Back in 2007, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez released a collaborative double-bill which paid homage to the grungy cinemas of their youth, the kind of sleazy flea-pit that showed cheap exploitation flicks and that no longer exists in this world of multiplexes. As I’m sure you know, that collaboration was called GRINDHOUSE and was made up of PLANET TERROR (Rodriguez’s zombie flick) and DEATH PROOF (Tarantino’s tale of a murderous stuntman). Tarantino and Rodriguez went to a lot of effort to reproduce the grindhouse experience, spending a long time digitally dirtying their pristine new movies, deliberately washing out colour and adding damage, even ‘losing’ entire reels. Unfortunately, some people missed the point completely and questioned why they’d gone to so much effort to degrade their films and make them look so much worse than the clean prints. Some people however, like me, loved the resulting picture – there’s a pleasing beauty to some of the dirt and scratches that just doesn’t happen organically anymore. To heighten the experience even further, the duo called in some of their director buddies to make trailers for fake movies to bracket the main features and so provide a more complete grindhouse feel.
These fake trailers were directed by, and starred, some big names – Eli Roth, Nicolas Cage, Simon Pegg, Rob Zombie, Edgar Wright – and featured some ludicrous plots in the best of B-movie tradition. The titles of the fake movies alone hint at the kind of movie we’re talking about; featuring genius like WEREWOLF WOMEN OF THE S.S., HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN and, of course, MACHETE.
GRINDHOUSE itself wasn’t particularly well received and after a poor showing at the US box office, was split into two separate films for everywhere else. I found that to be a massive disappointment because, as regular readers may know, I am a B-movie fan and to have a double-bill conceived and executed by two of the big names of Hollywood was like a dream come true. Having said that, I loved both of the movies (yes, even DEATH PROOF’s lengthy dialogue!) and am still holding out hope that a GRINDHOUSE boxset might be released in the UK one day, containing the original, shorter double-bill cuts of both films.
One thing that was quite well received however, was Rodriguez’s fake trailer, MACHETE – at the time of GRINDHOUSE’s release, it was almost discussed more than the main features – and it became such a cult hit that DJ Hazard made a dance tune using audio cues from the trailer. Part of it’s popularity was due to the fact that, at a mere 2:40ish runtime, it seemed to pack more action in than a lot of 90 minute films. The trailer also presented a concept so awesomely bad-ass that many movie fans clamoured for Rodriguez to make the real thing, and now, he is – and it’s one of my most eagerly-anticipated movies for next year.
Starring Danny Trejo, that “Mexican guy with the big tattoo” that has turned up as a minor baddie in many, many movies (HEAT, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, CON AIR, etc), MACHETE is essentially a revenge movie. He’s hired to assassinate a senator but is double-crossed and will presumably spend the rest of the movie in a bloody battle of vengeance. Not the world’s most involved plot. A surprisingly large number of stars are in it though, including Jessica Alba, Robert DeNiro, Lindsey Lohan, Steven Seagal and Don Johnson! I never thought I’d see a movie with both Robert DeNiro and Steven Seagal in it!
To whet the appetite a little, a teaser poster has recently been released (right), featuring a lo-fi pic of Jessica Alba as Sartana (thanks to Film O Filia for the image). I expect we’ll see a series of them over the next few months (Steven Seagal as Torrez; Lindsey Lohan as April; etc).
I look forward to being hyped up – I just hope the finished product can live up to the expectation placed upon it. If the trailer is anything to go by though, the movie will be hugely enjoyable. From stupidly over-the-top action sequences to a brilliant voice-over (“He knows the score, he gets the women… And he KILLS the bad guys.”), the trailer presented MACHETE as a B-movie with it’s tongue firmly in cheek, deliberately made to be so bad it’s good. If the feature follows the same premise, there’s every chance it’ll be one of my favourite movies of 2010. I just live in hope that Tarantino decides to make another grindhouse feature.
Here’s the fake trailer (WARNING: Not safe for work, contains violence, swearing and nudity!) :