QT & RR premiere Grindhouse in Austin

Tarantino and Rodriguez need no introduction. The former is almost single-handedly responsible for revitalizing the fledgling crime genre, and for nearly ruining it (inadvertently) by spawning so many inferior imitators; it’s virtually impossible to watch a crime film these days without spotting some QT influence. Rodriguez is more prolific, if less consistent: for every DESPERADO he makes a ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO, in a maddening pattern of transcending and then reverting to the worst indulgences of his B-movie pedigree.

For fans of both, witnessing the latest child of their unholy union is akin to a religious experience. As far as Tarantino/Rodriguez collaborations go, GRINDHOUSE rates somewhere above FOUR ROOMS and SIN CITY and below FROM DUSK TILL DAWN (excluding Rodriguez’s uncredited DP work on PULP FICTION).

The directors personally premiered the film Wednesday to a sold-out crowd at the opulent Paramount Theater in Austin. Both films were shot here, so any time a familiar location or face appeared onscreen, which happens roughly every five seconds, a portion of the crowd went temporarily insane. It was a big crazy love-fest, with the cast in attendance as well as the entire 60-member team of Lonestar Rollergirls as guests of QT and playing his deranged cheerleaders.

Rodriguez’s PLANET TERROR, the first film of the double-feature, is a genre exercise concerning down-and-out go-go dancer Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan) whose leg is eaten by mutants birthed from a biochemical weapon leak (hate when that happens). She is then fashioned an assault rifle prosthesis by her ex-fiancé Wray (Freddy Rodriguez), a delinquent with a mysterious past, and they reluctantly team up with the local outback sheriff (Michael Biehn) and a partially-paralyzed nurse (Marley Shelton) to take on the zombie townsfolk and the shadowy special forces (led by Bruce Willis) who are vying for control of the toxin. If you’re looking for the early wit of say, DESPERADO, or even the criminally underrated ROADRACERS, you might be disturbed to instead find… a bag of severed testicles. Repeatedly. If you feel that violence is the apotheosis of cool, then you’ll find yourself in good company.

With PLANET TERROR, Rodriguez has crafted an exquisitely horrific carnival of carnage, a circus of sleaze in which comically inflated squibs turn all exit wounds into arterial geysers, every Old Faithful of gore is lovingly captured in lurid snap zoom, and every splash of viscera and grey matter becomes so much paint for his ghoulish widescreen canvas. Between the orgiastic scenes of exploding heads, bodily excretions, and liberated limbs, the slumming actors spout ludicrous banter until you’re begging for the bloodshed to resume, which it inevitably does with gusto. Though the revealing trailer somewhat deflates the best shocks, the frenzied film still reaches a kind of inspired postmodern dementia that is rarely glimpsed in mainstream cinema.

After some kitschy fake previews by the likes of fellow retro-schlockmeisters Rob Zombie and Eli Roth, plus riotously campy ones by Edgar Wright and Rodriguez (the latter of which, THEY CALL ME MACHETE, Rodriguez is developing into a feature starring Danny Trejo), we are treated to Quentin Tarantino’s feature DEATH PROOF.

Early in his career, Tarantino once said that he wished to work in all genres, not just crime, and that he “doesn’t want to become known as ‘that violent director.’” After his last film, KILL BILL, he told an interviewer, “Sure [it]’s a violent movie. But you don’t go to a Metallica concert and tell the fuckers to turn it down.”

The second half of DEATH PROOF is a nerve shredding, retina-scorching firecracker switchblade massacre of a movie. Stunt woman-cum-actress Zoe Bell engages in some death-defying vehicular hijinks (gotta love the utter disregard for copycat kids trying these at home), and Kurt Russell is still a Billy Jack badass on wheels.

The first half is a characteristically chatty affair, and while actress Sydney Poitier burns up the screen every time she’s on and there are a number of quotable lines, the clever patter feels less convincing than previous efforts. The majority of the jokes are visual, which is great for playing “name that reference,” but this, combined with his increasing reliance on action, sacrifices some of the pleasures to be had from Tarantino’s salty poetry. “I’m a little afraid of my dialogue becoming old hat,” he told Charlie Rose after PULP FICTION. It’s not quite old yet, but it verges closer than ever to self-parody here. In a cameo, QT menaces one girl thusly, “Do you know what this is? It’s simplicity itself. You point it at what you want to die, you pull this little trigger here, a little bullet comes out here, it hits you right here, and you don’t look like Eva Gardner anymore.” Compare this to a scene in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN: “Rule #1. No noise. No questions. If you make a noise, Mr. 44 makes a noise. If you ask a question, Mr. 44 answers it. Now, are you absolutely, positively clear about rule #1? Rule #2 – you do what we say, when we say it. If you don’t, see rule #1. Rule #3, don’t you ever try and fucking run on us. ‘Cause I got six little friends, and they can all run faster than you can.”

The great Charlie Kaufman, early in his career, once voiced a concern about not wanting to become known as “that weird writer guy.” Perhaps some directors reach a point in their careers where they find themselves unable to escape their labels, and decide, for better or worse, to just embrace them.

Still, it’s always a joy watching these pulp auteurs playing around like kids in a cliché factory, leaving the joint in upheaval. And even when the duo are only firing on six out of eight cylinders, its still a hell of a ride, despite the mildly alarming suspicion you’re left with that these guys self-gratify to FACES OF DEATH.

-Penny Dreadful (originally published in Shortend Magazine)