Planet Terror
Encyclopedia
Planet Terror is a 2007 American action
horror film
written and directed
by Robert Rodriguez
, about a group of people attempting to survive an onslaught of zombie-like creatures as they feud with a military unit, including a go-go dancer searching for a way to use her "useless talents." The film, a tribute to the zombie film
genre, stars Rose McGowan
, Freddy Rodriguez
, Josh Brolin
, Marley Shelton
, Naveen Andrews
, Michael Biehn
, Jeff Fahey
, Stacy Ferguson
and Bruce Willis
. Planet Terror was released theatrically in North America
as part of a double feature
with Quentin Tarantino
's Death Proof
under the title Grindhouse in order to replicate the experience of viewing exploitation film
s in a "grindhouse
" theater.
Planet Terror was released on April 6, 2007, and ticket sales were significantly below box office
analysts' expectations, despite mostly positive reviews. In much of the rest of the world, each feature was released separately, with Planet Terror and Death Proof screened in extended versions. Two soundtrack
s were also released for the features and include music and audio snippets from the film. The film released separately in international theatrical markets, and on DVD in the United States and Canada on October 23, 2007.
) decides to quit her low-paying job and find another use for her numerous 'useless' talents. She runs into her mysterious ex-boyfriend 'El Wray' (Freddy Rodriguez
) at the Bone Shack, a BBQ restaurant owned by JT Hague (Jeff Fahey
) and his sheriff brother (Michael Biehn
). Meanwhile, a group of military officials at a nearby US military base, led by the demented Lt. Muldoon (Bruce Willis
), are making a business transaction with a chemical engineer named Abby (Naveen Andrews
) for mass quantities of a deadly biochemical agent known as DC2 (codename "Project Terror"). When Muldoon learns that Abby has an extra supply on hand, he attempts to take Abby hostage, and Abby intentionally releases the gas into the air. The gas reaches the town and turns most of its residents into deformed bloodthirsty psychopaths, mockingly referred to as "sickos" by the surviving humans. The infected townspeople are treated by the sinister Dr. William Block (Josh Brolin
) and his unhappy, unfaithful bisexual
anesthesiologist
wife Dakota (Marley Shelton
) at a local hospital.
Random zombie
attacks begin along the highway, leading El Wray, with Cherry as his passenger, to crash his truck. In the aftermath, several zombies tear off Cherry's right leg. Also falling victim, fatally, is Tammy (Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson), who was on her way to into town to reunite with her former lover Dakota. When Tammy's body arrives at the hospital, Dr. Block recognizes her and by comparing text messages on the cellular phones of Tammy and his wife, realizes Dakota was about to leave him. He then attacks Dakota with her own anesthetic syringe needles, stabbing her repeatedly in the hands, rendering them useless, before locking her in a closet to tend to other patients, including multiple arrivals showing signs of infection and Cherry, who despite her injury does not.
El Wray is disarmed and detained by Sheriff Hague based on past encounters between the two men. As the patients transform into zombies, El Wray escapes the police station and arrives at the hospital, attaching a wooden table leg to Cherry's stump. As El Wray and Cherry fight their way out of the zombie-infested hospital, Dakota escapes to her car, but in struggling to open its door with her numbed hands, accidentally breaks her left wrist. She eventually manages to drive away. Meanwhile, Block becomes infected and others, including Cherry and El Wray, take refuge at the Bone Shack.
Dakota retrieves her son Tony and takes him to her father, Earl McGraw
, a Texas Ranger
. Tony, who was given a revolver
by his mother, accidentally shoots himself in the face after being told not to point it at himself. Cherry and El Wray make love in JT's bedroom. Due to a missing reel, what happens immediately following this is unknown, but when the film returns, Sheriff Hague has been shot in the neck by one of his own officers, and zombies are massing outside the Bone Shack, which is set on fire. Dakota, Earl, and Tony's crazed babysitter twins arrive at the Bone Shack. With Sheriff Hague badly injured, the group decides to flee to the Mexican
border, before being stopped by a large mob of zombies. Muldoon's men arrive, and kill the zombies before arresting the group. They learn from Abby that the soldiers are stealing Abby's supply of the gas because they are infected with it and the only treatment is by constant inhalation of the gas, which delays mutation. They also learn that a small percentage of population is immune to the gas, suggesting a possible treatment, which is why Muldoon quarantined the survivors.
As Cherry and Dakota are taken away by two soldiers (Quentin Tarantino
credited as "Rapist #1" and Greg Kelly credited as "Rapist #2"), the others defeat the security guards. J.T. sustains a gunshot wound in the process, and the group searches for Muldoon. Discovered by El Wray and Abby, Muldoon explains that he killed Osama bin Laden
before he and his men were infected with DC2 and were ordered to protect the area. El Wray offers a respectful recognition of Muldoon's military service before he and Abby shoot the mutating Muldoon.
Meanwhile, Cherry is forced to dance by Rapist #1 while being held at gunpoint. Cherry attacks by breaking off her wooden leg across his face and stabs the remaining jagged-point in his eye. Dakota, after realizing she has regained feeling in her hands, quick-draws her syringe launcher and stuns Rapist #2. El Wray and Abby arrive to rescue Cherry and Dakota, and El Wray replaces Cherry's broken wooden leg with a modified M4 Carbine
with a M203 grenade launcher attachment. She promptly kills Rapist #1 and other zombies with it.
J.T., wounded and lying beside his dying brother, stays behind to detonate explosives (and himself) to eliminate the zombies still in the complex while the others flee. The survivors make plans to escape by stealing helicopters but must fight past the remaining zombies. Abby dies (and hope for a cure with him) when a ballistic projectile blows his head up. An infected Block then arrives and is killed by Earl, shortly before the survivors use the blade tips of their transport helicopter to decapitate all the remaining zombies. However, while saving Cherry from a zombie, El Wray is fatally wounded. In the epilogue, Cherry (now sporting a minigun
prosthetic leg) leads the group and many more survivors to the Caribbean
beach at Tulum, Mexico
, where they start a peaceful new society amid a world-wide zombie infection. In the final moments of the film, it is revealed that Cherry Darling has given birth to El Wray's daughter (alluded to earlier during El Wray's final scene when he puts his hand on her stomach and restates his motto "I never miss").
In a post-credits scene
Dakota's son Tony is sat on the beach at the survivor's "base" playing with his turtle, scorpion and tarantula.
."I remember telling Elijah Wood
and Josh Hartnett
, all these young actors, that zombie
movies were dead and hadn't been around in a while, but that I thought they were going to come back in a big way because they’d been gone for so long," recalled Rodriguez, "I said, 'We've got to be there first.' I had [a script] I’d started writing. It was about 30 pages, and I said to them, 'There are characters for all of you to play.' We got all excited about it, and then I didn't know where to go with it. The introduction was about as far as I'd gotten, and then I got onto other movies. Sure enough, the zombie [movie] invasion happened and they all came back again, and I was like, 'Ah, I knew that I should've made my zombie film.'" The story was reapproached when the idea for Grindhouse was developed by Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino.
.jpg)
Planet Terror is preceded by a fake trailer for a film titled Machete, starring Danny Trejo
and Cheech Marin
, as it had during the original "double feature" presentation of Grindhouse. Rodriguez wrote Machete in 1993 as a full feature for Danny Trejo
. "I had cast him in Desperado
and I remember thinking, 'Wow, this guy should have his own series of Mexican exploitation
movies like Charles Bronson
or like Jean-Claude Van Damme
.' So I wrote him this idea of a federale from Mexico
who gets hired to do hatchet jobs in the U.S. I had heard sometimes FBI or DEA
have a really tough job that they don't want to get their own agents killed on, they'll hire an agent from Mexico to come do the job for $25,000. I thought, 'That's Machete. He would come and do a really dangerous job for a lot of money to him but for everyone else over here it's peanuts.' But I never got around to making it." It was later announced that the trailer will be made as a feature film
Machete
. As for the reference to "Project Terror," Rodriguez paid homage to the late night horror show "Project Terror" which aired in Rodriguez's hometown of San Antonio, Texas
on KENS-TV
during the 1970s and early 1980s.
, "(Rodriguez and Tarantino) really co-directed, at least Planet Terror. Quentin was on set a lot. He had notes and adjustments to our performances and he changed lines every once in a while. Of course, he always deferred to Robert on Planet Terror and vice versa for Death Proof. So it's really both of their brainchild." Tarantino has stated, "I can't imagine doing Grindhouse with any other director in the way me and Robert did it because I just had complete faith and trust in him. So much so that we didn't actually see each other's movie completed until three weeks before the film opened. It was as if we worked in little vacuums and cut our movies down, and then put them together and watched it all play, and then made a couple of little changes after that, and pretty much that was it." Rodriguez acted as cinematographer
on Planet Terror, as he had previously done on some of his earlier films.
, but Rodriguez chose not to cast her. She was eventually cast in the role of the Customer in the opening sequence of Sin City
. Bruce Willis
had appeared in Sin City. Tom Savini
had previously acted in From Dusk Till Dawn
, Michael Parks
reprises the role of Earl McGraw, a role the actor first portrayed in From Dusk Till Dawn, and Quentin Tarantino himself appears in a small role, as he also does in Death Proof.
Planet Terror makes heavy use of digital effects throughout the film, mostly for Cherry's fake leg. During post-production the effects teams digitally removed McGowan's right leg from the shots and replaced it with computer-generated props — first a table leg and then an assault rifle. During shooting for these scenes, McGowan wore a special cast which restricted her leg movement to give her the correct motion.
," Rodriguez recalls, "and he was saying, 'Oh, it's got a missing reel in it. But it's really interesting because after the missing reel, you don't know if he slept with a girl or he didn't because she says he did and he says that he didn't. It leaves you guessing, and the movie still works with 20 minutes gone out of it.' I thought, 'Oh, my God, that's what we’ve got to do. We've got to have a missing reel!' I'm going to use it in a way where it actually says 'missing reel' for 10 seconds, and then when we come back, you're arriving in the third act. [...] The late second acts in movies are usually the most predictable and the most boring, that's where the good guy really turns out to be the bad guy, and the bad guy is really good, and the couple becomes friends. Suddenly, though, in the third act, all bets are off and it's a whole new story anyway."
, whose music was often played on set. A cover version of The Dead Kennedys' "Too Drunk to Fuck
" performed by Nouvelle Vague
was also featured in the film. A soundtrack album
was released on April 3, 2007, alongside the soundtrack for Death Proof
.
as part of a double feature
under the title Grindhouse. Both films were released separately in extended versions internationally, approximately two months apart. The Dutch poster artwork for Planet Terror claimed that the film would feature "coming attractions" from Quentin Tarantino. In the United Kingdom, Planet Terror was released in cinemas on November 9, 2007. In reaction to the possibility of a split in a foreign release, Tarantino stated, "Especially if they were dealing with non-English language countries, they don't really have this tradition ... not only do they not really know what a grind house is, they don't even have the double feature tradition. So you are kind of trying to teach us something else."
The film was released on Blu-Ray
on December 16, 2008. This version ports over the features from the DVD special edition, and also includes a "scratch-free" version of the movie, which doesn't feature the aforementioned intentional "damaged" look to the print. However, all American home video releases of the film are the extended version only and do not include the theatrical cut.
In mid-February 2009, Germany also released a steel box collector's edition for Planet Terror which comes with the famous BBQ sauce recipe and 2 scratch-and-sniff discs of the film which smell like the BBQ sauce. The pack also contains a limited edition Planet Terror blood pack.
The Grindhouse double feature was eventually released on Blu-ray Disc in October of 2010.
Action film
Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...
horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
written and directed
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
by Robert Rodriguez
Robert Rodriguez
Robert Anthony Rodríguez is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor and musician. He shoots and produces many of his films in his native Texas and Mexico. He has directed such films as Desperado, From Dusk till Dawn, The Faculty, Spy Kids, Sin City, Planet...
, about a group of people attempting to survive an onslaught of zombie-like creatures as they feud with a military unit, including a go-go dancer searching for a way to use her "useless talents." The film, a tribute to the zombie film
Zombie
Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...
genre, stars Rose McGowan
Rose McGowan
Rose Arianna McGowan is an actress and singer. She is known for her role as Paige Matthews in The WB Television Network supernatural drama series Charmed. She played Ann-Margret alongside Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Elvis Presley in the CBS mini-series Elvis...
, Freddy Rodriguez
Freddy Rodriguez
Freddy Rodriguez is an American actor known for playing the characters Hector Federico "Rico" Diaz on HBO's Six Feet Under and El Wray in Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror...
, Josh Brolin
Josh Brolin
Josh James Brolin is an American actor. He has acted in theater, film and television roles since 1985, and won acting awards for his roles in the films W., No Country for Old Men, Milk and True Grit.-Early life:...
, Marley Shelton
Marley Shelton
Marley Eve Shelton is an American film and television actress.Shelton began her acting career in her late teens, and appeared in several 1990s' television movies and shows. She made her film debut in the critically acclaimed drama Grand Canyon , and was cast in the films The Sandlot , Nixon , and...
, Naveen Andrews
Naveen Andrews
Naveen William Sidney Andrews is a British American actor. He is best known for portraying Kip in the movie The English Patient and Sayid Jarrah on the American television series Lost.-Early life:...
, Michael Biehn
Michael Biehn
Michael Connell Biehn is an American actor. He is best known for his roles in James Cameron's science fiction action films The Terminator as Kyle Reese, Aliens as Cpl. Dwayne Hicks, and The Abyss as Lt. Coffey. He has also acted in such films as Tombstone, The Rock, and Planet Terror...
, Jeff Fahey
Jeff Fahey
Jeffrey David "Jeff" Fahey is an American film and television actor. He has portrayed Captain Frank Lapidus on the ABC series Lost and the title role of Deputy Marshal Winston MacBride on The Marshal.-Early life:...
, Stacy Ferguson
Stacy Ferguson
Stacy Ann Ferguson , better known by her stage name Fergie, is an American singer-songwriter, fashion designer and actress. She was a member of the children's television series Kids Incorporated and the girl group Wild Orchid. She is the female vocalist for the hip hop group The Black Eyed Peas...
and Bruce Willis
Bruce Willis
Walter Bruce Willis , better known as Bruce Willis, is an American actor, producer, and musician. His career began in television in the 1980s and has continued both in television and film since, including comedic, dramatic, and action roles...
. Planet Terror was released theatrically in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
as part of a double feature
Double feature
The double feature, also known as a double bill, was a motion picture industry phenomenon in which theatre managers would exhibit two films for the price of one, supplanting an earlier format in which one feature film and various short subject reels would be shown.The double feature, also known as...
with Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
's Death Proof
Death Proof
Death Proof is a 2007 American action thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The film centers on a psychopathic stunt man who stalks young women before murdering them in staged car accidents using his "death-proof" stunt car...
under the title Grindhouse in order to replicate the experience of viewing exploitation film
Exploitation film
Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...
s in a "grindhouse
Grindhouse
A grindhouse is an American term for a theater that mainly shows exploitation films. It is named after the defunct burlesque theaters located on 42nd Street in New York City, where 'bump n' grind' dancing and striptease were featured.- History :...
" theater.
Planet Terror was released on April 6, 2007, and ticket sales were significantly below box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
analysts' expectations, despite mostly positive reviews. In much of the rest of the world, each feature was released separately, with Planet Terror and Death Proof screened in extended versions. Two soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
s were also released for the features and include music and audio snippets from the film. The film released separately in international theatrical markets, and on DVD in the United States and Canada on October 23, 2007.
Plot
The movie opens with the first trailer of Machete. In a rural town in Texas, go-go dancer 'Cherry Darling' (Rose McGowanRose McGowan
Rose Arianna McGowan is an actress and singer. She is known for her role as Paige Matthews in The WB Television Network supernatural drama series Charmed. She played Ann-Margret alongside Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Elvis Presley in the CBS mini-series Elvis...
) decides to quit her low-paying job and find another use for her numerous 'useless' talents. She runs into her mysterious ex-boyfriend 'El Wray' (Freddy Rodriguez
Freddy Rodriguez
Freddy Rodriguez is an American actor known for playing the characters Hector Federico "Rico" Diaz on HBO's Six Feet Under and El Wray in Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror...
) at the Bone Shack, a BBQ restaurant owned by JT Hague (Jeff Fahey
Jeff Fahey
Jeffrey David "Jeff" Fahey is an American film and television actor. He has portrayed Captain Frank Lapidus on the ABC series Lost and the title role of Deputy Marshal Winston MacBride on The Marshal.-Early life:...
) and his sheriff brother (Michael Biehn
Michael Biehn
Michael Connell Biehn is an American actor. He is best known for his roles in James Cameron's science fiction action films The Terminator as Kyle Reese, Aliens as Cpl. Dwayne Hicks, and The Abyss as Lt. Coffey. He has also acted in such films as Tombstone, The Rock, and Planet Terror...
). Meanwhile, a group of military officials at a nearby US military base, led by the demented Lt. Muldoon (Bruce Willis
Bruce Willis
Walter Bruce Willis , better known as Bruce Willis, is an American actor, producer, and musician. His career began in television in the 1980s and has continued both in television and film since, including comedic, dramatic, and action roles...
), are making a business transaction with a chemical engineer named Abby (Naveen Andrews
Naveen Andrews
Naveen William Sidney Andrews is a British American actor. He is best known for portraying Kip in the movie The English Patient and Sayid Jarrah on the American television series Lost.-Early life:...
) for mass quantities of a deadly biochemical agent known as DC2 (codename "Project Terror"). When Muldoon learns that Abby has an extra supply on hand, he attempts to take Abby hostage, and Abby intentionally releases the gas into the air. The gas reaches the town and turns most of its residents into deformed bloodthirsty psychopaths, mockingly referred to as "sickos" by the surviving humans. The infected townspeople are treated by the sinister Dr. William Block (Josh Brolin
Josh Brolin
Josh James Brolin is an American actor. He has acted in theater, film and television roles since 1985, and won acting awards for his roles in the films W., No Country for Old Men, Milk and True Grit.-Early life:...
) and his unhappy, unfaithful bisexual
Bisexuality
Bisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...
anesthesiologist
Anesthesiologist
An anesthesiologist or anaesthetist is a physician trained in anesthesia and peri-operative medicine....
wife Dakota (Marley Shelton
Marley Shelton
Marley Eve Shelton is an American film and television actress.Shelton began her acting career in her late teens, and appeared in several 1990s' television movies and shows. She made her film debut in the critically acclaimed drama Grand Canyon , and was cast in the films The Sandlot , Nixon , and...
) at a local hospital.
Random zombie
Zombie
Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...
attacks begin along the highway, leading El Wray, with Cherry as his passenger, to crash his truck. In the aftermath, several zombies tear off Cherry's right leg. Also falling victim, fatally, is Tammy (Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson), who was on her way to into town to reunite with her former lover Dakota. When Tammy's body arrives at the hospital, Dr. Block recognizes her and by comparing text messages on the cellular phones of Tammy and his wife, realizes Dakota was about to leave him. He then attacks Dakota with her own anesthetic syringe needles, stabbing her repeatedly in the hands, rendering them useless, before locking her in a closet to tend to other patients, including multiple arrivals showing signs of infection and Cherry, who despite her injury does not.
El Wray is disarmed and detained by Sheriff Hague based on past encounters between the two men. As the patients transform into zombies, El Wray escapes the police station and arrives at the hospital, attaching a wooden table leg to Cherry's stump. As El Wray and Cherry fight their way out of the zombie-infested hospital, Dakota escapes to her car, but in struggling to open its door with her numbed hands, accidentally breaks her left wrist. She eventually manages to drive away. Meanwhile, Block becomes infected and others, including Cherry and El Wray, take refuge at the Bone Shack.
Dakota retrieves her son Tony and takes him to her father, Earl McGraw
Earl McGraw
Earl McGraw is a fictional character played by Michael Parks. He appears in several feature films by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino.-Overview:...
, a Texas Ranger
Texas Ranger Division
The Texas Ranger Division, commonly called the Texas Rangers, is a law enforcement agency with statewide jurisdiction in Texas, and is based in Austin, Texas...
. Tony, who was given a revolver
Revolver
A revolver is a repeating firearm that has a cylinder containing multiple chambers and at least one barrel for firing. The first revolver ever made was built by Elisha Collier in 1818. The percussion cap revolver was invented by Samuel Colt in 1836. This weapon became known as the Colt Paterson...
by his mother, accidentally shoots himself in the face after being told not to point it at himself. Cherry and El Wray make love in JT's bedroom. Due to a missing reel, what happens immediately following this is unknown, but when the film returns, Sheriff Hague has been shot in the neck by one of his own officers, and zombies are massing outside the Bone Shack, which is set on fire. Dakota, Earl, and Tony's crazed babysitter twins arrive at the Bone Shack. With Sheriff Hague badly injured, the group decides to flee to the Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
border, before being stopped by a large mob of zombies. Muldoon's men arrive, and kill the zombies before arresting the group. They learn from Abby that the soldiers are stealing Abby's supply of the gas because they are infected with it and the only treatment is by constant inhalation of the gas, which delays mutation. They also learn that a small percentage of population is immune to the gas, suggesting a possible treatment, which is why Muldoon quarantined the survivors.
As Cherry and Dakota are taken away by two soldiers (Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
credited as "Rapist #1" and Greg Kelly credited as "Rapist #2"), the others defeat the security guards. J.T. sustains a gunshot wound in the process, and the group searches for Muldoon. Discovered by El Wray and Abby, Muldoon explains that he killed Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
before he and his men were infected with DC2 and were ordered to protect the area. El Wray offers a respectful recognition of Muldoon's military service before he and Abby shoot the mutating Muldoon.
Meanwhile, Cherry is forced to dance by Rapist #1 while being held at gunpoint. Cherry attacks by breaking off her wooden leg across his face and stabs the remaining jagged-point in his eye. Dakota, after realizing she has regained feeling in her hands, quick-draws her syringe launcher and stuns Rapist #2. El Wray and Abby arrive to rescue Cherry and Dakota, and El Wray replaces Cherry's broken wooden leg with a modified M4 Carbine
M4 Carbine
The M4 carbine is a family of firearms tracing its lineage back to earlier carbine versions of the M16, all based on the original AR-15 designed by Eugene Stoner and made by ArmaLite. It is a shorter and lighter variant of the M16A2 assault rifle, with 80% parts commonality.It is a gas-operated,...
with a M203 grenade launcher attachment. She promptly kills Rapist #1 and other zombies with it.
J.T., wounded and lying beside his dying brother, stays behind to detonate explosives (and himself) to eliminate the zombies still in the complex while the others flee. The survivors make plans to escape by stealing helicopters but must fight past the remaining zombies. Abby dies (and hope for a cure with him) when a ballistic projectile blows his head up. An infected Block then arrives and is killed by Earl, shortly before the survivors use the blade tips of their transport helicopter to decapitate all the remaining zombies. However, while saving Cherry from a zombie, El Wray is fatally wounded. In the epilogue, Cherry (now sporting a minigun
Minigun
The Minigun is a 7.62 mm, multi-barrel heavy machine gun with a high rate of fire , employing Gatling-style rotating barrels with an external power source...
prosthetic leg) leads the group and many more survivors to the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
beach at Tulum, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, where they start a peaceful new society amid a world-wide zombie infection. In the final moments of the film, it is revealed that Cherry Darling has given birth to El Wray's daughter (alluded to earlier during El Wray's final scene when he puts his hand on her stomach and restates his motto "I never miss").
In a post-credits scene
Post-credits scene
A post-credits scene is a short clip that appears after some or all of the closing credits of a film have run...
Dakota's son Tony is sat on the beach at the survivor's "base" playing with his turtle, scorpion and tarantula.
Cast
- Rose McGowanRose McGowanRose Arianna McGowan is an actress and singer. She is known for her role as Paige Matthews in The WB Television Network supernatural drama series Charmed. She played Ann-Margret alongside Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Elvis Presley in the CBS mini-series Elvis...
as Cherry Darlin' - Freddy RodriguezFreddy RodriguezFreddy Rodriguez is an American actor known for playing the characters Hector Federico "Rico" Diaz on HBO's Six Feet Under and El Wray in Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror...
as El Wray - Josh BrolinJosh BrolinJosh James Brolin is an American actor. He has acted in theater, film and television roles since 1985, and won acting awards for his roles in the films W., No Country for Old Men, Milk and True Grit.-Early life:...
as Dr. William Block - Marley SheltonMarley SheltonMarley Eve Shelton is an American film and television actress.Shelton began her acting career in her late teens, and appeared in several 1990s' television movies and shows. She made her film debut in the critically acclaimed drama Grand Canyon , and was cast in the films The Sandlot , Nixon , and...
as Dr. Dakota Block - Jeff FaheyJeff FaheyJeffrey David "Jeff" Fahey is an American film and television actor. He has portrayed Captain Frank Lapidus on the ABC series Lost and the title role of Deputy Marshal Winston MacBride on The Marshal.-Early life:...
as J.T. Hague - Michael BiehnMichael BiehnMichael Connell Biehn is an American actor. He is best known for his roles in James Cameron's science fiction action films The Terminator as Kyle Reese, Aliens as Cpl. Dwayne Hicks, and The Abyss as Lt. Coffey. He has also acted in such films as Tombstone, The Rock, and Planet Terror...
as Sheriff Hague - Rebel Rodriguez as Tony Block
- Bruce WillisBruce WillisWalter Bruce Willis , better known as Bruce Willis, is an American actor, producer, and musician. His career began in television in the 1980s and has continued both in television and film since, including comedic, dramatic, and action roles...
as Lt. Muldoon - Naveen AndrewsNaveen AndrewsNaveen William Sidney Andrews is a British American actor. He is best known for portraying Kip in the movie The English Patient and Sayid Jarrah on the American television series Lost.-Early life:...
as Abby - Julio Oscar MechosoJulio Oscar MechosoJulio Oscar Mechoso is an American actor. He is occasionally credited as Julio Mechoso.Mechoso is a character actor in both television and film. He has appeared in several high-profile films, such as Grindhouse, Bad Boys and the controversial Ken Park. His television credits include Miami Vice,...
as Romey - Stacy Ferguson as Tammy Visan
- Nicky KattNicky KattNicholas Lea "Nicky" Katt is an American actor known for his role as unorthodox teacher Harry Senate on David E. Kelley's Fox drama Boston Public.-Career:...
as Joe - Hung Nguyen as Dr. Crane
- Tom SaviniTom SaviniThomas Vincent "Tom" Savini is an American actor, stuntman, director, award-winning special effects and makeup artist. He is known for his work on the Living Dead films directed by George A. Romero, as well as Creepshow, The Burning, Friday the 13th, The Prowler, and Maniac. He directed the 1990...
as Deputy Tolo - Carlos Gallardo as Deputy Carlos
- Skip Reissig as Skip
- Electra and Elise AvellanElectra and Elise AvellanElectra and Elise Avellan are Venezuelan actresses. They are best known for their roles as the "Crazy Babysitter Twins" in the 2007 film Grindhouse and as Nurses "Mona and Lisa" in 2010’s Machete. They are nieces of director Robert Rodriguez and his former wife Elizabeth Avellan...
as the Crazy Babysitter Twins - Quentin TarantinoQuentin TarantinoQuentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
as Rapist #1 - Greg Kelly as Rapist #2
- Michael ParksMichael ParksMichael Parks is an American actor and singer. He has appeared in almost fifty films and has made frequent TV appearances, but is probably best known for his work in recent years with Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, and Kevin Smith as well as the 1969 television series Then Came...
as Earl McGraw - Jerili Romero as Ramona McGraw
- Felix SabatesFelix SabatesFelix Sabates is an entrepreneur and philanthropist living in the United States. He is currently a minority shareholder in Chip Ganassi Racing, which fields teams in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series , GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series and the IZOD IndyCar Series...
as Dr. Felix
History and development
Robert Rodriguez first came up with the idea for Planet Terror during the production of The FacultyThe Faculty
The Faculty is a 1998 science fiction horror film written by Kevin Williamson and directed by Robert Rodriguez...
."I remember telling Elijah Wood
Elijah Wood
Elijah Jordan Wood is an American actor. He made his film debut with a minor part in Back to the Future Part II , then landed a succession of larger roles that made him a critically acclaimed child actor by age 9. He is best known for his high-profile role as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's...
and Josh Hartnett
Josh Hartnett
Joshua Daniel "Josh" Hartnett is an American actor and aspiring producer. He first came to audiences' attention in 1997 as "Michael Fitzgerald" in the television series Cracker. He made his feature film debut in 1998, co-starring with Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later for Miramax...
, all these young actors, that zombie
Zombie
Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...
movies were dead and hadn't been around in a while, but that I thought they were going to come back in a big way because they’d been gone for so long," recalled Rodriguez, "I said, 'We've got to be there first.' I had [a script] I’d started writing. It was about 30 pages, and I said to them, 'There are characters for all of you to play.' We got all excited about it, and then I didn't know where to go with it. The introduction was about as far as I'd gotten, and then I got onto other movies. Sure enough, the zombie [movie] invasion happened and they all came back again, and I was like, 'Ah, I knew that I should've made my zombie film.'" The story was reapproached when the idea for Grindhouse was developed by Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino.
Danny Trejo
Dan "Danny" Trejo is an American actor who has appeared in numerous Hollywood films, most notably in roles as an antagonist, or anti-hero.-Early life:...
and Cheech Marin
Cheech Marin
Richard Anthony "Cheech" Marin is an American comedian, actor and writer who gained recognition as part of the comedy act Cheech & Chong during the 1970s and early 1980s, and as Don Johnson's partner, Insp. Joe Dominguez on Nash Bridges...
, as it had during the original "double feature" presentation of Grindhouse. Rodriguez wrote Machete in 1993 as a full feature for Danny Trejo
Danny Trejo
Dan "Danny" Trejo is an American actor who has appeared in numerous Hollywood films, most notably in roles as an antagonist, or anti-hero.-Early life:...
. "I had cast him in Desperado
Desperado (film)
Desperado is a 1995 action thriller film written and directed by Robert Rodriguez. The film stars Antonio Banderas as the former mariachi who seeks revenge on the drug lord who killed his lover....
and I remember thinking, 'Wow, this guy should have his own series of Mexican exploitation
Mexploitation
Mexploitation is a film genre of low-budget films that combine elements of an Exploitation film and Mexican culture and/or portrayals of Mexican life within Mexico often dealing with crime, drug trafficking, money and sex.- Common qualities :...
movies like Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson , born Charles Dennis Buchinsky was an American actor, best-known for such films as Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Rider on the Rain, The Mechanic, and the popular Death Wish series...
or like Jean-Claude Van Damme
Jean-Claude Van Damme
Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg , professionally known as Jean-Claude Van Damme, is a Belgian martial artist and actor, best known for his martial arts action films, the most successful of which include Bloodsport , Kickboxer , Double Impact , Universal Soldier , Hard Target , Timecop ,...
.' So I wrote him this idea of a federale from Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
who gets hired to do hatchet jobs in the U.S. I had heard sometimes FBI or DEA
Drug Enforcement Administration
The Drug Enforcement Administration is a federal law enforcement agency under the United States Department of Justice, tasked with combating drug smuggling and use within the United States...
have a really tough job that they don't want to get their own agents killed on, they'll hire an agent from Mexico to come do the job for $25,000. I thought, 'That's Machete. He would come and do a really dangerous job for a lot of money to him but for everyone else over here it's peanuts.' But I never got around to making it." It was later announced that the trailer will be made as a feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
Machete
Machete (film)
Machete is a 2010 action film directed by Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis. The "Machete" character originates from the 2001 Spy Kids film, written and directed by Robert Rodriguez. This film is an expansion of a fake trailer that was released together with Rodriguez's and Quentin Tarantino's...
. As for the reference to "Project Terror," Rodriguez paid homage to the late night horror show "Project Terror" which aired in Rodriguez's hometown of San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011,...
on KENS-TV
KENS-TV
KENS is the CBS affiliate television station in San Antonio, Texas owned and operated by The Belo Corporation. Prior to late April 2010, KENS also managed UPN, later The CW, affiliate station KCWX through a local marketing agreement...
during the 1970s and early 1980s.
Directing
According to actress Marley SheltonMarley Shelton
Marley Eve Shelton is an American film and television actress.Shelton began her acting career in her late teens, and appeared in several 1990s' television movies and shows. She made her film debut in the critically acclaimed drama Grand Canyon , and was cast in the films The Sandlot , Nixon , and...
, "(Rodriguez and Tarantino) really co-directed, at least Planet Terror. Quentin was on set a lot. He had notes and adjustments to our performances and he changed lines every once in a while. Of course, he always deferred to Robert on Planet Terror and vice versa for Death Proof. So it's really both of their brainchild." Tarantino has stated, "I can't imagine doing Grindhouse with any other director in the way me and Robert did it because I just had complete faith and trust in him. So much so that we didn't actually see each other's movie completed until three weeks before the film opened. It was as if we worked in little vacuums and cut our movies down, and then put them together and watched it all play, and then made a couple of little changes after that, and pretty much that was it." Rodriguez acted as cinematographer
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...
on Planet Terror, as he had previously done on some of his earlier films.
Casting
Many of the cast members had previously worked with Rodriguez. Before appearing in Grindhouse, Marley Shelton had auditioned for The FacultyThe Faculty
The Faculty is a 1998 science fiction horror film written by Kevin Williamson and directed by Robert Rodriguez...
, but Rodriguez chose not to cast her. She was eventually cast in the role of the Customer in the opening sequence of Sin City
Sin City (film)
Sin City, also known as Frank Miller's Sin City, is a 2005 crime thriller film written, produced and directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez...
. Bruce Willis
Bruce Willis
Walter Bruce Willis , better known as Bruce Willis, is an American actor, producer, and musician. His career began in television in the 1980s and has continued both in television and film since, including comedic, dramatic, and action roles...
had appeared in Sin City. Tom Savini
Tom Savini
Thomas Vincent "Tom" Savini is an American actor, stuntman, director, award-winning special effects and makeup artist. He is known for his work on the Living Dead films directed by George A. Romero, as well as Creepshow, The Burning, Friday the 13th, The Prowler, and Maniac. He directed the 1990...
had previously acted in From Dusk Till Dawn
From Dusk Till Dawn
From Dusk till Dawn is a 1996 horror film directed by Robert Rodriguez and written by Quentin Tarantino. The movie stars Harvey Keitel, George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino and Juliette Lewis.-Plot:...
, Michael Parks
Michael Parks
Michael Parks is an American actor and singer. He has appeared in almost fifty films and has made frequent TV appearances, but is probably best known for his work in recent years with Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, and Kevin Smith as well as the 1969 television series Then Came...
reprises the role of Earl McGraw, a role the actor first portrayed in From Dusk Till Dawn, and Quentin Tarantino himself appears in a small role, as he also does in Death Proof.
Special effects
The film uses various unconventional techniques to make Planet Terror appear more like the films that were shown in grindhouse theaters in the 1970s. Throughout the feature and the Machete trailer, the film is made to look damaged; five of the six 25,000 frame reels were edited with real film damage, plug-ins, and stock footage.Planet Terror makes heavy use of digital effects throughout the film, mostly for Cherry's fake leg. During post-production the effects teams digitally removed McGowan's right leg from the shots and replaced it with computer-generated props — first a table leg and then an assault rifle. During shooting for these scenes, McGowan wore a special cast which restricted her leg movement to give her the correct motion.
Editing
During editing, Tarantino and Rodriguez came up with the idea of inserting a "missing reel" into the film. "(Quentin) was about to show an Italian crime movie with Oliver ReedOliver Reed
Oliver Reed was an English actor known for his burly screen presence. Reed exemplified his real-life macho image in "tough guy" roles...
," Rodriguez recalls, "and he was saying, 'Oh, it's got a missing reel in it. But it's really interesting because after the missing reel, you don't know if he slept with a girl or he didn't because she says he did and he says that he didn't. It leaves you guessing, and the movie still works with 20 minutes gone out of it.' I thought, 'Oh, my God, that's what we’ve got to do. We've got to have a missing reel!' I'm going to use it in a way where it actually says 'missing reel' for 10 seconds, and then when we come back, you're arriving in the third act. [...] The late second acts in movies are usually the most predictable and the most boring, that's where the good guy really turns out to be the bad guy, and the bad guy is really good, and the couple becomes friends. Suddenly, though, in the third act, all bets are off and it's a whole new story anyway."
Music
The music for Planet Terror was composed by Robert Rodriguez. Inspiration for his score came from John CarpenterJohn Carpenter
John Howard Carpenter is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, editor, composer, and occasional actor. Although Carpenter has worked in numerous film genres in his four-decade career, his name is most commonly associated with horror and science fiction.- Early life :Carpenter was born...
, whose music was often played on set. A cover version of The Dead Kennedys' "Too Drunk to Fuck
Too Drunk to Fuck
"Too Drunk to Fuck" was the fourth single by the Dead Kennedys. The record was released in May 1981 on Cherry Red Records with "The Prey" as the b-side...
" performed by Nouvelle Vague
Nouvelle Vague (band)
Nouvelle Vague is a French musical collective led by musicians Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux. Their name is a play on words, meaning "new wave" in French, and "bossa nova" in Portuguese...
was also featured in the film. A soundtrack album
Planet Terror (soundtrack)
The soundtrack to Planet Terror was released on April 3, 2007 from Varèse Sarabande, though the score managed to sell on iTunes a week early. Rodriguez revealed at Comic-Con 2006 that inspiration for his score came from music composed by John Carpenter...
was released on April 3, 2007, alongside the soundtrack for Death Proof
Death Proof (soundtrack)
-Extra tracks not on the Soundtrack album:# "Violenza Inattesa" — Ennio Morricone# "Gangster Story" — Guido & Maurizio De Angelis# "Italia a Mano Armata " — Franco Micalizzi# "La polizia sta a guardare " — Stelvio Cipriani...
.
Theatrical release
Planet Terror was released in the United States and Canada alongside Death ProofDeath Proof
Death Proof is a 2007 American action thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The film centers on a psychopathic stunt man who stalks young women before murdering them in staged car accidents using his "death-proof" stunt car...
as part of a double feature
Double feature
The double feature, also known as a double bill, was a motion picture industry phenomenon in which theatre managers would exhibit two films for the price of one, supplanting an earlier format in which one feature film and various short subject reels would be shown.The double feature, also known as...
under the title Grindhouse. Both films were released separately in extended versions internationally, approximately two months apart. The Dutch poster artwork for Planet Terror claimed that the film would feature "coming attractions" from Quentin Tarantino. In the United Kingdom, Planet Terror was released in cinemas on November 9, 2007. In reaction to the possibility of a split in a foreign release, Tarantino stated, "Especially if they were dealing with non-English language countries, they don't really have this tradition ... not only do they not really know what a grind house is, they don't even have the double feature tradition. So you are kind of trying to teach us something else."
Alternative versions
With the exception of Grindhouse and Single Theatrical versions of the movie, Rodriguez shot an alternative version where Tony Block did not shoot himself accidentally and survives throughout the film. The official theatrical version features a snippet of Tony on the beach after the end credits and snippets of scenes from this version appears on Rodriguez's 10 Minute Film School feature on Planet Terror DVD. Rodriguez mentioned that this version is especially made for his son Rebel, and has shown Rebel the film with the happy ending rather than the version where he is dead. He also mentioned that Tony's death makes his "horror film... more horrifying in his way".Home release
Planet Terror was released on DVD on October 16, 2007 in a two-disc special edition featuring the extended version of the film presented in a "flat" 1.78:1 screen ratio (the theatrical version in Grindhouse was matted to 2.35:1), audio commentary with Rodriguez, an audience reaction track, several behind the scenes featurettes about casting and special effects, and a "10 Minute Film School" segment, in which Rodriguez confirmed that a box set of the two films will be available soon, and that his 10 Minute Cooking School on Texas BBQ will appear on it.The film was released on Blu-Ray
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
on December 16, 2008. This version ports over the features from the DVD special edition, and also includes a "scratch-free" version of the movie, which doesn't feature the aforementioned intentional "damaged" look to the print. However, all American home video releases of the film are the extended version only and do not include the theatrical cut.
In mid-February 2009, Germany also released a steel box collector's edition for Planet Terror which comes with the famous BBQ sauce recipe and 2 scratch-and-sniff discs of the film which smell like the BBQ sauce. The pack also contains a limited edition Planet Terror blood pack.
The Grindhouse double feature was eventually released on Blu-ray Disc in October of 2010.