Grindhouse

[b.miller]

ok, here are some movies that, if you liked Grindhouse, you may want to check out for similar good times. Some of these may take some tracking down, but others are surprisingly accessible.

PLANET TERROR
I don't think Planet Terror is really a grindhouse-inspired movie that much; i don't think Rodriguez "took" too much from anything other than the genre and kind of film it is. He does use Carpenter-esque music in parts and all the tough-guy stuff is reminiscent from many other films... but these movies do sort of connect:

-Zombie: Lucio Fulci's most well-known probably... famous for a scene in which a zombie fights a shark. Some great gore, very Italian make-up, and it's zombies... other pinnacles of surrealistic Fulci gore are The Beyond and City of the Living Dead.

-Assault on Precinct 13: Rodriguez takes a lot of tonal stuff from Carpenter. This doesn't have any zombies but it does have tough guys with guns. Freddy Rodriguez's Wray character seems to me like a mix between the main guy in this and Snake Plissken from Escape from New York. Other Carpenter required viewing (as far as I'm concerned) is The Thing and Big Trouble in Little China (even though they don't have quite as much to do with this movie). Note: don't settle for the remakes of any of these movies. All of them are missing the "Carpenter feel" that Rodriguez goes after with Planet Terror.

-Audios, Sabata: ok, so this is a Spaghetti Western, not a horror movie. But the director, Gianfranco Parolini, reminds me A LOT of Rodriguez in that he'll have traditional action elements but also a strong element of absurd humor, like he takes it SO over the top that it's not even so much cool as it is funny. I think Parolini had a gymnast or circus background or something because there's always a strong trapese or acrobat element to his films. Five for Hell is a great example as a WWII men on a mission movie where one guy's specialty is explosives, one guy's good with knives, then one guy brings along a trampoline. Audios, Sabata's great because it has Yul Brenner and one of the bad guys drops a ball bearing into a little cup on his shoe then does a kick so fast that he shoots the ball and kills people by hitting them between the eyes. That sounds right up Rodriguez's alley if you ask me.

DEATH PROOF

Quentin's always much more influences and also much more overt about recognising his influences, starting off is a list of films he explicitly mentions in the movie:

-Vanishing Point: This is a car chase movie with a really strong hippie existential bent to it, about a driver named Kowalski who refuses to slow down on a trip between Denver and... maybe San Francisco? somewhere on the coast. The whole movie's basically one big car chase and the white 1970 Dodge Challenger is showcased in Death Proof.

-Dirty Mary Crazy Larry: a balls-out car chase film starring Peter Fonda and Susan George. This one's great and I like it a lot more than Vanishing Point because there's no hippie crap, just action. Some really great car stuff in here.

-Gone in 60 Seconds: "the real one" according to Zoe Bell in Death Proof. Don't bother with the remake. This is crazy stuff. it's literally all car chase. the plot and other equally worthless stuff are handled as fast and cheap as possible, lots of times with just voice-over as they show awesome cars on the street, to make sure every red cent went to the car chases. Amazing stuff.

-Convoy: I haven't seen this yet but IMDb said Stuntman Mike's ducky hood ornament comes from this so there you go.

In addition to the car chase elements, a lot of Death Proof is taken from North American Slasher films and, by extension, Italian Giallo films. There's no real diect reference (at least not that I noticed on first viewing) except that a guy's killing women, so I'll just list a few notables that I happen to like. Besides, both the slasher and giallo are SUCH strict genres that they're all very similar anyway.

GIALLI

-Bay of Blood: Mario Bava, sort of the prototype for the genre, where an unknown killer is taking out a finite group of people one creative murder at a time. This is also the blueprint for the Friday the 13th series and basically the whole genre.

-The Bird with the Crystal Plumage: Dario Argento's first movie and a really solid giallo.

-Torso: A solid giallo that I really only like for one scene, but it's completely worth watching for that one scene.

SLASHERS

-Silent Night, Deadly Night: just edging out Black Christmas as my favorite X-mas slasher, this one is amazing just for it's prologue with the boy being terrorized by his catatonic grandfather. Of course the rest of the movie's pretty great as well... killer Santa... great stuff.

-Halloween: I guess I have to mention this because it was so huge.

-My Bloody Valentine: Slasher + mine = good times.

A general note about slashers, if you're in the mood for one, is to go with the 80s originals where they actually showed the sex AND the violence rather than the post-Scream 90s ones where it's just barely the violence and never any of the sex. boo to that!

Now... for those still hungry for movies, here's a short list of some of my personal favorite exploitation movies. They're not really connected to Grindhouse in any direct way except to say these movies actually played the urban areas and drive-ins that the new movie wishes it could.

-Abar, The First Black Superman: Blaxploitation version of Superman where the guy uses his powers to mess with white neighbors. Absolutely hilarious.

-Cinderella: A sexploitation musical version of the story that's really funny and I couldn't believe ever got made.

-Poor Pretty Eddie: Hicksploitation where a black singer gets stranded in a backwater redneck town. I just saw this and it's already a favorite.

-The Candy Snatchers: Wonderfully uncomfortable movie about a group of people who kidnap a little girl for ransom but the dad doesn't care. Great movie.

-Impulse: William Shatner. That's pretty much all I need to say. If you think William Shatner is cool today, check out this movie. He also did a few other 70s gems that are unbelievably great: Kingdom of the Spiders and Big Bad Mama.

And lastly... here's a link to a full listing of films Quentin Tarantino has played in his film festivals here in Austin. They represent a lot of what he loves and provide a pretty hefty list of things to see if you're interested in the subject.