Grindhouse: Planet Terror

Title: "Grindhouse: Planet Terror" (2007)
Genre: Cult Horror
Rating: NR (not rated, not for kids)
Length of Time: 105 mins

What is it about?: Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan) quits her place of employment one night and walks right into a biochemical nightmare. After a bout with her own tragedy, she teams up with her ex-boyfriend, El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez) to fight the army of zombies that are infected with this experimental weaponry. Cherry and El Wray must also bring down the psychotic leaders responsible for spreading this "Project Terror" before it spreads from Texas to the rest of the world.

My Review: 3/5 Stars. This is quite a step down from "Grindhouse: Death Proof", which I gave 5/5 stars. "Planet Terror" is really a gruesome comedy that was just too doggone absurd for my taste.

It is gross, funny, absurd, over-the-top, shocking... did I say funny? Well, it's laugh-out-loud funny. My husband and I found the remote useful as we kept pausing to get a good laugh without missing the next scene OR rewinding to see the last scene we missed because we were laughing hysterically and missed it OR rewinding to see the last ridiculous scene again because we found it so funny the first time. Even the fake preview of "Machete" was funny. You get my point.

I can't say that I ever saw the "horror" part of this film, unless you include the nasty, gory, bloody, make-you-wanna-vomit scenes. Now, they were horrific, but I traditionally equate "horror" with scary movies.

I was disappointed to see so little of Bruce Willis (Lt. Muldoon) and glad to see more of Rose McGowan. Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson's appearance as Tammy was a nice surprise. Director Robert Rodriguez joins the ranks of directors who make appearances in their movies; however, his appearances are much shorter than Tarrantino, who also has a role.

I'm sure the men folk will be pleased to see the nudity in this film that was absent from "Death Proof", but don't expect much from the sex scene... except more laughs.

I was glad to see the soundtrack was no less wonderful than in "Death Proof", but missed the engaging dialogue that was not present in "Planet Terror". Even without good dialogue, I managed to have a favorite line: "You killed Bin Laden?"

I like that this movie played by no rules and was willing to unapologetically deliver surprises. The whole "missing reel" thing was a bit annoying, but I'm sure we didn't miss anything major. In fact, the director never even filmed anything for that section of the movie and added an artful way to deal with it. While the movie resumes at a funny moment, viewers are so surprised and taken aback by the missing reel message that humor is lost. I happened to have caught it on the second viewing, made possible by my trusty remote.

My Recommendation: Some will like it and others will hate it. Only you know who you will be. If you like seeing blood and guts, zombies and violence... If you usually find mainstream-inappropriate things funny... If the plot isn't as big a deal as director creativity... and you place more weight on shock-value concepts, you will probably like this. So, enjoy! If you find the above list of things offensive, do yourself a favor and skip it.