Planet Terror
By Cory Peynado, Blockbuster.co.uk

“Now I’m going to need your balls”

Zombie movies are back! And who better to get our balls rolling than master filmmaker Robert ‘The Ripper’ Rodriguez. Part one of the original ‘Grindhouse’ double feature, Planet Terror takes pleasure in ripping the guts out of the traditional modern zombie flick. Now, intentionally taking us back to the low-budget b-movie era, we will finally get the chance to take an uncut tour of the cool older-generation horror movie period (all be it on our flashy new generation flat screens)

There’s always much to be said about the exploitation films of the 1960’s and onward. This was the time when shock value was pretty much key. If you could shock an audience and show them something that they definitely would not see everyday then you were on to a winner.

People would roll in to these open movie theatres in their cars, pay for a ticket, pretend to yawn with the real intention of letting your arm fall around the shoulder of your passenger and then relax and watch two or three movies, all for the price of one.

And this is what the Grindhouse experience is all about, slick characters with big guns running from deformed undead monsters that can devour their brains… what more do you need. The narrative of Planet Terror is as easy as brain pie; a military experiment gone wrong leads to the release of a deadly gas, which has the unfortunate effect of turning its victims into zombies.

The rest is just out right fun. When we first meet our heroine Cherry Darling (Rose McGowen), she’s leaving her life as a go-go dancer and pursuing a dream as a stand up comic. Stopping off at local BBQ pit The Bone Shack on her way out, she runs into ex-boyfriend Wray (Freddie Rodriguez).

As law enforcement, including a serious sheriff (Michael Biehn) and his idiot deputies (Tom Savini, Carlos Gallardo) battle the zombies, the doctors on call at the hospital (Josh Brolin, Marley Shelton) are seeing an increase in infected individuals. Eventually, it’s survivors vs. soldiers to determine who will live, and who will become part of this unending nightmare.

A word should be spared for the joke trailers too. It's rarely a compliment to say the trailers are as good as the feature, but in this case, they are just as brilliant as the film. Don’t miss them.