Horror History: GRINDHOUSE Was Unleashed 14 Years Ago Now
Mike Sprague
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On this day in horror history, Grindhouse aka a retro-style exploitation double feature of Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror and Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof opened in 2007. Fake trailers ran during the intermission between the two feature flicks.
RELATED: Tarantino Thinks GRINDHOUSE Was A Little Too Cool For School
Rodriguez’s Planet Terror begins in an ordinary small Texas town. One that becomes a grisly nightmare when a horde of flesh-eating zombies goes on the prowl. Now the survivors team up for a no-holds-barred escape from the carnage. The odds become a bit more even when Rose McGowan loses her leg replaces it with a machine gun.
That was the first feature.
Then the fake trailers hit. They included Rodriguez’s Machete, Rob Zombie’s Werewolf Women of the SS, Edgar Wright’s Don’t, and Eli Roth’s stellar slasher Thanksgiving.
RELATED: Whatever Happened to Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving?
Then came the final film, Tarantino’s Death Proof. It followed Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell), who likes to take women for deadly drives. He has doctored his car for maximum impact; when Mike crashes, the bodies pile up and he walks away without a scratch. But Mike may be in over his head this time. When he targets a tough group of female friends, including real-life stuntwoman Zoe Bell things get intense.
Rated R for strong graphic bloody violence and gore, pervasive language, some sexuality, nudity and drug use, the film sports an 84% approval rating over on Rotten Tomatoes. The Critics Consensus reads: Grindhouse delivers exhilarating exploitation fare with wit and panache, improving upon its source material with feral intelligence.
Tarantino and Rodriguez’s awesome double feature was NOT a hit at the box-office when it first hit. And all these years later, it looks like Tarantino has an idea why.
He says: “I think me and Robert just felt that people had a little more of a concept of the history of double features and exploitation movies. No, they didn’t. At all. They had no idea what the f*ck they were watching. It meant nothing to them, alright, what we were doing. So that was a case of being a little too cool for school.”
Maybe that’s true… but I sure loved the sh*t out of the flick!
Did you see Grindhouse in theaters?
Make sure to let us know in the comments below or on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram! You can also hit me up over on Twitter @MikeSpregg325.
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