Taglines: You might feel a little prick.
Planet Terror (Grindhouse) movie storyline. In a rural town in Texas, go-go dancer Cherry Darling (with a leg/machine gun), decides to quit her low-paying job and find another use for her numerous ‘useless’ talents. Cherry’s ex-boyfriend, El Wray, at the Bone Shack, a restaurant owned by J.T. Hague, a group of military officials, led by the demented Lt. Muldoon, are making a business transaction with a scientist named Abby for a deadly biochemical agent known as DC2 codename “Project Terror”, but when Muldoon learns Abby has an extra supply on hand, he attempts to take Abby hostage and Abby intentionally releases the gas into the air. As gun-legged Cherry Darling and one man wrecking crew El Wray try to save the world from a horde of flesh-eating zombies.
Planet Terror is a 2007 American zombie film directed by Robert Rodriguez. It follows a group of people attempting to survive an onslaught of zombie-like creatures as they feud with a military unit. The film stars Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Josh Brolin, Marley Shelton, Naveen Andrews, Michael Biehn, Jeff Fahey, Stacy Ferguson, and Bruce Willis. It was released theatrically in North America as part of a double feature with Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof under the title Grindhouse, to emulate the experience of viewing exploitation films in a “grindhouse” theater. In addition to directing the film, Rodriguez wrote the script, directed the cinematography, wrote the musical score, co-edited, and produced it.
Released on April 6, 2007, Grindhouse ticket sales were significantly below box office analysts expectations, despite mostly positive reviews. Outside the U.S and released separately, Planet Terror and Death Proof screened in extended versions. Two soundtracks were also released for the features and include music and audio snippets from the film. Planet Terror was released on DVD in the United States and Canada on October 23, 2007.
About the Production
Several years ago, when Robert Rodriguez first jotted down the ideas notes that would eventually become the screenplay for Planet Terror, he thought he would be resuscitating a dormant genre. “No one had made a zombie movie in such a long time,” Rodriguez says of his initial impulse to make Planet Terror. The visionary multi-hyphenate was a fan of zombie and horror films, but he wanted to write a movie that would be something truly different, surprising and unexpected. He sought to make a zombie film that was character-driven, frenetically paced and over-the-top. He continued fleshing out his ideas, but writer’s block and work on other projects stalled his efforts.
Greg Nicotero, Rodriguez’s longtime collaborator and friend, describes the protracted gestation of the script for Planet Terror from his point of view: “I remember during Spy Kids, maybe even as early as The Faculty, that Robert said, ‘I’ve got this cool idea for this zombie movie. I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen yet, but there’s going to be a doctor and his wife, and they’re going to be working in a hospital, and there’s going to be this really great scene where we see a girl on the road, and every time a car passes we reveal silhouettes of zombies getting closer and closer to her.’”
Rodriguez gave Nicotero the first thirty pages of this screenplay, which included these pulsepounding moments. “I remember reading it and I said, ‘Where are you going to go from there?’
21 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead, Land of the Dead and Shawn of the Dead, invaded movie theaters and revived audiences’ appetites for screen representations of flesh-hungry monsters by offering new, unusual takes on the plight of the undead. Instead of discouraging Rodriguez, these movies whetted his appetite and challenged him to be even more inventive when writing. In the years that had passed, Rodriguez developed his child-like imagination with the Spy Kids trilogy and with the smash hit Sin City. These films showcased his capacity to create a fantasy world that is unlike anything audiences had ever experienced.
Rodriguez returned to Planet Terror fully committed to fill his screenplay with “things that I hadn’t seen in other movies. A lot of it has to do with the characters.” Included in the population of Rodriguez’s tiny, anonymous Texas town are a barbecue-obsessed business-owner; a stoic and suspicious sheriff; a gun-legged go-go girl-turned-vigilante; a syringe-wielding, wobbly-wristed doctor on the run from her abusive husband; a pocket-bike riding mysterious hero, and a pair of psychotic identical babysitter twins. In Planet Terror, disbelief isn’t just suspended — it’s annihilated. As with Sin City, stories weave in and out of each other and circumstances escalate to absurd, impossible levels.
Although Rodriguez has a commitment for storytelling that is fresh and radical, Planet Terror has its roots in classic films beyond those of grindhouse era. The dialogue between Wray and Cherry is noir-inspired, and their love story is similarly elevated. The political paranoia and vague allusions to espionage are great throwbacks to films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Kiss Me Deadly and other cultural remnants of the McCarthy Era.
Nicotero received the script for Planet Terror, unaware that Rodriguez had resurrected the project: “Lo and behold, I get this script and I start reading it and I think, ‘Hey there’s a doctor, and his wife,’ and then I get to the scene with Tammy on the road and I think: ‘I’ve read this before.’”
“You would think a zombie movie is just people running away from zombies,” Michael Biehn, who plays Hague, jokes. “But we all have our relationships with the other people in the movie that are very strong. The characters are really well written. I think that that’s what’s going to make it all pull together, because it’s a pretty crazy movie.”
Rose McGowan, who plays Cherry, was so in awe of the script’s unusual circumstances and such sharp, funny dialogue. She also couldn’t imagine how anyone could think of outfitting a character with a gun for a leg. (The image of McGowan and the leg has already become iconic among the fanboy set following the exciting debut of a teaser poster at Comic-Con in June of 2006.) “I asked him, ‘How did you come up with the fact that Cherry has a machine gun leg? He said, ‘Well, I was sitting in traffic…,’ and that’s where the explanation stopped. OK, I sit in traffic, too, and I don’t often have machine gun legs that pop into my head. But that’s just me.”
Continue Reading and View the Theatrical Trailer
Planet Terror (Grindhouse) (2007)
Directed by: Robert Rodriguez
Starring: Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodríguez, Josh Brolin, Marley Shelton, Jeff Fahey, Rebel Rodriguez, Naveen Andrews, Julio Oscar Mechoso, Cecilia Conti, Fergie
Screenplay by: Robert Rodriguez
Production Design by: Steve Joyner
Cinematography by: Robert Rodriguez
Film Editing by: Ethan Maniquis, Robert Rodriguez
Costume Design by: Nina Proctor
Set Decoration by: Jeanette Scott
Art Direction by: Caylah Eddleblute
Music by: Robert Rodriguez
Distributed by: Dimension Films
Release Date: April 6, 2007
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