Planet Terror: Can you handle it??

As I reflect on my once broken, now slowing healing ankle (which still hurts and swells up all this time BTW) I can't help but remember a comment posted by the ever astute Claire: zombies would not be at all bothered by the weakened state of a broken ankle as they feel no pain and still manage to function quite well (even though they may have body parts falling off or even out!)

While I must say I can see how her thoughts have considerable merit, I can't help but think it would be way more fun to to end up like Rose McGowan in Planet Terror than say, to be a zombie with broken bones.

So let's look at Planet Terror, since its one of my favorite zombie movies of all time and it features a one-legged, machine gun toting, badass named Rose McGowan.

For starters, Rose McGowan is hot. She may be weird and have awful taste in men (after all, she did hook up with Marilyn Manson - an awesome musician, but WHOA is he some kind of oog-a-lyy!) but she's still hot which is one of the reasons director Robert Rodriguez cast her for the part. He and Tarantino wanted to recapture the essence of the B-movie drive-in and that meant hot chicks getting dirty and bloody (more of this is evidenced in Death Proof, the 2nd half of this double feature classic directed by Tarantino, but we will save that review for another post.)

Cause & Effect

A group of military officials, headed up by the maniacal Bruce Willis, attempt to make a business transaction with a scientist for mass quantities of a deadly biochemical agent known as DC2 (codename "Project Terror".) When Willis learns that the scientist has an extra supply on hand, he attempts to take him hostage, resulting in the scientist intentionally releasing the biochemical into the air.

Soon their Texas town is overrun with zombies. Most humans were turned into zombies merely by inhaling the fatal vapors from the biochemical. Others with apparent immunity, were left to suffer the conversion painfully, in the "traditional" manner.

Cherry Darling, played by Rose McGowan, decides to quit her job as a dancer and pursue her dream of being a stand up comic. This happens about the same time she bumps into her old beau, a two-bit criminal named El Wray, and together they bump into a gaggle of zombies.

Result

Poor Cherry Darling barely has a chance to scream before her leg is ripped off by attacking zombies. Luckily she and Wray escape and make their way to a hospital where it would seem everyone (including other key players) is either being turned into zombies or running for their lives.

Now before I go any further, I feel the need to point out the obvious and that is in order to be true to B-movie and drive-in theater form, we gotta have gratuitous sex. Yes we had a gratuitous pole dance at the start of the movie, but in any really good B-movie we know that can't be enough. And what I found really entertaining about the following sex scene is that even though Cherry just had her leg ripped off, a piece of wood shoved into the stump, and no pain killers, she still manages to deliver.

Another point that is evidenced by this sex scene is that as both Rodriguez and Tarantino wanted to capture the essence of the Grindhouse era, they enlisted various techniques to make the films more like those that were shown in the 1970s. Throughout both Planet Terror and Death Proof, the films are intentionally damaged as many of the exploitation films of the 70's which were generally shipped around from theater to theater and usually ended up in pretty bad shape. To reproduce this look in Planet Terror post-production added film scratches and gate hairs to dirty up the “print,” audio was given pops and buzzes, and a couple instances were made to look like the film had been broken and was spliced back together after missing some key information.

Conclusion

Cherry, El Wray, and a few other survivors they picked up along the way band together and decide to skip town but end up being taken hostage by Bruce Willis' army. After a few scenes of attempted rape, melting genitals, Bruce Willis' face bubbling up and all but popping, lots of zombie blood and shock effects, El Wray swaps Cherry's wooden leg with a specially designed custom M4A1 carbine assault rifle/M203 grenade launcher (doesn't everyone just happen to have one lying around??)

Goodbye pole dancer, hello Ms. Badass!!

(I must confess I am more than a bit jealous at Cherry's ability to handle the rifle so adeptly. She doesn't even need to pull the trigger or reload!)

This roller coaster ride of a movie finishes up with the survivors forcing their way to a couple of hellicopters using Cherry's new leg and their own guns. El Wray ends up getting himself killed trying to protect Cherry and as he lay dying, tells Cherry to carry on, lead their resistance, flee to Mexico and raise the child he has just impregnated her with - you know, cuz "he never misses."

The movie leaves us with a scene in Mexico, where Cherry, with El Wray's daughter on her back, and an upgraded gattling gun for a leg, fends off an infected zombie while leading the remaining survivors along a Mexican beach......

Someone please tell me there is a sequel in the works!!!

Recommendation

There is a lot to swallow with this movie: the attempted rape, a child's death, references to lesbianism.... be sure you can handle it, and don't say I did not warn you.

As mentioned previously, this is one of my most favorite zombie movies. Watch it. Then watch it again. Like all good cheese, it just gets better with age.....