Grindhouse

The beginning middle and end are bad. Slow boring dialogue, bad acting mixed with stupid gory scenes. If there's only dancing on ice on Saturday night - go to be pub instead!

Grindhouse review

I couldn't wait to see this film and I got a chance to see it in its entirety on a trip to the states.

This is a film for film junkies, someone who really loves films to the extent that they will watch virtually anything.

Grindhouse is a creation from Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, both directors making two separate films and putting it together in the form of a double feature. These films are sandwiched with some excellent trailers for fake films each one directed by different people such as Eli Roth, Edgar Wallace and Rob Zombie. The film is screened as though the film is really old yet both are set in present day. Everything you see on the screen is meant to be there, missing reels, scratches flickers are all there to give the audience a sense of the genre.

The term Grindhouse is used to describe a run down cinema, possibly used as a "Bump and Grind House" being taken over to show movies.

The type of film you would see in these places was poorly made, often using really outlandish trailers to attract people to view. A lot of the time, budgets were small and quality of the camera work and scripts were sacrificed.

The typical movies were exploitation films or horror films often churned out and shown as double or triple features.

Back to the film, I shall review Planet Terror first (Robert Rodriguez), this is a gory all action zombie flick, the script is fantastically poor with cheesy dialogue that must have taken real skill to get right.

Some of the hospital scenes also are fantastic drawing sounds of disgust from some of the members of the audience (brilliant). The film is easily the better of the two for me, it flows really well the action is cheesy but exciting and the main female protagonist Rose McGowan is one of the sexiest leading ladies I have seen in some time. The ending is great and really sets you up for the next feature, Death Proof.

Quentin Tarantino's movie is in the vain of an exploitation film, featuring young sexy ladies and fast cars (sound good so far?). The script is fast and clever, exactly what you would expect from QT. Unfortunately these sexy ladies come up against a crazed serial killer and with a fear of spoiling the film for you I cant tell you much more except that things don't always pan out as you will expect.

Again this film is filmed brilliantly although there is more focus on conversation rather than action.

I felt it ended too abruptly and left me wanting more and I suppose a lot of these type of films left its audience feeling exactly the same.

The trailers are great and worth going to the cinema to see on there own, but watch out for the trampoline scene in Eli Roth's trailer. This guy has a screw loose, fortunately he focuses his craziness to making sick gory films, which I always enjoy.

I would also like to mention the use of music and both films are filled with fantastic tunes from artists such as Nouvelle Vague (if you haven't heard of the group, you will have heard their music mainly on adverts, please go and listen to them they are great) and Dave, Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch (not mitch and titch as the girl keeps calling them).

Grindhouse has not done that great in the states and because of this I believe they are splitting it into two, although I think this will detract from the overall experience, they are showing an extended version of Death Proof which I really would like to see.

See these films, you have read about them and if the thought of what the two directors had in mind excites you then please see these films.

I loved them and would have gladly sat through another 3 hours too see them again, unfortunately it looks as though we wont get a chance.

Excellent.