So I finally saw Grindhouse; of course I fucking loved it. Even better, I caught an 8 p.m. show (along with Allan Guthrie and Ed Pettit) at the AMC Orleans 8 in Northeast Philly, which is cool because that's where I saw more or less every horror movie released during the late 1980s: Phantasm 2, A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 4: The Dream Master, Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (and probably even Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan), Dead Ringers, Hellraiser, Deepstar Six... I could go on. When I was a teenager, I basically lived in two places: Marlo Books in the Roosevelt Mall, and the nearby Orleans 8. Both provided me with the raw fuel I craved--namely, tons of horror novels and movies and magazines and everything else that jacked my young imagination into overdrive.And this is what Grindhouse does beautifully. It's a fucking fever dream of adolescent fantasy.
That said, I'm not surprised it didn't kill at the box office. I think the Grindhouse audience is a little more specialized than the Weinsteins may have thought. Grindhouse is for horror movie junkies like me who grew up on Fangoria magazine and slasher flicks and Clive Barker novels and Tom Savini FX and all of that good stuff. The reference point in most of the advertising and promotion has been the 1970s; but I'd argue that being a child of the late 1980s also primes you up for this movie. Still, this may be a smallish audience we're talking about. Grindhouse has the gore and thrills of a blockbuster like 300, but perhaps its references (and frankly, running time) aren't for everybody.
It comes down to one question: you're either going to buy Rose McGowan with a gun for a leg, or you're not.
One last thing: I'm a big fan of closing credits, and holy shit does Quentin Tarantino nail it with the song that immediately follows the last frame of Death Proof. It's called "Chick Habit," and it's a mid-1990s slice of retro-pop that's just dead perfect for the 80 minutes that precede it. Complain about Tarantino all you want... but the man knows how to make a soundtrack his bitch.
Chick Habit is by the band April March, and is also in the movie 'But I'm a Cheerleader."
ReplyDeleteJust so you know.
Ah, very nice, Lou. Thanks for the extra intel.
ReplyDeleteEvery time I hear something new about Grindhouse, I just want to see it more and more.
ReplyDeleteVG
You know, I read Deepstar Six as Deepshit Six and really wanted to hunt it down.
ReplyDeleteAnother dream dead before it was born..
loved it although Rodriquez captured the essence of n exploitation flick from the 70's way better than Tarantino..Death Proof had too much of a contemoraray feel to it and the endless female banter was as excruciating as sitting thorugh an episode of the Gilmore Girls
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