I’m going to eat your brains…and steal your knowledge”
Planet Terror. I could say so much about this movie. Let me start by saying it is fantastic. Planet Terror is the first part to a project from Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino called Grindhouse—a double-feature exploitation film is designed to emulate the film culture of the 70’s and late 80’s. Planet Terror is the one written by Rodriquez.
The film is done with a 70’s film quality feel complete with projector style film, starches and missing reels. The movie is action packed, has a great cast, pretty good affects, and this is why I’m nervous and hesitant to do a review on this movie. I feel that mine will not hold up against the many reviews on this movie already. It was a cult classic overnight. Rodriquez is most famous for his film based off the comic Sin City. In fact, many of the actors from Sin City are in Planet Terror.
I will get to the plot later but first I want to talk about the movie. Rodriquez is also famous for From Dusk Till Dawn, which starred the great Tom Savini, and Savini actually plays one of the cops in Planet Terror. Knowing that he has worked with Rodriguez before makes it less interesting that he is in yet another zombie movie, especially since Greg Nicotero did the makeup for Planet Terror. I’m going to go ahead and assume that Savini helped out too because, I know Nicotero can stand on his own but the affects were so far out there and over the top that it has to be a double play with Nicotero and Savini working side by side again. I love the affects in this movie. There is a lot of CGI, and as you, all know I am not a big fan of CGI affects. However, this movie is supposed to be cheesy as they are going for the grunge 70’s B-movie feel. They certainly did not want the movie to suck like a B-Movie even though if it sucked on purpose, that would be awesome, but they wanted it to be more of a tribute to the films they grew up with. Back to the affects, they are gross, disturbing, cool, and effective. This movie really has it all.
Rodriquez also wrote the main theme to the movie emulating the style of the great John Carpenter known for composing the scores to his movies most famously Halloween and The Thing (I recommend you watch both, but I prefer The Thing myself). Also, on the subject of Rodriguez, he also has his kid play the boy in the movie called Tony. I think this is great, not just; that he used his own son, like Hinzman in Flesh Eater used his own daughter, but that he calls him Tony and gives him that look that even he comments on. He talks about how in all the old horror movies that have a young boy character they all have that “same bowl haircut”. This is true and in fact, Rebel (Rodriquez’s son) looks just like Danny from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. The best part about this is there is more of a connection than you think, the boy in Planet Terror is named Tony, which is the same name of the boy that lived in Danny’s mouth (the psychic entity that protected Danny). Also,like Hinzman's daugher, Tony is killed in the film. This is actually interesting because Rodriquez didn't want to scar Rebel by telling him he died in the movie so he filmed an alternate version where he makes it to the end. His death is meant to be a little funny, slightly ironic and message centered. I'm not going to give it away even though I feel like most of you ahve seen it.
There are so many stunts that go flawlessly and I do not really need to talk about them, all you really need to do is see the trailer to understand them.
Moving on: the zombies. Now…at first I was not entirely convinced these things are zombies and to an extent, I am still not convinced, even imdb refers to them as zombie like creatures but after watching it again and reviewing the special features on the DVD, I have determined they are technically zombies, just a special kind. They are dead so they fit the minimum criteria, and they do attack, bite, eat and try to kill the people not infected, so they fit even more criteria. If you are not convinced they are dead, there is even a scene where the doctors talk about how the bodies just got up and walked away. I should talk about these zombies however, so I guess I should get into plot territory now. These zombies are not viral, bacterial, and radioactive; rather, they take the Return of the Living Dead approach: chemical. The chemical in question? DC2. Now DC2 is different from what we have seen in zombies so far, DC2 was used in the War on Terrorism and that is how it all began. DC2 is a cross between 245 Trioxin and the T-Virus. Like the T-Virus, DC2 mutates the people exposed to it. Part of the population is immune to all forms of it i.e. gas, bite, blood, etc. The bites are necrotic in nature and the chemical reaction spreads fast. It mutates the individual into a pus filled, boil and sore covered zombie freak. However, there is a cure—well a temporary cure: if you have been exposed it DC2 you can offset the negative effects by breathing in concentrated, regulated doses of the stuff, which is why the soldier are looking for it.
The story follows a go-go dancer who we meet in the opening credits. The opening credits in House of the Dead: Overkill are so similar to the opening credits of Planet Terror that you know they are satirizing it. Cherry, the dancer used to date the main hero of the movie called Wray. The only thing we find out about him is that he has had black ops training and is very skilled. During the scene where we are supposed to find out who is really is, the scene is missing (artistically so). The other characters are a married couple of doctors, the guy being very abusive and scary and the girl being a lesbian who is having her girlfriend (played by Fergie) come to get Tony that night and the three of them were going to run away together. However, the girlfriend’s car breaks down, she is attacked by zombies, and her brain is eaten. Cherry meanwhile gets her leg eaten off but that is shown in the trailer. A few other essential characters are the lesbian doctor’s father is like a Texas Ranger, and two other characters who are brothers: one JT who is obsessed with making the best barbecue in Texas, the other the sheriff who wants the secret recipe. A few lesser characters are fun. One is played by Rodriquez’s real estate agent, he plays the owner of the go-go club, and the other is a real life doctor who plays himself in all the Grindhouse movies. In addition, there is the scientist played by Sayid from Lost. And of course Bruce Willis as the asshole DC2 infected soldier.
There is barely any plot left to discuss after going into the characters without giving anything away. Many action sequences, violence galore, romance, a fantastic ending, and an attempted rape scene where Rodriquez and Taratino play the would be rapists. Even though it is an exploitation film, the girls kick as much ass, if not more than the guys.
So what do I think of Planet Terror? I think that is clear. There in not one thing wrong with the movie in my opinion. In fact, I give it 4 2/3 out of 5 stars.
I could go on and on about the movie, but this is one of the times where the film speaks for itself. I also don’t want to give away more spoilers than I already have on top of what the trailer gives away. If you really want more there is always Wikipedia.
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