Grindhouse Presents: Planet Terror - Extended and Unrated
Grindhouse Presents:
Robert Rodriguez’s
Grindhouse Presents, Planet Terror - Extended and Unrated (Two-Disc Special Edition) Features: Disc 1: Planet Terror - Extended and Unrated Feature Commentary By Writer/Director
Robert Rodriguez Audience Reaction Track
International Trailer & Poster Gallery
Disc 2: 10-Minute Film School With
Robert Rodriguez The Badass Babes And Tough Guys Of
Planet Terror Cast Rebel
Sickos, Bullets, And Explosions: The Stunts Of
Planet Terror The Friend, The Doctor, And The Real Estate Agent
Running Time: 105 minutes
When
Grindhouse was released in April in movie theaters, the film was overshadowed by various stories that took away from the film; the length of the theatrical release, the love affair between then married
Robert Rodriguez and his star
Rose McGowan and the Weinstein producing team’s dissatisfaction with the box office receipts (leading to the separate releases on DVD), all took away from what was an excellent throwback to 70’s B-movie horror. Out of both films,
Quentin Tarantino’s
Death Proof and Rodriguez’s
Planet Terror, it is
Rodriguez’s flick that stands out as the better film.
Rose McGowan,
Freddy Rodriguez and
Bruce Willis lead an all-star cast in what turns out to be a roller coaster ride filled with more blood and gore than seen in recent horror movies. The film centers around an outbreak of a gas that causes mankind to turn into zombies. We later learn that the outbreak was caused by a group of military soldiers, led by
Bruce Willis, who end up killing Osama Bin Laden while on assignment. Instead of being touted as heroes, they receive a dose of the gas that turns them into zombies. While scouring the black market,
Willis’ military heroes discover the gas for sale that made them into who they were and they release it on the world. They also discover that controlled exposure to it prevents them from turning into the deformed zombies that are running rampant at this point. Along the way we meet our hero El Wray (Rodriguez) who teams up with his old flame Cherry (
Rose McGowan). Their run in with a Zombie, and Cherry’s subsequent loss of her right leg, leads to one of the film’s most memorable scenes, El Wray fitting Cherry’s stump with a machine gun.
There are some subplots as well, which include Josh Brolin as a doctor who finds out his wife is leaving him for Fergie (from the Black Eyed Peas) and
Michael Biehn as the sheriff who has been fighting with his brother over his barbecue recipe. I can’t remember the last film I watched wherein a man’s penis melt away, but it happens to Rodriguez’s pal
Tarantino as he makes a cameo as one of
Willis’ soldiers. While having El Wray, Cherry and the rest of our heroes captured,
Tarantino’s soldier takes off his mask that gives him the gas and attempts to rape Cherry causing the zombie effects to take over.
Rodriguez is not afraid to show this visual, which will be disturbing to any male who watches. The film wraps with the final battle of the heroes versus the soldiers, with Cherry’s machine gun leg taking out most of the zombie soldiers herself. All in all, Planet Terror is an entertaining and fun film that may have been overshadowed by many things but now finds its own identity as an individual DVD release.
