This film was of course, one half of the “B Movie” Grindhouse double bill that director Robert Rodriguez helmed with his buddy, Quentin Tarantino. It was going to be the movie event of 2007, but nobody told the public that and the film, in its original format, tanked with American audiences. The distributors panicked and promptly ordered the films split up into two separate releases.
Enough had probably already been said about the other half, Death Proof, one of the dumbest and most misogynistic slices of celluloid in film history. Planet Terror is at least occasionally funny, if only for the sheer stupidity of its lame-brained plot, which as it defies any kind of logic, I won’t trouble you with. Suffice it to say, that this is yet another sub George Romero homage, which has some kind of mystery virus turning mankind into shuffling, flesh eating zombies. It also has an uncredited cameo from Bruce Willis, and Rose McGowan as a pole dancer who when her right leg is eaten by a zombie, promptly snaps an automatic weapon onto the stump and is then able to fire it at will without having recourse to anything as mundane as a trigger.
As you’ll have gathered, realism is not high on Rodriguez’s agenda.
In an attempt to point up the B Movie aspirations of the film, no end of trouble has been taken in making the film look scratched and blotched and badly lit. There’s even a missing reel (complete with apology), which allows the director to advance the adventure beyond a point where it seemed there was no escape for the protagonists.
This would be all well and good were it not for the fact that Planet Terror wants to have its cake and eat it. It manages to achieve tricky FX shots – such as Ms McGowan’s severed limb – by access to the kind of special effects that no B Movie budget could ever have stretched to; and of course the danger in making your film look like a crap old movie, is obvious. If plot, acting and direction aren’t of the highest possible standard, you leave yourself open to looking too much like the thing you’re trying to homage. To be fair to Planet Terror, it does have its moments – but perhaps not quite enough of them.
This film is probably best viewed after closing time with a few pints in your gut, but as it’s an unapologetic gore fest, please don’t attempt to eat anything that has red meat in it.
