of faith after his wife died in tragic circumstances and has dragged his kids on the road with him in his motorhome...

After getting over the border, they head to a biker/trucker bar called 'The Titty Twister' which has a lurid and entertaining luminous sign, and wait there drinking 'whisky' (I'm Scottish, I can be snobby about what's whisky and what's not! Although, I drink bourbon myself...) while they wait on Carlos (Cheech Marin, who also plays quite a few parts in this film, I noticed!).

But this bar is not all that it seems, and there is a specific reason for it closing at dawn.... Everyone from the exotic dancers to the Machete dude (Danny Trejo) behind the bar are vampires... everyone except the clientelle, that is! When the feeding frenzy begins, our two murderous thieves, their kidnapped friends, a biker called Sex Machine (Cheech Marin again) and a Vietnam trucker called Frost (Fred Williamson) have to team together as best they can to try to survive.

Will anyone make it out? And when the hell will Carlos get there!?!

A tongue in cheek gorefest with some very 90s SFX and a lot of boobies. One of the sleaziest biker vampire movies on my shelf; it's just hilarious! And isn't it funny how vampire chicks suddenly get really ugly when they let their true nature show?

Danny Trejo makes an excellent vampire man in his little leather... whatever that was mean't to be! A vest? A tunic? Heck knows!

Clooney makes an excellent bad guy in this film, being both threatening and also likeable in that charismatic dickhead kind of a way.

Tarantino is terrifying as the psychotic rapist brother. He's a scary dude! I would not cross him!

Lots of body parts fly, there's a corpse guitar and a shed-load of corny, tongue in cheek violence (to go along with the truly Tarantino-esque beginning scene). Really, the vampires are entertaining and sure get an impressive kill scene, but damn it the humans are way scarier!

I'm sure this film has some kind of message, but all it says to me is that no matter how much of a jackass you are, vampires will eat you...? Oh, and rock music is awesome. And snakes are cool. Yep, deep film...

[Picture: Dimension Films & infinitecoolness.com]

Hani