Roberto Giacomelli
•In a dusty Texan town, the DC2, a biochemical agent used by the American government as a weapon of mass destruction, is released into the air. The venomous gas begins to infect the town's inhabitants, transforming them into pustular plague victims craving brains and human flesh. Cherry, a lap-dancer who lost her right leg due to an attack by the infected, along with her ex-boyfriend Wray, will find themselves fighting the threat that invades the town, eventually joining a group of survivors in search of an escape.
GRINDHOUSE. The evocative name recalls the grating noise produced by film projection machines; Grindhouse were seedy theaters on the outskirts of American cities between the 1960s and 1970s; for a single ticket, one could watch a double feature, i.e., a double show, and the stars of these low-budget screenings were B-movies that spanned the most varied genres: from horror to action, from sci-fi to erotic, but one could go even deeper and watch women-in-prison movies, spaghetti-westerns, biker movies, kung-fu movies, beach party movies, and many others; often in poor audio and video conditions, with missing reels, shaky audio, and frequent out-of-focus moments.
Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, both raised on Grindhouse theaters and worshipping the B-movies shown there, had the brilliant idea of reviving today's double feature formula, each directing a feature film to be presented to the public in a single long show interspersed with four fake trailers, i.e., previews of entirely fictional films, directed by three young protégés of pulp cinema (Rob Zombie, Eli Roth, Edgar Wright; the fourth trailer was directed by Rodriguez himself). "Grindhouse" is thus divided into two films: "Death Proof" (in Italy "A prova di morte"), directed by Quentin Tarantino, and "Planet Terror," by Robert Rodriguez; in Europe, however, after the disastrous box office flop in the U.S., "Grindhouse" was brutally split into two and released with two separate releases, thus distorting the nostalgia operation that Rodriguez and Tarantino had created.
PLANET TERROR. A flimsy plot echoing references to "Nightmare in a Deadly City" and "The Return of the Living Dead" serves as a pretext for an hyperbolic and kinetic splatterhouse where Robert Rodriguez ("From Dusk Till Dawn"; "Sin City") proves to have perfectly captured the essence of the Grindhouse operation. The frenetic pace, the gallons of blood spilled, and the comic book-style antics are the elements of this fantastic feature film that cannot fail to satisfy every true connoisseur of the beautiful horror-splatter cinema that invaded the screens of the 1970s and 1980s. Every frame, skillfully aged in post-production, exudes exploitation; every absurd idea, from the machine gun replacing a leg to the bio-chemical engineer's collection of testicles, is a symbol of love for excess and the desire to stage a winking spectacle capable of raising the adrenaline of the most seasoned viewer.
The disgusting plague victims (called "Sickos" in the original version) are crafted in a handmade and effective way by the award-winning Berger and Nicotero team and strive in every way to replicate the trashy look of the infected in Umberto Lenzi's "Nightmare in a Deadly City," reaching incredible variations that bring to mind the stomach-churning transformations seen in Carpenter's "The Thing." Much of the special effects, then, stage dismemberments and bodily explosions so excessive as to appear caricatured, reaching their peak in the incredible fate of Deputy Sheriff Tolo (played by Tom Savini) and the irresistible scene in which the protagonists' cars make their way by running over the plague victims, who explode like blood-filled balloons.
Rodriguez's direction is so frenetic and blatantly vintage that it manages to unite with surprising naturalness the virtuosity of "Desperado" with the classic experimentalism of some of our national authors, noticeable in improbable zooms and the skillful editing work. The screenplay, as mentioned, is of extreme simplicity in content and submits the story to a sure spectacle of visual, emotional, and visceral entertainment, although the strange reference to the current Gulf War and a fictional death of Bin Laden do not go unnoticed, giving the film a pretextual political subtext that descends incredibly into the delirious voluntary trash.
The cast of "Planet Terror" is simply perfect! A host of actors known to the genre film audience, directed to the best and capable of giving each character a magical over-the-top touch that makes them natural in their exploitative roles. In the leading roles, we find Rose McGowan, already appeared in the Tarantino segment here in the role of Cherry, the beautiful lap-dancer who will wear an M4 instead of a leg, and Freddy Rodriguez (Harsh Times – Days of Hate) in the role of the mysterious and heroic Wray. In supporting roles, we find Marley Shelton (Pleasantville) as the fascinating Dr. Dakota Block, Josh Brolin (The Man Without a Shadow) as her husband William, Jeff Fahey (Darkman 2) as the cook T.J., Michael Biehn (Terminator) as his brother Sheriff Hague. But there are still the famous faces of Tom Savini (the deputy sheriff), Bruce Willis (the evil infected soldier), Quentin Tarantino (the rapist soldier), Michael Parks (who plays for the fourth time the role of Sheriff Earl McGraw) and Carlos Gallardo (the Mariachi of Rodriguez's first film, here in the role of Agent Carlos).
RODRIGUEZ TOUCH. Robert Rodriguez can be considered the effective father of the Grindhouse operation, since the double feature was born from his idea, later developed with Tarantino. In reality, the screenplay of "Planet Terror" dates back to when Rodriguez was shooting "The Faculty" (1998), and saw the idea of a zombie film that the director wanted to make because concerned about a future disappearance of a genre that he had always appreciated. The screenplay then excluded the true zombie in favor of the infected being, after a conversation between Rodriguez and Lenzi about the film "Nightmare in a Deadly City."
The references to the style and excessive themes of the Texan director are noticeable, beyond the cast and camera movements, in the total care of the product that makes Rodriguez a complete author; in fact, in addition to directing and screenwriting, the inventor of the Mariachi has taken care of the photography, editing, and music, the latter, according to the director himself, should evoke the Carpenter soundtracks and Carpenter himself would have participated in the construction of the soundtrack (in the end, he simply gave the song "The crazies come out" from "Escape from New York"). In addition, in the Italian edition of "Planet Terror" you can watch the fake trailer of "Machete" (which you can watch at the end of the review), the pulp with Danny Trejo (From Dusk Till Dawn) which apparently is materializing into a product destined for the home video market and directed by Rodriguez himself.
In short, everything seems perfect in this "Planet Terror," perfect for almost two hours of intelligent, citational fun and for a rare dive into the B-movie cinema of the 1980s, which will not fail to thrill the viewer eager for strong emotions.
Half a brain is mandatory!
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