Nostalgia for Vintage: 'Grindhouse'

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WATCHING "PLANET TERROR" AND "DEATH PROOF" in separate DVD editions is like having dinner with two friends who used to date. It's awkward, overlong and just reminds you how much fun they were together.

Earlier this year, these two movies were released in theaters as "Grindhouse," a double feature that re-created the experience of seedy '70s moviegoing, complete with aged film stock, missing reels, fake trailers, and — if directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino could have pulled it off — stale popcorn and sticky floors.

"Grindhouse" tanked at the box office, so the Weinstein Company is releasing the movies separately on DVD, with the explicit promise of a bigger, better set in the near future. How cheap are these editions? They didn't even remove the "Grindhouse" title card from the "Planet Terror" DVD.

Without the immersive thrill of the double feature, neither movie holds up very well on the smaller screen. Tarantino has hot-rodded "Death Proof" with several new scenes and more time with his eight lead actresses, including a lap dance from Vanessa Ferlito. The film idles when it should be racing, but the mid-movie plot twist retains its visceral shock, and the climactic chase scene really is one of the most thrilling committed to film.

"Death Proof" may be the better film, but "Planet Terror" is the better disc, if only for the volume and depth of its special features — a commentary track, an audience reaction track and Rodriguez in his Ten-Minute Film School, explaining how his crew used CGI and old-fashioned stuntwork to pull off complicated scenes on a tight budget.

The most glaring omission from these sets is the trio of mock previews (by Eli Roth, Edgar Wright and Rob Zombie) that were such an integral part of the original bill. They'll surely be restored when these two movies get back together, making these "special" editions especially redundant.

Written by Express contributor Stephen M. Deuser

Photos courtesy Andrew Cooper/Dimension Films