Dawn of the Dead

I’ve seen George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978) enough times that when I watch it, I pay more attention to things that go on in the background or margins of scenes because I’ve always been fascinated with the world he created in the Dead films. Unlike the many imitators and wannabes, he took the time to develop the protagonists, giving them flaws and vulnerabilities so that we care about what happens to these characters while still delivering the goods in the gore department. The end result is a smart, exciting and horrifying masterpiece that has more on its mind than killing zombies.

Taking place years after the events of Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn begins with Francine Parker (Gaylen Ross) waking up from a nightmare into a living one. She works at a Philadelphia television station embroiled in chaos, trying desperately to stay on the air. In recent viewings I’ve paid closer attention to what is being said in the background as Romero gives us tantalizing hints to this world whose order is rapidly disintegrating thanks to the zombie epidemic.

Two pundits argue about whether people are actually coming back to life and eating the living. As the opening credits continue to appear, Romero shows people behind the scenes continuing to argue among themselves. Right from the get-go Fran has a forceful personality as she’s willing to stand-up to her boss when she goes against his orders and removes non-existent rescue stations from being broadcast. In a nice touch Romero uses one of the T.V. pundits to give us the low-down on the zombie rules in Dawn for those who might not have seen his other films. We learn that the President of the United States has implemented martial law in the country and people are no longer allowed to stay in their homes.

Fran’s boyfriend Stephen Andrews (David Emge), a helicopter pilot, urges her to take off with him. She hesitates, a last vestige of loyalty to her job perhaps, until a co-worker tells her, “We’re off the air by midnight anyway. The emergency networks are taking over. Our responsibility is finished.” The way he says that last line – in a resigned way – has always affected me and strikes a slightly ominous tone. Later on, our heroes find a television and Romero treats us to snippets of news from the outside world. One pundit suggests that the zombie outbreak might be a viral disease. We are never given the full picture, but in a way that is a smart move on his part as he realized that whatever we think up, filling the gaps with our own imagination would be better than anything he could come up with and so, in a way, we become a part of the creative process.

As if to illustrate the martial law orders for people to leave their homes, Romero cuts to a SWAT team carrying out a raid on a tenement building. We meet Roger DeMarco (Scott Reiniger), a smart and able man who tries his best to avoid a racist member (James Baffico) of his team as they enter the building to find a mix of people and the living dead. The racist cop is a continuation of the men that shot Ben at the end of Night of the Living Dead only he takes pleasure in killing African-Americans, living or dead. His actions give us a first real taste of Tom Savini’s groundbreaking make-up effects as he blows off some hapless civilian’s head off with a shotgun blast.

Fortunately, this renegade cop is taken out by one his own, Peter Washington (Ken Foree). Interestingly, the raid on the apartment building devolves into chaos just like at the T.V. station, minus the zombies, of course. I like how the sight of the living dead affects these cops. One man is so traumatized that he takes his own life. Roger is also affected and we see the shock play out on his face. Peter isn’t the cold killing machine he initially appears to be. When he and Roger clear the basement of zombies, a tear runs down his face as he tries to keep his emotions in check, but it must be difficult having to kill his fellow man. For me, the scariest part of Dawn of the Dead is the apartment building bloodbath because the protagonists don't know what atrocities are lurking behind every door and the terror and confusion in such an enclosed space is unsettling.

Peter and Roger team up and the latter knows Stephen so they hook up with Fran and escape in the helicopter. As they make their way across Pennsylvania, Romero cuts to a group of redneck hunters who’ve teamed up with the military and are treating the whole thing like a hunting party complete with beer and music. This echoes a similar scene in Night of the Living Dead only with more a satirical vibe as the country music and the laidback attitude of the hunters creates a bizarrely festive mood, punctuating the pervasive feeling of dread that has permeated Dawn of the Dead up to this point.

Our heroes discover a shopping mall and decide that it is just too good of an opportunity to pass up. As they systematically take control of the place, Dawn of the Dead becomes a fascinating treatise on the pros and cons of materialism as over time our heroes get complacent and over-confident that they’ve rid the place of zombies. As is often the case in Romero’s films, humans are just as big a threat if not more so to the protagonists than the living dead. This comes in the form of a gang of marauding bikers that threaten our heroes’ peaceful existence. It’s good in a way because the bikers wake them up, reigniting their survival instincts and reminding them that no place is safe and that the best strategy is to keep moving.

I’ve always felt that Dawn of the Dead has never gotten enough praise for its excellent screenplay that presents realistic characters thrown into extraordinary circumstances. For example, there’s a good exchange in the helicopter as everyone debates how they’re going to get more fuel and Peter lays it out for them, cutting through the bullshit: “Wake up, sucker. We’re thieves and we’re bad guys, that’s exactly what we are.” He makes a good point – societal order has gone out the window and it is everyone for themselves. There’s another nice bit when our heroes discover the rather large shopping mall and decide to check it out. As they observe the living dead shambling by stores Fran wonders, “What are they doing? Why do they come here?” to which Stephen says, “Some kind of instinct, memory, what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives.”

I like that Romero isn’t afraid to have flawed protagonists. It’s more realistic and makes them more relatable. For example, Stephen isn’t as adept at killing zombies as are the well-trained Peter and Roger. His first run-in with the living dead is awkward as he clumsily tries to protect Fran. He’s also a lousy shot, unable to kill a zombie after three shots from his rife and then he almost shoots Peter while trying to nail another one. Roger is a little too cocky and over-confident when it comes to dealing with zombies. Interestingly, it is the characters with the least amount of flaws – Peter and Fran – that survive. Romero doesn’t pass judgment on any of these characters, but instead simply presents them warts and all and leaves it up to the audience to decide.

Romero’s script develops complex relationships among our heroes by introducing Fran’s pregnancy early on. While Roger, Peter and Stephen debate whether Fran should have an abortion or not, she sits in another room visibly upset at decisions being made without her two cents. Gaylen Ross handles this scene brilliantly and you really feel for Fran. I like that she speaks up, isn’t afraid to stand up for herself and lets it be known that she is not going to cater to their needs, that she wants to know what’s going on and be treated as an equal. She also demands to be taught how to fly the helicopter in case something happens to Stephen.

Scott Reiniger does a nice job of playing Roger’s transformation from empathetic cop to someone who takes too many chances and loses his objectivity with fatal results. I like how dealing with and killing zombies changes Roger. He covers up the trauma of it through false bravado. His gradual transformation into a zombie is a chilling one, not just because of Savini’s subtle make-up effects, but also how Reiniger conveys the change via his demeanor and the way he carries himself.

Ken Foree’s Peter is the calming influence on the group and he’s the natural leader if you can say it has one. He’s the first to support Fran’s demand to be treated as an equal, but with one caveat – she can’t go out with them until she learns how to use a gun. He also offers up chilling pearls of wisdom like the iconic line, “When there’s no more room in hell the dead will walk the earth.”

While Night of the Living Dead is rightly regarded as a landmark film, Dawn of the Dead is a more ambitious one. It is also better written with more fully developed protagonists dealing more with just survival, but things like pregnancy and a false sense of security. Like Night, Dawn is very much a film of its time as it offers up harsh critiques on capitalism and materialism, using the zombies as metaphors for mindless consumers. It also deliver the goods for horror fans courtesy of Savini’s impressive make-up effects, culminating in the biker’s siege of the mall, that stands the test of time and still looks better than the CGI effects of its noisier, flashier remake that dumped the socio-political commentary for stylish slam-bam action.

The image of the living dead wandering mindlessly through the mall while goofy-sounding muzak plays over the soundtrack is still one of the most potent images in any film of its kind because it speaks directly to our consumer culture. The living in Dawn of the Dead consume material items while the zombies consume them. Peter and Fran survive because they don’t need all their material items to exist. The mall being overrun by bikers and zombies forces them to leave all those useless creature comforts behind and take only what they need. It is implied that they don’t have much fuel left in the helicopter, which leaves their future uncertain, but they’re alive and for right now that’s enough.

DVD of the Week: The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season

In the past few years, vampire-themed programs have surfaced on television with True Blood, The Vampire Diaries and, recently, Being Human (both U.K. and the U.S. remake). Sure, there have been more across the board, supernatural fare with shows like Haven and, well, Supernatural, but up until now no one has attempted a zombie-themed program. Due to the graphic nature of most post-George Romero zombie films, it would be impossible to do a decent show (if you were going to have gore) outside of HBO or Showtime. However, thanks to channels like AMC and FX producing more challenging fare like Mad Men, Breaking Bad and The Shield, there is more leeway on what you can show.


The time was right for The Walking Dead, an adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s graphic novel series of the same name, about a small group of people trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. Director Frank Darabont and producer Gale Anne Hurd, no strangers to the horror genre, are the driving forces behind this show and wisely enlisted legendary makeup artist Greg Nicotero to create the gruesome carnage. His presence also gives the show additional credibility among horror fans. This isn’t going to be cheap, slapped-together gore effects, but realistically rendered stuff that nightmares are made of. The end result is an engaging tale of survival that isn’t just a bunch of gory set pieces but also about humanity on the brink of extinction.


After being seriously wounded by a gunshot, police officer Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) wakes up from a coma in a hospital to find it in complete disarray and populated with the living dead. Driven to find out if his wife Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) and his little boy are still alive, Rick arms himself and heads for the nearest large city – Atlanta – and quickly discovers that the world has been devastated by a zombie apocalypse. While the hospital scene recalls a similar one in 28 Days Later (2002), The Walking Dead quickly settles into a familiar Romero-esque tale of survival as Rick is reunited with his family and a small group of people that include his partner and best friend Shane Walsh (Jon Bernthal). The Darabont-directed pilot episode sets the tone for the rest of the series as our group of survivors encounters plenty of zombies and also living people who are just as dangerous as the undead.


The Walking Dead has the look and feel of a feature film as it starts off on an intimate level but by the end of the first season its scope has expanded considerably so that we get an idea of just how bad the epidemic has gotten. There are some powerful images throughout the six-episode season, like the parking lot full of dead bodies all tied up and bagged in the pilot, or Rick and another survivor covering themselves in blood and gore so that they can make their way through city streets populated by zombies in the appropriately titled, “Guts.” All of this horrific eye candy is juxtaposed with the interpersonal relationships between the group of survivors, in particular, the love triangle between Rick, Lori and Shane. Andrew Lincoln (previously known mostly for his role in Love, Actually) anchors the show with his portrayal of Rick Grimes. He’s a strong, stand-up guy that cares but over the course of the season, Lincoln shows the cracks that occasionally form on Rick's façade as he fears for the safety of his family and doubts his own leadership skills. It is also great to see Darabont regulars Jeffrey DeMunn and Laurie Holden as regular cast members who get some fantastic moments here and there that help define their characters.

It is the humanity the cast injects into their respective characters that makes The Walking Dead more than a simple gore fest and is perhaps the most Romero-esque aspect. However, where his stories were served in feature-length chunks, Darabont and his writers have the time to develop multi-episode story arcs and introduce characters that don’t make a significant impact until later on, possibly even in season two. This is one of the most interesting things about the show as we see what happens to these characters over time and how more of the nightmarish world they inhabit is revealed.


Special Features:


“The Making of The Walking Dead” is a 30-minute featurette on how the show came together. Darabont was drawn to the characters in Kirkman’s comic book and also the notion of a serialized zombie story. This extra takes us through the show’s genesis with the cast and crew talking about it with plenty of behind-the-scenes clips. Highlights include seeing Greg Nicotero applying zombie makeup.


“Inside The Walking Dead: Episodes 1-6” consist of five minute featurettes about each episode from the first season with cast and crew talking about their intentions for them.


“A Sneak Peek with Robert Kirkman” features the writer introducing more behind-the-scenes with clips from the show and the cast talking about it. There is some overlap from the Making Of featurette.


“Behind the Scenes Zombie Make-Up Tests” sees Greg Nicotero giving some insight into how they transform a person into a zombie. This is a fascinating extra as we see the process broken down for you to try if so inclined.


“Convention Panel with Producers” features highlights from the San Diego Comic Con with Kirkman, Darabont, Nicotero and others. They talk about how the show differs from its source material. The cast also join the panel and talk about their characters.


Also included is a trailer.


“Zombie School” shows how the extras are taught to act like zombies.

“Bicycle Girl” takes us through the genesis of a memorable zombie in the pilot episode.


“On Set with Robert Kirkman” features another location shoot from the pilot episode.


“Hanging with Steven Yeun” features the actor giving us a tour of another location and speaking fondly of his love for the comic book, which he was into even before the show was made.


“Inside Dave’s RV” features Jeffrey DeMunn taking us on a whimsical tour of his character’s Winnebago.


Finally, there is “On Set with Andrew Lincoln,” yet another tour of a location shoot as the actor takes a breather from filming.

Italian Horror Blog-a-thon: DVD of the Week: Dellamorte Dellamore (a.k.a. Cemetery Man)

NOTE: This post is part of the Italian Horror Blog-a-thon over at Hugo Stiglitz Makes Movies.

Michele Soavi got his start as an actor with small roles in Italian horror films like Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead (1980) and then worked in various capacities (actor, screenwriter and assistant) on five of Joe D’Amato’s movies. Soavi went on to work as a second assistant director on Dario Argento’s Tenebre (1982) and was promoted to first assistant director on Argento’s Phenomena (1985). He also directed a couple of music videos and this led to his directorial feature debut with Stagefright (1987).

After a spell working on other people’s films again, Soavi got another opportunity to direct with The Church (1989) which was a much larger film than Stagefright in terms of budget. This was followed by The Sect (1990) and finally the independently produced Cemetery Man (1994) (a.k.a. Dellamorte Dellamore) which was based on a popular Italian comic book called Dylan Dog and went on to become an international success.

Francesco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett) is a cemetery watchman who kills the living dead when they rise from their graves (“returners” as he calls them) along with his oafish assistant, Gnaghi (Francois Hadji-Lazaro). He can’t explain the phenomenon – to him, dispatching the living dead is simply a job. One day, Francesco spots a beautiful young widow (Anna Falchi) and is immediately attracted to her but she wants nothing to do with him.

After a lusty tryst with the widow that begins with a passionate kiss in a decrepit crypt and ends up with them making love on her husband’s fresh grave only to end badly for her, Dellamorte starts thinking more about the living dead epidemic. In a vision, he is told by Death to start killing the living, that way he won’t have to kill them when they’re dead. And so, he goes from night watchman to mass murderer. Dellamorte certainly isn’t your conventional protagonist. For starters, he reads old copies of the local phone book in his spare time. He seems indifferent towards life and death, content to merely exist. Only the young widow is able to make him feel passionate about life again and then she dies.

Anna Falchi, aside from being a stunning, sexy beauty with those pouty lips and curvaceous, hour-glass figure, plays three different roles and even gets to be one of the undead. It’s easy to see why Rupert Everett’s character falls so hard for her and repeatedly.

Soavi sets the darkly comic tone of his film right from the first scene where Dellamorte quickly and efficiently dispatches one of the living dead. The cemetery setting provides a rich, gothic canvas for which the filmmaker to paint his subversive horror film on and to immerse us in at every opportunity. Working with horror maestros like Fulchi, Argento and Lamberto Bava certainly paid off for Soavi who expertly orchestrates the carnage in such a way that ranks his film right up there with other splatstick horror classics like Re-Animator (1985), Evil Dead 2 (1987) and Braindead (1992). He has the living dead riding around on motorcycles and Gnaghi ends up falling in love with the disembodied head of a living dead girl that evokes the aforementioned Re-Animator only in a sweeter, more naively romantic way.

Like those movies, Soavi’s film isn’t afraid to thumb its nose at convention and smash a few taboos along the way. Cemetery Man has everything you’d want from a cult horror film: stylish camerawork (that, at times, evokes Sam Raimi during his Evil Dead days), cool gore effects, naked voluptuous women and a wicked sense of humor.

Special Features:

“Death is Beautiful” is a retrospective featurette made specifically for this DVD. Soavi cites the three filmmakers that inspired him to become a filmmaker as D’Amato, Argento and Terry Gilliam. He worked for all three at various points in his life and learned so much about the art of filmmaking. Soavi talks about how he got involved in the film and how he was hesitant, at first, because he felt that the screenplay was childish and he didn’t get the sense of humor. This is an excellent look at the making of this movie with Falchi and several key cast members also interviewed.

Also included are a theatrical trailer and a decent Michele Soavi biography.

DVD of the Week: Night of the Living Dead

In recognition of its 40th anniversary, George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) has been given the special edition treatment on DVD...again. Since entering the public domain, everybody and his brother has released this film on home video so the buyer has to really be careful which version they get because the quality of the film and accompanying extras (if any) varies. In 2002, the “Millennium Edition” was released and it had the best mix of quality transfer and collection of extras. So, how does this new edition hold up?
Barbra (Judith O’Dea) and her brother Johnny (Russell Streiner) are visiting their father’s grave and spot a man (S. William Hinzman) walking rather oddly among the tombstones. Johnny teases his sister with the now classic line, “They’re coming to get you, Barbra,” scaring her. As the man comes closer, she begins to apologize and he grabs at her. Johnny intervenes and he and the man struggle. Johnny is knocked to the ground, hitting his head on a tombstone. Terrified, Barbra runs for the car and manages to escape to a nearby farmhouse.

A few minutes later, a man named Ben (Duane Jones) shows up and by now a few more shambling figures like the man in the cemetery have appeared. After boarding up the house to keep those things out, Ben tells Barbra what happened to him and how he got there. They turn on a radio and a news broadcast confirms what we’ve already suspected – the dead have come back to life to feast on the living. Pretty soon their activity causes people hiding out in the cellar to surface: a man, his wife and their young daughter, and a young couple. They decide to pool their resources and fortify the house in an effort to hold up until help arrives.

What is so striking about the film’s memorable opening sequence is the matter-of-fact way Romero introduces the first zombie. The initial shot of him looks like someone out for a stroll but as we get a better look at him, something doesn’t seem right. The zombie doesn’t talk but rather snarls like an animal. What is also interesting is how smart he is – considering he’s a zombie. He knows enough to pick up a rock and smash a car window to get at Barbra when she tries to escape. When she takes refuge in the house he has enough sense to tear down the phone line.

For a first feature, Night of the Living Dead is a remarkably assured debut for Romero as he has EC horror comics scares with film noir flourishes and a dash of social commentary, especially with the film’s shocking ending (for its time). Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the film is the group dynamic. Romero presents us with a group of diverse characters and then bounces them off each other, pitting Ben’s rational heroics against Harry’s (Karl Hardman) cowardly arrogance. Romero creates believable characters who act realistically to extraordinary circumstances.
Romero also provides tantalizing details about what is happening through radio and later, television news reports that do a great job of establishing the frightening new world our characters are now living in. The broadcasts also hint at a possible source for the zombie epidemic – radiation from outer space that is a nice nod to science fiction films from the 1950s. Night of the Living Dead pioneered the modern zombie film complete with its own set of rules (i.e. the dead are slow moving and have to be shot in the head) that many other films of the genre would also adhere to afterwards. Romero’s film also demonstrated the power of an independently-made horror film that did not have to play by the safe, tired rules mandated by the Hollywood studios. It also launched Romero’s career, giving us several more thought-provoking films for years to come.

Special Features:

So, what’s missing from the “Millennium Edition?” Gone is Kevin O'Brien's 8-minute student film Night of the Living Bread (1990). Also, MIA is a collection of Romero’s early commercial work. Perhaps, the most glaring omission is the 400 pages (or screens) containing the original treatment, and more than 160 still images. Finally, missing is a video interview with actress Judith Ridley.

There is an audio commentary by co-writer/director George A. Romero, producer/actor Karl Hardman, actress Marilyn Eastman, and co-writer John A. Russo. They recall the creative solutions they came up with to deal with unforeseen problems and put crew members in front of the camera in order to cut costs. They provide plenty of filming anecdotes and talk mainly about how they pulled off certain shots, make-up effects, and other technical details on this production-oriented track.

Also included is a commentary by producer Russell Streiner, production manager Vince Survinski, actors Judith O’Dea, Bill Hinzman, Kyra Schon, and Keith Wayne. Everyone laughs and jokes with each others as they reminisce about making the film. They have a lot of fun recounting the stories behind what we are watching and speak admiringly of Duane Jones. This is an engaging, anecdotal track.

The set piece of the special features is “One for the Fire: The Legacy of Night of the Living Dead,” a feature-length retrospective documentary that opens with actors Judith O’Dea and Russell Streiner recreating their famous drive to the cemetery that started it all. They talk about how they were cast while Romero talks about his background in industrial films and how he cut his teeth on this kind of work. Screenwriter John A. Russo and Romero talk about the origins of the story. Most of the surviving cast and crew take us through the challenges of making this low-budget film in great detail. This is a fascinating, extensive look at how this landmark film came together.

“Speaking of the Dead” features an excerpt from a public appearance that Romero made in Toronto in 2007 where he talks about the influences on Night of the Living Dead. He cites EC horror comics for their content – lurid stories with lots of gore. Stylistically, he was inspired by Tales of Hoffmann (1951). Romero also talks about the downbeat ending and the angry feelings behind it. Later films, The Crazies (1973) and Dawn of the Dead (1978) are also touched upon.
“Ben Speaks” is the last, in-depth interview with Duane Jones in 1987 before he died in 1988. He has no regrets making the film despite being forever associated with it. The actor speaks very eloquently about his thoughts on the film and the fame that came with it.
Also included is the theatrical trailer.

Finally, there is a “Still Gallery” with various posters, promotional stills, and behind-the-scenes photographs.

Planet Terror

Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino are hardcore film buffs that grew up to become very successful filmmakers and friends who have collaborated on several projects over the years. Recently, they decided to indulge their love of Grindhouse movies from the 1970s (low budget exploitation films that pushed the boundaries of good taste) by each making their own motion picture and then releasing them together on a double bill just like the original films back in the day. The Weinstein brothers, god bless ‘em, went for the idea but made the critical mistake of releasing them on Easter weekend (cheeky counter-programming that backfired) and failed to emphasize that people were going to see two films for the price of one. As a result, attendance was poor and those who did go, some left after the first film. The Weinsteins freaked and when it came to distributing the double bill outside of North America, they split them up. Thus ended an interesting experiment and the first financial flops for both Rodriguez and Tarantino (although, both of these films should easily make their money back on DVD).

Rodriguez’s film, Planet Terror (2007), introduces Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan), a beautiful go-go dancer who dreams of becoming a stand-up comedian even though nobody finds her particularly funny. Meanwhile, at a nearby military base, a deal between Lt. Muldoon (Bruce Willis), a no-nonsense officer, and Abby (Naveen Andrews), a shady scientist, goes bad and some nasty, toxic fumes are released into the atmosphere. Back in the town, Dr. William Block (Josh Brolin) and his wife Dr. Dakota (Marley Shelton) deal with a patient (Nicky Katt) suffering from a nasty looking bite wound. Pretty soon, more and more people show up with similar kinds of wounds. Cherry crosses paths with her ex-boyfriend, a tow truck driver by the name of El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez). They get involved in a car accident and she loses her leg to some diseased and infected zombies with gross, puss-filled wounds. Before you know it, infected townsfolk turned zombies start over-running the town, forcing Cherry, El Wray, Dakota and others to team-up and start kicking ass.

Two of the most significant cinematic influences on Rodriguez’s films are genre filmmakers George Romero and John Carpenter. After all, The Faculty (1998) was Rodriguez’s nod to Carpenter’s remake of The Thing (1982) while From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) had the same kind of siege mentality as Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1979) and Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) and featured long-time Romero collaborator Tom Savini. Much of Planet Terror’s soundtrack features an atmospheric Carpenter-esque electronic score with a dash the Goblins’ menacing soundtrack work from Dawn of the Dead.

With Planet Terror, Rodriguez gets to make his own zombie movie with a Carpenter-esque badass protagonist. Rose McGowan and Freddy Rodriguez make for an ideal, no-nonsense couple right out of a Carpenter film. El Wray harkens back to tough guy protagonists like Snake Plissken from Escape from New York (1981) or Nada from They Live (1988) complete with his own recurring credo, “I never miss” that is reminiscent of Jack Burton’s “It’s all in the reflexes,” from Big Trouble in Little China (1986). Like them, Wray has a mysterious past, is a man of few words, and lives for the next 60 seconds, while Cherry starts off as a homage to the beautiful and jaded go-go dancers in Russ Meyer’s Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! (1965) during Planet Terror’s opening credits as McGowan bumps and grinds her way through an appropriately sleazy tune. Over the course of the film, Cherry is transformed into a machine gun-toting babe . . . it just so happens that the gun is strapped to her stump. McGowan is definitely not the most skilled thespian but her limitations are perfect for this tribute to schlock. And like Carpenter, Rodriguez knows exactly how to make his heroes look cool, like in the scene where Wray stabs and slashes his way through a hospital of infected zombies.

Rodriguez pays homage to 1980 and 1990s genre character actors with the casting of Michael Biehn as the town sheriff (The Terminator, Aliens), Jeff Fahey as a grizzled chef (Body Parts), and make-up effects legend Tom Savini as an incompetent deputy who meets his demise in a sequence reminiscent of one of his most spectacular gore gags from Day of the Dead (1985). These guys have suffered through quite a few lean years filled with forgettable direct-to-video fare and it’s great to see them getting juicy, prominent roles to remind everyone how great they were and can still be given the right material. Fahey, especially, is excellent as J.T., owner of the local diner and who keeps his delicious BBQ sauce a secret from everyone. He starts off as a source of comedy, the grizzled chef stereotype (“Now that’s rump roast,” he says as hew watches the curvaceous Fergie drive away) but towards the end of the film he gets a rather poignant scene as he’s reunited with his brother. Fahey really sells the scene with his sad eyes and he has great chemistry with Biehn – someone should really pair these guys together in a buddy action flick. Biehn, who had such a great run in the ‘80s as James Cameron’s go-to guy, gets to do what he does best by playing a gruff, intense man of action. His antagonistic relationship with Rodriguez’s El Wray is established early on and plays well over the course of the film until they finally develop a grudging respect for each other.

In comparison to the energetic Planet Terror, Tarantino’s Death Proof feels bloated and stagnant. The three girls we meet at the beginning of the film are all wrong. Girls that age don’t talk like that. They don’t name-check Vanishing Point (1971) and they don’t listen to the kind of music that they do in the film – songs by the likes of Joe Tex and The Coasters?! Maybe one of the girls but not all of them. The dialogue they spout sounds like girls trying to impress a director like Tarantino. I expected to be disappointed by this film but it was even worse than I had feared. If the mandate set forth by Rodriguez and QT was to pay homage to the Grindhouse films of the 1960s and 1970s, than the former succeeded where the later failed. QT created a talkie instead of a Grindhouse film. What is the prevailing motif in Death Proof, boring dialogue? The only Grindhouse-esque touch is QT’s foot fetish with lots of lingering close-up shots of young women’s feet. That’s not really my thing, but hey, whatever floats your boat, I suppose. Is Death Proof actually Steel Magnolias (1989) for the Fergie set? It is hard to make Kurt Russell look bad in a film but he hasn’t looked this bad since Captain Ron (1992).

To further the homage to the Grindhouse aesthetic, Rodriguez digitally altered the transfer so that it resembles a crappy, worn-out print that you would see back in the day, complete with bad splices, lines through the image, fading colors, and even a missing reel. It’s ironic that he is using cutting edge technology to make an old school, low-tech film. Rodriguez is clearly having a blast with the genre as he gleefully throws in all sorts of over-the-top gore, sex, random large explosions, and wildly inventive action sequences as you would come to expect from one of his films. He is also not afraid to kill of animals, women, and the ultimate Hollywood taboo – children. Would Planet Terror ever have appealed to a mainstream audience? Probably not. It was destined to develop a cult following which home video will no doubt help develop. All I know is, if I was a teenager, Planet Terror probably would have been my favorite film of all time. Rodriguez is more successful at emulating/paying homage to the Grindhouse genre than QT and Death Proof, especially with his faux trailer for Machete (which I hope he makes good on his promise to make into a feature-length film), even if he’s really celebrating ‘80s genre films.