This is the second installment I saw of Grindhouse and was directed by Quentin Tarantino. See my review of Planet Terror if you need an intro to what the Grindhouse films are.
After seeing both of the Grindhouse films once, I’d have to say Death Proof was my favorite of the two. Maybe it was just more of my style. I’m not really into horror films anyways. I’m also a huge fan of Tarantino and his films. Just like some other heavily styled directors (Wes Anderson, the Coen Brothers, P.T. Anderson, Kevin Smith, Hitchcock, etc) you should be able to easily spot this as a Tarantino film if you’re familiar with his previous works. It really seemed like Quentin was trying to create his own version of Smith’s Askewniverse. Kevin Smith has his own little universe he has created amongst a series of movies in which characters, timelines, places, and situations float between the films. Tarantino, and this might just be because of the order I saw them, reuses characters and places from Planet Terror. He also reuses some actors/character from his previous films. If you’ve seen Kill Bill, you’ll recognize the Texas sherrif and his son.
At first I thought this was a real ripoff and I complained to Liz about it. When I had first heard about these two films being made, my understanding was they were going to make “crappy” movies nostalgic of their childhoods. I felt like Rodriguez had stuck to the agreement and Tarantino cheated. The quality of Death Proof just seemed much better than the first film I saw. In reality, and I didn’t take the time to look anything up, I have no idea what the agreement was. So that probably doesn’t matter, and, if Tarantino wants to reuse any of his stuff he has every right.
So Death Proof is about a movie stunt actor who has a “death proof” car. It’s reinforced and has the fancy seat belts so he can do crazy things with his car and not be killed. This “crazy” man with his crazy car also happens to be a bit of a serial killer. He likes to stalk women, terrorize them on the road and kill them with his car. We see Stuntman Mike, played by Kurt Russell, in two different situations terrorizing two different groups of women. I won’t tell you what happens because that’s half the fun of watching.
I highly suggest watching Death Proof over Planet Terror if you need to pick between the two. As usual there is some amazing music/soundtrack to go along with interesting scenes and scenarios. Tarantino has a great knack for doing this. I believe the radio station everyone is listening to is the same station from Resevoir Dogs. I also love the fake trailer for Machete. It stars Danny Trejo’s character from El Mariachi.
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