The Grindhouse Experience

Last night was spent at a double feature that honestly captured the feel of double features that I went to as a kid walking to the Esquire Theater which was about six blocks from home.

Grindhouse is the new brainchild of filmmakers Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarrantino. They decided to take lots of money and make movies that look like it cost about $45 bucks, complete with made up trailers and film damage.

First up is Planet Terror which borrowed a LOT from Day of the Dead, the zombie movie that took place in a military complex. Tom Savini even had a bit player role! So anyway a chemical weapon that makes zombies is released, Rose McGowan looses a leg, and the story really never lets down. It was somewhat gory but it was very comical. It really didn't have the blood that looked like real blood in today's cinema, it was the cheap and very fake looking blood and hundreds of gallons were used.

Second up was the intermission, yep a real intermission. The lights went up for a couple of minutes then some fake trailers started. Rob Zombie directed the first one which was a take off of Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS about the Nazi experiment to create werewolf women in World War II.

Then Don't....the movie called Don't which was directed by Edgar Wright of Shaun of the Dead fame. This was a haunted house movie that seemed to have some of the old Roger Corman/Vincent Price movies mixed in.

Third up was Eli Roth's Thanksgiving which was inspired by movies such as My Bloody Valentine, Prom Night, Terror Train, Happy Birthday To Me, and movies of the like. Lots of teenage nudity, decapitations, and a big celebration day tie in. This was the funniest trailer and for anyone who saw any one of these movies you would immediately get the joke. No I'm not a Eli Roth fan at all and his movie Hostel....well you will probably recall my review of that movie.

Then Death Proof was the second feature. Directed by Tarrantino and is a take off of a 70's car movie. It had a great car chase, no nudity and very limited amounts of blood and gore. It featured the trademark Tarrantino banter and a great car chase. What kind of took me out of the movie was the blending of a early 70's movie feel being set in 2007. That was kind of a problem while Beersnob pointed out the inaccuracies of the car that was used. To me it wasn't so much that as it was when was the movie supposed to take place? Some people had hair styles that seemed to come from 1977 while using state of the art cell phones. You can pretty much see the movie trailer and see the plot but it was enjoyable and a fun ride.

The jumpy and scratched film, cheap sounding soundtrack, and gratuitous violence and nudity are what this film was about. Recreating the experience of a cheap, run down theater that played low or no budget movies all the time.

Heck there was even a guy five seats down and to my right that kept talking to himself during the movie. I LOOKED, he was all by himself....talking to NO ONE while I had the trusty movie going companion Beersnob to my left!!!!

There was a part where the film melted, missing reels, damaged film, intentional editing mistakes all of that combined with some very big budgets to RECREATE a low budget movie!

I can just imagine Tarrantino and Rodriguez sitting with the footage and trying to recall movies from their past to see how to take this footage and damage it enough to make their movie like the movies that existed in their memories. See the irony here?

I guess that is part of the feel of what they were going for and probably have a whole lot of ideas for cheap looking but in reality expensive movies to make. I enjoyed the concept of both movies and think the idea is genius but for some reason the execution was a bit off. The practicality of the project just didn't cross over to reality in today's movie going world.

Grindhouse was played one time per day at the theater we saw it in, the length alone topped three hours and I can see this double feature doing much much better with the home theater audience.

Enjoyable but only for a limited audience who actually experienced theaters before they became multiplexes and get the jokes and references that are all over the place on screen.