‘Grindhouse’ chock full of schlock

In theaters

GRINDHOUSE: PLANET TERROR, written and directed by Robert Rodriguez; DEATH PROOF, written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, 185 minutes, rated R.

Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s “Grindhouse” slams audiences back to the 1970s, slaps them hard with two full-length feature films that embrace the outrageous, politically incorrect, B-movie bonanzas that fueled the era, and takes enormous pleasure in roughing up an otherwise dull week at the movies.

If ever there were two directors who could deliver an authentic, full-on homage of a genre as heavy on exploitation, cheese, scratchy sound, missing reels and over-the-top blood violence as this, it’s these two. Their movie is designed for those who want to rock on schlock.

For much of this three-hour extravaganza, the duo have a grand time of it.

Rodriguez begins the show with his hugely entertaining “Planet Terror,” a zombie horror thriller set in a small Texas nowhere, where a virus quickly is turning the town into the flesh-eating undead.

Freddie Rodriguez and Rose McGowan star as El Wray and Cherry Darling, former lovers (he’s a gunslinger, she’s a go-go dancer, together they’re magic) who reunite just as the world is falling apart. The latter proves especially true for Cherry, who loses a leg midway through, only to find herself fitted with the most unusual of prosthetics – a loaded machine gun, which limber Cherry uses not only to walk, but to mow down the undead in devastating balloons of blood.

Bruce Willis and Stacey Ferguson are featured in fevered cameos, with Josh Brolin, Marley Shelton and Tarantino himself all gamely wading through the entrails.

A debate will ignite about whose film is better, but after “Planet Terror,” Tarantino’s “Death Proof” is decidedly more mellow and self-indulgent. The shift in tone and style is jarring, with the director favoring dialogue and character over the intense, unrelenting action Rodriguez features in his film.

Tarantino goes for the slow burn, with his movie, a female revenge fantasy, finding Kurt Russell’s Stuntman Mike out to slaughter women with the help of his death proof car. The movie’s highlight is its cast, which includes Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Rosario Dawson, Zoe Bell and McGowan, but especially thrilling is the film’s final car chase, a terrific throwback to the days when computer-generated imagery wasn’t the crutch on which Hollywood could lift its action.

As a bonus, Tarantino and Rodriguez begin their films with a blast of retro-fresh trailers for several faux B-movies, each directed by such present-day directors as Rob Zombie, Eli Roth and Edgar Wright. The titles are a triumph of grindhouse menace – “Werewolf Women of the SS,” “Don’t!” “Thanksgiving” and “Machete,” the latter of which is so twisted, it deserves its own full-length feature.

And it will get one. The trailer was so favorably received by Hollywood, the movie just entered pre-production, with Rodriguez set to direct it in 2008.

Grade: B+

On Blu-ray disc

SECRET WINDOW, written and directed by David Koepp, rated PG-13, 106 minutes.

On the surface, the 2004 thriller “Secret Window,” out next week on high-definition Blu-ray disc, appears to have plenty going for it. It’s based on a Stephen King novella, “Secret Window, Secret Garden.” it was written and directed by David Koepp, who wrote “Spider-Man” and “Panic Room” and wrote and directed the excellent “Stir of Echoes,” and it stars Johnny Depp.

Sounds good, so why is it so uninvolving?

One reason is that everyone involved has grown beyond the material. King has worked variations of this story in other, better works; Koepp remains ready to once again direct his own original projects; and Depp, with this project, is coasting.

Unlike King’s “Misery” and “The Shining,” which “Window” most closely resembles, “Secret Window” isn’t grounded in any sense of believability, which harms it, and its script, by Koepp, is mere scaffolding. The film’s seriocomic tone also doesn’t help, nor does the sense that no one here is taking the movie seriously.

In the film, Depp is Mort Rainey, a popular novelist whose marriage to Amy (Maria Bello) collapsed long before he caught her in bed with Ted (Timothy Hutton). Still, seeing them together has left Mort in the throes of a six-month depression. Unable to write and holed up in his lakeside retreat, he’s facing divorce and on the verge of a nervous breakdown when into his life comes the mysterious John Shooter (John Turturro), an angry Mississippian with a slick Southern drawl who accuses Mort of plagiarizing one of his stories.

Not unlike Annie Wilkes in “Misery,” Shooter demands that Mort do some rewriting, with particular attention paid to the ending, which he wants Ted to fix – or he’ll fix Ted and everyone else in his life.

All of this builds to a “twist” that’s telegraphed from the film’s first tracking shot. Pay attention, and Koepp reveals everything to you. If you miss it, not to worry. The film’s obvious plot elements lead only to one outcome, which in this case proves especially violent.

Grade: C

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays and Fridays in Lifestyle, weekends in Television as well as on bangordailynews.com. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.