Planet Terror DVD Review
In Planet Terror, a rogue army unit is after a highly toxic gas that keeps them alive and turns men into blood-thirsty cannibal mutants. When their acquisition of the chemical goes awry, it’s released into the air of a small town, turning it’s population into the flesh-craving zombies. A small band of rag-tag misfits, including an ex-special forces soldier of legend Wray and Go-Go dancer amputee Cherry Darling, join together to survive the zombie hordes and end up in the thick of battle against the army unit that started the whole thing.
Planet Terror does an outrageously good job of paying homage to old grindhouse B-movie action thrillers of the ’70s and ’80s and contains a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek “mistakes” that will bring you back to the glory days of grindhouse. The “film” is intentionally distressed looking, more so during parts of tension, to first give it that authentic grindhouse look, but also to give the viewer a certain forebodding. The action is non-stop, as is the gore. The way reality is totally sacrificed in the name of over the top action, especially in regards to the character Cherry Darling, is typical grindhouse and leads to many smirks and cheers. I’m speaking of the way Wray fabricates a prosthetic leg/machine gun for her all while on the run and the mysterious way she fires it or it’s genade laucher (which propells her inthe air with the greatest of ease).
The special effects and make-up by Greg Nicotero (Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead and Day of the Dead with Tom Savini’s crew) is the best in the business today and is taken way over the top with an expert blend of make-up and CGI. Every gunshot wound erupts with half a body’s worth of blood, every wound is the deepest and slimiest, every zombie-mutant bulges and oozes god-knows-what from god-knows-where.
Planet Terror is not strictly a zombie movie, but a fantastic thrill ride that any movie enthusiast could enjoy. It has a wonderful cast, a spectactular soundtrack and completely sick special effects. If you haven’t already, I’d suggest picking this one up.
Just addin my mini-review (cut from my flixster review):
Re-screened this over my NY/DC trip (the other) week with a huge Rodriguez fan, and I actually taught him some things about this movie and gave him a quick education on what the “grindhouse” genre actually is.
Not only is this a perfect tribute to its genre, it would fit right along the films it glorifies had you released it 30 years ago. Rodriguez not only fully understands these films, he fully understands how to make one. This is by far the superior movie of the Grindhouse Double Feature, and you can teach people all about grindhouse, exploitation, and giallo simply by going through the film scene by scene and discussing which movie(s) that scene is alluding to. Even for people who don’t have an internal image database of those classic flicks, this is still one helluva fun ride that also bothers to treat us to some great dialogue and wonderfully absurdist script. A must see for SO many people, ESPECIALLY fans of the general horror or action genres; this is a great gateway flick to introduce you to the films of days gone by.