DVD - Planet Terror (18)

9:15am Friday 28th March 2008

AFTER toxic gas is leaked into a small town turning the residents into flesh-eating zombies, a band of unlikely heroes team up to fight them, led by Cherry Darling, an ex-gogo dancer who has had her leg eaten off, and her sometime boyfriend and weapons expert, El Wray.

Planet Terror was the second half of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse experiment, trying to recreate the schlock horror B-movies of their youth, but whilst Tarantino's Death Proof received unfavourable reviews, Planet Terror succeeds marvellously.

It has its tongue firmly in its cheek, but from the elaborate and seedy back stories of all the characters, through to the gory and completely over the top special effects, it's a glorious romp through what is obviously nostalgia-filled territory for Rodriguez.

The plot is hardly the point, indeed the middle reel is completely missing in a hilarious fake melting effect, which lets us miss out on all the messy business of getting all the characters into one place, and cuts straight to the action, and the cast, who all play it completely straight, are top notch.

Even without your own memories of the original genre, you can't help feeling a little nostalgic for it yourself.

AT

EDITOR'S CHOICE