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Originally released in a double bill with the Quentin Tarantino directed Death Proof – under the Grindhouse
label – this homage to everything Drive-in Theatre takes its cue from
the classically over-the-top zombie movies of the 70s; you know, the
ones with the corn syrup, exploding heads and mass amputations.
It’s meant to look and feel like a crappy old movie – problem is, it’s pretty good. Trashy, but good.
Featuring
'it' stars like Bruce Willis, Rose McGowan, Naveen Andrews, Freddy
Rodriguez, Marley Shelton and Josh Brolin, as well as forgotten action
vets like Michael Biehn and Jeff Fahey (playing brothers here), Terror is an hour-and-a-half of non-stop gory and over-the-top zombie madness.
You’ve
got a bunch of reanimated corpses invading a small town with a local
rebel (Rodriguez), his recently amputated friend (McGowan, looking ever
so sexy) and the local police force (led By Sheriff Biehn, of The Terminator
fame) out to stop them. Brolin hams it up as a psychotic doctor;
Shelton plays his long-suffering young wife; Andrews (TVs Lost)
plays a kick-ass military scientist ; Willis plays a hard-nosed
military man, and filmmaker Quentin Tarantino pops up to play the
film’s big sleaze, a rapist.
With film crackles, missing reels, and cigarette burns accompanying the corny fun on screen, Planet Terror is a unique and enjoyable trip back to yesteryear. (I don’t know if I personally enjoyed it as much as Tarantino’s Death Proof,
but it’s been said that will like one more so than the other). Not to
say the film is merely endurable rubbish, it isn’t, in fact Rodriguez’s
film borderlines on actually being a ‘real’ flick – something that
could’ve been released without the film crackles and missing reels.
He’s
put a lot of his work into this – right down to making the audience
give a hoot about the characters, not to mention the crafty special
effects – much more so than any filmmaker in the Grindhouse
days would’ve. Still, the novelty of it does start to wear off about an
hour into it, but stick with it, if only for the reveal of the big bad
at the end.
Buy Death Proof and this one; watch them back-to-back in your loungeroom and you can have the Grindhouse experience they prevented many of us from having earlier this year.
EXTRAS
The two-disc Planet Terror DVD features roughly the same amount and
type of extras that the Death Proof DVD did – including featurettes
on the cast, the director’s, the stunts and so on – but the only
difference here is Rodriguez was good enough to do an audio commentary
(Tarantino did not). Like his '10 Minute Film School', where he talks
about cost-effective ways to do effects and the like, Rodriguez gives
listeners a heap of pointers in the commentary, assuming most are
listening because they’re wannabe filmmakers.
He’s also not afraid to
be brutally honest or let slip some insider secrets. Conclusion:
Movie 75% Extras: 65%
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