The James Logan Courier

Note: The Courier received two free tickets to a special premiere of this film from radio station Wild 94.9 in return for a promotional consideration.

Grindhouse Sends-Up B-Movies with Horribly Hilarious Results
Review by Fermin Sierra, Courier Staff Writer

Seemingly dropped on American Cinema’s doorstep out of nowhere, the action movie event of the year, Grindhouse, has finally arrived. Paying homage to the shoddy filmmaking of 1970’s exploitation movies, directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino have crafted a double feature (complete with fake trailers crafted by other contemporary filmmakers) that rivals their predecessors in both gore and poor editing.







First up is Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, a “B-movie/zombie flick / shoot-em-up” action movie featuring Freddy Rodriguez and Rose McGowan. The movie is complete with missing and melted reel along with all the gratuitous violence and blood any moviegoer would want to see, let alone be able to stomach.

Rodriguez succeeds completely in his attempt at creating horribly fun and bloody flick worthy of any true grindhouse theater.

The final movie, entitled Death Proof, is written and directed by famed filmmaker/ horror movie expert Quentin Tarantino; it tells the story of Stuntman Mike (played with little ego by Kurt Russell, the star of many exploitation flicks himself), who stalks groups of attractive young women only to kill them using his “death proof” stunt car.

While Tarantino gives up on choppy editing after the first twenty minutes of his film, “Death Proof” stays true to the “slasher” formula he grew up on in the 1970’s. Unlike Rodriguez, Tarantino cannot succeed as well as Rodriguez does at creating a great “bad movie”, Tarantino is the most talented filmmaker of his generation and can’t help but make a truly exciting and impossibly great film.

Grind House Hysterically Funny
Review by Nathanial Lealao, Courier Staff Writer

If you think that The Grind House is all horror and no comedy, you are totally wrong. This movie is not funny it is hysterical.

The Grind House has two movies put in one to make a totally new experience for the theaters. The first movie, “Planet Terror” is about an infected group of soldiers spread their virus on a small town and turns people into infected Zombies. A group of survivors have to fight there way through town in order to stay alive. The cast included Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Josh Brolin, Marley Shelton, and even Quentin Tarantino himself. The second movie, “Death Proof,” is about a stuntman named Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) who has a car that is literally “Death Proof,” that he uses to stalk and kill his victims, mainly women. This film starred Kurt Russell, Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito and a couple of the same crew from “Planet Terror.”

I loved both these movies, because they had comedy and I love comedies and the actors in this one are hysterically funny. I liked the first one because I enjoyed its kind of a story line more than “Death Proof”. Watching these movies was like watching Sin City and I loved Sin City. Planet Terror has a couple of odd moments , as does Death Proof, but if you love comedy and Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez movies this movie is for you.