Grindhouses were movie houses that tended to show lurid, low budget and exploitative films such as Death Race 2000 and Switchblade Sisters. They also catered to sleazy clientele, but some academics study them as part of a new discipline called paracinema studies. 

These films profoundly influenced the visual styles and gutter sensibilities of many important directors, such as Quentin Tarantino and Roberto Rodriquez. Also, many well-known grindhouse directors (such as Wes Craven and Jonathan Demme) graduated to bigger movies. 

Grindhouse films often went against common aesthetic sensibilities   and included large amounts of nudity, violence, sex and/or gore. Since the films were so cheap, they  could get away with sneaking in more social commentary or experimentation than some of the mainstream films of the time. 

Grindhouse, the film, pays homage to and affectionately parodies the types of films that used to show at these theaters. The film is gory, crude, subversive, over-the-top, and almost always enjoyable. 

The film was obviously made by grade Z film lovers, and it will probably be adored the most by people that grew up loving  ‘70s exploitation films. Grindhouse is made up of two full length main films punctuated by an intermission, and brilliant fake trailers that put most of the “Saturday Night Live” and “Mad TV” parodies to shame.  I laughed more at Rob Zombie’s trailer for Werewolf Women of the SS and Don’t than any other film shorts in ages. 

The material is self-consciously trashy, but Grindhouse succeeds because of the non-stop inventiveness of all the filmmakers. The two main pieces are directed by Roberto Rodriquez and Quentin Tarantino, and are linked together by overlapping characters (such as Dr. Dakota McGraw Block) and recurring actors (such as Rose McGowan). 

Rodriquez’s feature, Planet Terror, is slightly more solid than Tarantino’s feature. Its plot is reminiscent of George Romero’s underrated, The Crazies (1973). Both films are about civilians who struggle to survive outbreaks of deadly viruses that started out as military biological weapons. In The Crazies the infections drive people insane but in Planet Terror, they turn people into goo-faced cannibals. 

Rose McGowan from “Charmed” is wonderful as an extremely flexible ex go-go dancer who loses her leg to the zombies. Her kung fu expert boyfriend (Freddie Rodriquez) attaches a big gun to her leg stump, and they lead a group of citizens against both the military and the zombies.  Cherry’s gun fires even when she isn’t touching it, but the more implausible and outrageous it got, the more I liked it. 

Tarantino’s genre melding Death Proof combines elements of car chase films (such as Grand Theft Auto), and mad slasher flicks (such as Halloween) with female revenge flicks (such as I Spit on Your Grave). The genre hopping works even better here than in From Dusk Till Dawn. The film is about a scarred stunt man that makes a bad choice when he sets out to terrorize two gutsy stuntwomen and a make-up artist. 

Like the playwright Berthold Brecht, David Lynch, and Jean Luc-Godard, Tarantino delights in destabilizing the very concept of fictional time.  The characters in Death Proof dress and talk like they are in the 70’s, but then just when the audience thinks they are sure of the time period, the characters refer to Angelina Jolie and The Breakfast Club.  

The film also includes more than enough obscure film references to make a film geek delirious, including a truckload of references to Vanishing Point. Grindhouse should be sheer heaven for cult film fans. 

At over three hours Grindhouse is a bit overlong, and the film does have a few dead spots.  But it’s still highly recommended to viewers with a high threshold for gore. Grindhouse is a one of a kind movie, and it’s this year’s instant cult classic.