The Friday Night Fright: Grindhouse

In a break from routine this week’s Friday Night Fright was seen on the big screen. The Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino Grindhouse project is on tour at selected cinemas around the UK in its original form, complete with fake trailers, and I caught it last night at the Vue in Leicester.

I’d previously seen Rodriguez’s Planet Terror segment, along with the fake trailer for Machete, at the FrightFest All-nighter back in November but it anything I enjoyed it more second time around. It’s an insanely gory and utterly demented homage to trashy zombie flicks that totally embraces the Grindhouse concept. Hilariously bad dialogue, over the top performances, a crazy and completely illogical plot and more gore than you’ll see in the rest of this year’s movies combined add up to a thrill ride that doesn’t pause for breath until THE END appears on screen and we hear the last notes of the greatest score John Carpenter never wrote.

High points? Josh Brolin’s mad doctor is a superb scenery (and thermometer) chewing performance. It’s also nice to see Michael Biehn and Jeff Fahey in something other than the straight-to-DVD trash they’re normally wasted in these days. The films only weak performance comes from Naveen Andrews, maybe it’s because I’m so used to seeing him as Sayid in Lost, but he seems out of place here and doesn’t really get into the real grindhouse spirit of things.

Next it was time for the three spoof trailer – Werewolf Women of the S.S, Don’t and Thanksgiving. All three are great fun, Rob Zombie almost made me forgive him for Halloween with his ‘tribute’ to the Ilsa films, while Thanksgiving is by far the best thing Eli Roth has done (yes I know that’s not saying much but it really is pretty good). My favourite though was Edgar Wright’s Don’t, a clever pastiche of all those‘70s/’80s movies with Don’t in the title that, at the same time, managed to look like it would be a fun to watch.

So could Mr T top Planet Terror? The answer is yes and no. No, he didn’t top Rodriguez for trashy grindhouse fun, nor does he top him for over-the-top gore or hammy performances. But he has made the better film, and the more enjoyable one. So while Death Proof doesn’t really adhere to the initial concept as well as Planet Terror, it is a thrilling ride.

It’s much slower than Planet Terror to get going, full of the usual Tarantino talkiness with the difference here being that, instead of his usual male interplay, we get to listen to a bunch of women. It’s occasionally amusing, though perhaps not as much as QT thinks it is, but only two of the characters come off as likable – Rose McGowan’s Pam and Vanessa Ferlito’s Arlene.

Things pick up when Stuntman Mike arrives. You know this is one mean badass because he’s got a nasty looking scar down one side of his face and he drives a scary looking black car (when he asks Arlene if his scar scares her, her response is “It’s your car”). Russell gets a lot of mileage out of a look and a few snippets of dialogue, managing to turn in a commendably menacing performance that dominates the film while getting much less screen time than the girls.

I won’t go into what happens next but the films second half introduces a second set of girls, and like the first set they get plenty of Tarantino dialogue, full of the usual pop culture references and punctuated with expletives. At this point I was starting to think “oh no, here we go again” but then, thanks to some very good acting from all four ladies, I started to like this bunch. Maybe it was Kim (Tracie Thoms) and Zoe’s love of Vanishing Point but I started to connect with them, even with ditsy but cute Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) so when they are put in jeopardy I was rooting for them (whereas previously I’d probably had more sympathy for Stuntman Mike).

The last half hour is one long chase sequence that features some of the best car stunts I’ve seen for years, maybe ever. It also sees Tarantino doing away completely with the grindhouse look (damaged film, choppy dialogue) as he puts on film an action sequence that had my eyes glued to the screen and left me breathless and exhausted (although that could have been because the film finished at 2am). It really would have been a crime to mar this footage and Tarantino must have felt the same.

Special mention should go to Zoe Bell who plays a part that requires her to be both actress and stuntwoman.  Luckily she proves more than capable of both tasks and nearly steals the film from under Kurt Russell’s nose.

At the end of Death Proof I was left with the urge to watch Vanishing Point again (and had it not been so late/early I no doubt would have). So Grindhouse gets a big thumbs up. It may be self indulgent but it’s also great fun and it’s nice to see it on the big screen as it was originally envisaged.

Tarantino seems to be rebelling against the early critical acclaim he received for Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, steering clear of ‘serious ‘ films and instead paying tribute to the films that inspired him with both Kill Bill and Grindhouse. Inglorious Bastards looks likely to follow that trend (if it gets made) and after seeing this I can’t wait.

For a full list of where the film is showing look here