Chick Habit

So I saw Grindhouse last night. SPOILERS AHEAD!

There’s been a lot of debate as to whether Rodriguez’s or Tarantino’s half is better; I gather that many viewers have found the Tarantino half talky and slow-moving. By my vote, however, the Tarantino half is far and away the better of the two halves. But those who liked it less were accurately tracking a fact: the Tarantino half just isn’t a grindhouse-type movie. It’s a Tarantino movie based on a grindhousesque plot device, which is another matter entirely. And Tarantino movies generally are mostly talk with a few vivid but brief incidents of violence. (Okay, that’s not true of Kill Bill, but it’s certainly true of Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown.)

The Tarantino half, Death Proof, is thus a striking contrast with the nonstop gorefest of Rodriguez’s half, Planet Terror; this was the Rodriguez of From Dusk Till Dawn (even down to the Mexican pyramid at the end) – an endless stream of adolescent grossouts with no emotional center or connection. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; I’m not denying that the Rodriguez half was fun. It’s just what it set out to be – a parody of zombie movies – and that sort of film doesn’t necessarily need to be anything but wacky and superficial. I didn’t much care which characters lived and which died – but so what? Planet Terror is the kind of feature you’re supposed to make if you’re contributing to a project like Grindhouse; it’s in the same spirit as the fake trailers (arguably it’s one of the fake trailers). Tarantino is the one who broke the rules by making a real movie.

Death Proof, unlike Planet Terror, is not a parody of anything. Like I said, it’s a Tarantino movie – a lot simpler in story structure than his other movies (it’s even told in straightforward linear sequence, which must have gone against his grain), but a Tarantino movie nonetheless. Tarantino movies are about people; they’re character-driven and dialogue-driven. And in Death Proof you definitely care who lives and who dies. And so I have to ask: what the hell is it doing in this movie, unequally yoked together with Planet Terror? Planet Terror followed by Death Proof is like a bowl of cheetos followed by a gourmet meal. And I worry that Death Proof will miss some of the audience it deserves (box office returns have reportedly been disappointing thus far) because people assume that Grindhouse is all cheetos.

Death Proof also has an interesting feminist edge. What? A slasher pic that begins with the camera lingering lasciviously on women’s body parts, and goes on later in the film to graphic depictions of those bodies being brutally bludgeoned and ripped apart? How could that kind of movie have a feminist edge? Well, it does. And not merely because the surviving women turn the tables on the killer at the end – lots of slasher pics end that way, it’s a convention of the genre, and it doesn’t make those into feminist movies, to put it mildly. Now I can understand why some viewers might think the same applies to Death Proof. But what differentiates Death Proof from the typical slasher pic, to my mind, is the spirit in which it makes use of these conventions, and indeed the way it subverts those conventions in such a way as not simply to defeat but to deflate the male predator. In most slasher pics the slasher is terrifying up to the last minute, and is just barely defeated; the slasher’s stature is thus never truly undermined. The slasher pic may end on a note of relief, but rarely on a note of elated female empowerment; ’tis otherwise here. (One might even see the ending as a Randian/Tolkienian message here about the true nature of evil as “smutty and small”.) This is also a film about female solidarity (well, um, except when they leave the cheerleader girl behind – I’m not sure what to make of that scene), so I reckon it’s no coincidence that the final turning-the-tables is carried off by women working together, rather than, as in most slasher pics, either a lone woman or a man and woman together.

There are scenes that invite us to regard the two halves of Grindhouse as happening in the same universe: a number of characters from Planet Terror make cameo appearances in Death Proof (and are clearly intended to be the same people), while one of the victims in Death Proof is briefly mentioned in Planet Terror as recently deceased. (I’m also pretty sure I saw a to-do list with “Kill Bill” on it in the background of one scene, though I’ll probably have to wait for the DVD to be sure. And this is definitely a must-get DVD – a number of scenes featured in televised trailers and previews, including but not limited to the two infamous “missing reels,” turn out to have been cut from the theatrical print for reasons of length, and will presumably be available only on DVD – unless you see it in overseas release where it’s being shown as two separate films. But I digress.) Anyway, these attempts to tie the two films into the same universe just don’t matter; there’s no way you can watch the final scene of Death Proof and think “wow, and just a few days later this town was invaded by zombies.” Back before the concept of “Elseworlds,” DC Comics used to run occasional stories outside of regular continuity – stories in which Superman married Lois Lane (before he really did), or lost his powers, or whatever – and these were somewhat paradoxically called “imaginary stories,” meaning they were fictional even within the framework of the comic. Planet Terror is an imaginary story, dammit!

One of Tarantino’s trademarks is the creative selection of pre-existing music; he’s really the chief successor of Kubrick here. The choice of April March’s quirky cover of “Chick Habit” for the closing credits is brilliant; the music is high-energy madness and the lyrics (much more apt, more clever, and more savage than the French original) apply perfectly. Here’s the song; and check out the original French version here and here. Here’s a lyrics comparison: