GRINDHOUSE

by Kevin Koehler

I almost feel bad for Robert Rodriguez, insofar as he has the misfortune to make a generally entertaining feature only to have it eclipsed by some sublime genre work by Quentin Tarantino. It’s the story of his career, the two filmmakers having hitched their respective wagons to each other a long time ago. No one forces Rodriguez to habitually collaborate with a director who is clearly his creative superior, so really he only has himself to blame.

On the list of film genres worthy of tribute, grindhouse exploitation is certainly not my favorite; they’re typically cynical, artless, misanthropic, and not very good. In case you’re curious, “grindhouse” gets its name from the theaters these films screened in, often former burlesque houses that featured elements of (ahem) audience participation. Most shows were double features (long after traditional Hollywood pictures had abandoned the practice) presumably because the public wouldn’t pay to see just one terrible movie. On any given night, audiences could expect to see copious amounts of nudity, violence, torture, rape, motorcycle gangs, lesbian prison inmates, zombies, cannibals, and zombie cannibals.

It’s upon this last cliché that Rodriguez has fashioned his 80 minute Grand Guignol, Planet Terror. Cherry Darling (McGowan) dreamed of becoming a doctor but ended up a go-go dancer instead. She now aspires to be a stand-up comedienne; this progression should give you some indication of how seriously Planet Terror takes itself. After accepting a ride from ex-boyfriend El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez, no relation to director) the two are besieged by zombies who have escaped from a nearby military facility. Cherry gets the worst of it with a severed limb, but necessity is the mother of invention; she’s provided with one of the better sight gags of the picture in the form of a prosthetic leg/M4 assault rifle (though coming as it does late in the third act, one images it might have been more effective if it were not advertised on every Grindhouse one-sheet).

At the local hospital, husband-and-wife Doctors Block and Block (Brolin and Shelton) seek to determine the source of the zombie outbreak while resolving issues apropos their own deteriorating marriage (read: lesbian infidelity). The survivors, including mad scientist Abby (Andrews), Texas BBQ proprietor JT (Fahey) and his brother, Sheriff Hague (Biehn) band together against the growing zombie army and a quasi-government force that will stop at nothing for a cure.

Rodriguez has followed the lead of his hero, fellow Renaissance Man/Type A multi-hyphenate John Carpenter, by assuming most creative positions (director, writer, producer, composer, editor, cinematographer) on his picture. The result is an enjoyable trifle, all said, though you wonder how much Rodriguez can truly enjoy a genre that he loads with so much winking, ironic scorn. Planet Terror is ridiculous to the point of satire; it’s not that exploitation isn’t worthy of the treatment so much as it’s masturbatory and beside the point. No one needs to have the absurdity of these B-movie spatterfests pointed out; if they did, someone wasn’t carding at the door. Rather than make an interesting film, Rodriguez has decided to parody some bad ones. Even if he succeeds more than he fails, where’s the fun in that?

Quentin Tarantino harbors no such conflicted feelings. For good or bad, exploitation is a genre he actually likes (having called grindhouse filmmaker Jack Hill “the greatest living American director” and meant it); he’s made a living appropriating the conventions of exploitation, applying his own stylized, fanboy aesthetic, and creating high art. In Death Proof, Tarantino has not set out to belittle films like Vanishing Point or Gone in 60 Seconds (the original) but simply to make a better version. He’s succeeded, despite only writing, directing, producing, and shooting his own film, likely making him the butt of jokes in the Rodriguez household.

The plot is a study in simplicity. Death Proof is essentially two extended dialogue scenes with two sets of female leads (Dawson, Ferlitto, Ladd, and Bell among others) piggy-backed by action set-pieces involving a deranged movie stuntman (displaced by age and CGI, suggesting a quasi-Luddite theme) known as Stuntman Mike. Thusly, we get to know these women a little before Stuntman Mike tries to kill them; it’s an obvious conceit, but great filmmakers are always demonstrating how the fundamental is ignored by hacks. The car chase sequences are fairly masterful in the way Tarantino uses music, framing, and editing to forge suspense and empathy (and further, real menace), even building off each other until a climactic paraph of typical of the director’s interesting vision of female empowerment (like Jack Hill and Russ Meyer, Tarantino dreams of zaftig women who can beat him up). For those keeping track, feet (another Tarantino staple/fetish) also figure prominently, accompanying the director’s screen credit in what must be a filmic in-joke.

Besides the Tarantino/Rodriguez double bill, Grindhouse features four faux-trailers by Rodriquez, Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead), Eli Roth (Hostel), and Rob Zombie (House of 1000 Corpses). Wright’s take on Britspoitation, Don’t, is the best of the lot, followed by Roth’s holiday slasher Thanksgiving. Zombie’s parody of Nazi sex and sadism, Werewolf Women of the SS leaves little impression while Rodriguez’s Machete is noteworthy for its superficial resemblance to current Mark Wahlberg release, Shooter. All four can be found on YouTube should you be so inclined.

Interesting footnote: Obviously, Grindhouse is not Tarantino and Rodriguez's first collaboration, nor is it their first attempt at an abbreviated double feature. Tarantino wrote and stars in From Dusk Till Dawn (he also appears in Desperado), which Rodriguez directed; the picture is essentially two in one – gangster/hostage and vampire movie (Rodriguez reportedly asked Tarantino to co-direct, but he declined). Tarantino also directed a scene in Sin City. On the other side, Rodriguez wrote music for Kill Bill: Vol. 2 and supposedly did some uncredited directing work on Pulp Fiction. They each wrote/directed segments of 1995 anthology film Four Rooms.

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