A Splendid Feast

Like most of you, my knowledge of Eli Roth's slasher Thanksgiving was limited to the infamous trailer, which has become a staple side dish for midnight double features (I saw it earlier this year in between Planet Terror and Death Proof in a sparsely attended grind-house theater). Due to distribution hangups, Thanksgiving can only be obtained through select Asian markets (under the Japanese translation of Mashed Brains Potatoes), so you can imagine my surprise when I found a copy in the bargain bin of a nearly out of business convenience store. After watching Thanksgiving, it's a shame that it will likely never be seen in most markets, because it's one helluva ride.

We've all seen (and maybe gagged at) the gross-out gore in the Thanksgiving trailer, but what you don't see in the trailer is a carefully directed story of simmering violence and repressed sexuality. Roth opens with a scene at a Thanksgiving table in Plymouth, Mass., in 1972. The camera pans along the various side dishes, and what at first seems like a normal holiday dinner is shattered when the turkey is slammed down at the center, where it is revealed that everyone at the table is dead. We do not see the apparent culprit's face, only that he glazes the bird with blood (leading to a title card freeze frame -- beautiful).

Fast forward 30 years, and Plymouth is gearing up for its famed Thanksgiving parade. The whole town is in a festive spirit, but the anniversary of the Plummer Family Massacre (which a crazed woman is quick to remind us was never solved) is never far from their thoughts -- especially since Judy Plummer (Jordan Ladd), the family's last remaining kin has just moved back into town. Plymouth has tried to move on from the grisly crime by demolishing the old Plummer house, but we soon find that old habits die hard. On her way to the parade, Liz thinks she sees someone in a pilgrim costume looking at her from a distance, but each time the person is gone when she looks back. The events leading up to the parade (such as the needless run-ins with the mayor) border on plodding, but once we get to the festivities, Thanksgiving never lets up.

At the parade, we see the apparent killer mingling in the crowd, and it is here that Roth makes a bold choice: instead of having the villain covertly kill the first victim, Roth has the masked pilgrim step into the parade and lop off the head of the marching turkey mascot. It's the first of many shocking scenes, and Roth sells the terror by having the killer make a believable exit amid the ensuing chaos.

The raw brutality glimpsed in the parade kickstarts a series of 'can I top this?' killings by the villain. This middle section of Thanksgiving is standard horror fare (all the disposable characters meeting their demise), but Roth does it in his own style that keeps your interest better than most slashers. Yes there's the infamous trampoline kill, but that's probably the fourth-worst death in the whole goddamn movie -- the 'knife from below' ploy is used a few times, and never better than with an unlucky coed (who we have never seen before) who decides to go out on the lake in her inflatable raft. The absurdity of this scene is spectacular -- who goes out on a lake during Thanksgiving, and was the killer waiting for her that whole time? No matter, Roth makes it work (bringing new meaning to the term 'dead astern').


The much-maligned trampoline scene is actually more tame than the trailer would suggest -- the cheerleader actually survives that scene and gives the pilgrim a pretty good fight near the end (though it's hard to believe she would get on a pommel horse given the trauma she experienced in her previous attempt at gymnastics).

As townspeople are murdered left and right, Plymouth starts to crumble, with a town meeting called to find the killer that degenerates into senseless killings by the citizens themselves. While Plymouth's leaders and authorities are occupied, Thanksgiving really shifts it into high gear with a final act that shifts manically between ridiculous ('Can you please pass the -- BRAINS!?!') and clever (Judy's escape in the woodshed -- wow!). The oft-criticized horrific dinner scene from the trailer takes place during the climax, and I'm proud to report that the final product is much worse than anything the trailer shows. Roth doesn't pull any punches here: he gives us the awful turkey, but in the true spirit of the holiday, he keeps on giving.


Roth's masterwork is keeping the identity of the killer a true secret up until 'dessert' is served. When the mask is pulled away, the identity revealed is a genuine surprise and actually ties up a few loose ends of the plot which at that point I had given up on. *Slight spoiler* I've heard the criticism that the villain's identity makes no sense, but if you focus on the cafe scene in the beginning (in between the chef's food innuendos), it seems to tie together nicely.

It's too bad that Thanksgiving essentially relegated Roth to direct-to-DVD forever, because outside of a few questionably explicit sex scenes (the second cheerleader 'practice' in particular), there's really nothing that you haven't seen in a mainstream Hollywood slasher. If there's one aspect of the movie that doesn't come through well on the Asian DVD, it's the soundtrack. Originally composed by Dave Mustaine (from his still unreleased '. . . and a Side of Death' solo album), the Asian distributors apparently couldn't get the rights -- which makes a U.S. DVD release that much more essential.

Giving Thanks

I set my expectations for Grindhouse at a usually impossible level. I couldn't believe a movie like this was going to be made, and upon reading the initial specs I had these instant thoughts: Danny Trejo must be involved in one way or another; Good God what is Rodriguez going to cook up? How will this be marketed? Good God what will Tarantino cook up? And the fake trailers will surely be one of my favorite cinema experiences of the year. While I had high hopes for Grindhouse, my expectations for the trailers were set at 'hungover Simon Cowell level' ... and were promptly exceeded. My Grindhouse experience was so wonderfully fun, that thanks need to be given out to many parties -- with the first to Eli Roth for putting me in a thanksgiving mood.

... to Eli Roth: Wow, where to begin? Your fake Thanksgiving trailer was a marvel of perfectly timed grotesque comedy that seemed to rev up the audience for Death Proof. Before the Zuckers (or whoever is passing themselves off as the Zuckers) try to release another 'satire' movie, maybe they should take a look at this trailer -- which shows that when done right, modern satire can be viciously funny and entertaining. It helps Roth that he knows the satire subject inside (ahem) and out, and that he is using a medium that affords him great strings of beats, one playing off the other with nothing in between. The much-rumored 'main course' of the trailer probably came the closest of anything since my first viewing of The Big Lebowski to ejecting me from my theater seat -- on paper this imagery would sound vile to the point of criminal charges in some countries (or states), but in the context and timing of the trailer it becomes one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Same goes for the infamous 'bounce kill' that the MPAA winced at -- it's the kind of thing you can't even explain to someone without making them back away slowly, but the way it's handled (the barely interested rat-faced boyfriend, the girl's strange enthusiasm, how the payoff comes about with no warning) is perfect. Sanity test: with this aforementioned scene, did anyone else see it as a cruel wink to the similar scene in the wretched 80s Brad Pitt slasher Cutting Class? Can anyone else admit to seeing Cutting Class? One more note: I'd like to believe that the cruel 80s trailer of Boarding House was one of Roth's main inspirations for Thanksgiving (not on YouTube, but found on many VHS copies of exploitation flicks -- see Necromancy, The Cheerleaders).

. . .to Rob Zombie: For informing me that we have the same sense of humor. I'm one of the few who liked his Werewolf Women of the SS trailer, sure it's bizarre and a little bit out of place, but how can you not love his shot of the zombie officer firing the machine gun while flanked by beautiful Nazi women? Or the fact that his trailer uses this exact same shot no less than three times? Whereas the other trailers have a Saturday Night Live feel, Werewolf Women seems like it was rejected from The Kids in the Hall. I loved how Zombie used his cameo actors, referring to them by name, but giving us just a quick (barely in focus) shot of them -- save for the biggie at the end.

. . .to the cast of Planet Terror: Part of the brilliance of Grindhouse is the contrast between the two features, and one aspect of this is that Planet Terror could probably stand on its own as a regular release, whereas Death Proof in all fairness would never have been made outside of this medium (in no way a slight on QT's movie, much more on this later). What makes Planet Terror the exception and places it a realm outside normal zombie fare is the high level of talent and sheer number of quality characters packed into an 85 minute horror movie. This element gives Planet Terror a frantic undertone that exacerbates the onscreen mayhem. The camera never lingers on one character long enough for them to get stale, but Lord knows we could have used even a little more Josh Brolin -- what a great character for the actor who started out as the asshole older brother in The Goonies!

. . .to Rose McGowan: For finally finding a role and putting in a performance that shows us just what she's capable of. As much as Rodriguez is lauded as a technical director, you have to give him credit for coaxing the stripper Cherry out of McGowan. For most of her career, McGowan has drawn on her base as a true vamp to pump out seething bitchiness and cold stares, but in Grindhouse she actually comes off as sweet and down-on-her-luck, maybe the first 'girl next door' that Rodriguez has ever cast. This quality allows her comedic beats to come on more naturally which in turn brings out more of the pouty vamp quality that Jennifer Tilly perfected long ago. I remember first seeing McGowan in Scream, where she had a small role and a smaller sweater -- which is probably what I remember more. Since then she's done quite a few duds, and her involvement in Charmed put her on hiatus from films for a few years. Hopefully Planet Terror will give her the opportunities her fans have been clamoring for.

. . . to Kurt Russell: For being Kurt Russell. Watching him as Stunt Man Mike in Death Proof makes you thank the movie gods that there is a Kurt Russell -- Tarantino lets him go to work. He has that familiar half-John Wayne accent combined with the 80s hair do that still looks good on him and probably four other men on the planet -- he's Kurt again. There are at least a couple generations of moviegoers who adore Kurt no matter what (look at what he gave us in the 70s and 80s), but Stunt Man Mike proves that his ageless quality goes more than skindeep -- he can still pull off the characters that utilize his brand of being a working man's action hero.

. . . to Zoe Bell: I wasn't a style="font-style: italic;">Kill Bill fan, nor have I ever watched Xena: Warrior Princess, so forgive me if I had never heard of Zoe Bell or even realized she was playing herself in Death Proof. This girl is something else: she's at once a modern day Karen Allen and the one girl on the college softball team you knew. She draws your attention in all her scenes, but does not look like a Hollywood actress. Bell is part of the reason Grindhouse will have a lasting legacy, because she will never have a better role in her career. Bell plays herself, and as such brings a breath of fresh blood to the screen, unburdened by any cliches or a conventional script, and promptly steals the show in the final act and ends the movie with a kick that leaves the audience cheering.

. . .to Quentin Tarantino: For proving us wrong. So much of the talk leading up to Grindhouse was that QT was a true aficionado of the genre, who worshiped exploitation flicks and had owned hundreds of prints of obscure blood and tit fests. With that in mind, it's amazing to see QT's restraint in Death Proof, the slow burn that he lets simmer for half the movie, with no exploitative sex or shocks to be found. To those wondering if Death Proof belonged in a feature called Grindhouse, check out some of the calendar he programmed for the Grindhouse Film Festival at the New Beverly Theater in Los Angeles: Rolling Thunder, The Town that Feared Sundown and Return to Macon County. Tarantino obviously knows the 'grindhouse' concept better than most, and he knows that not all of the films that typified that age were bizarre, blood-soaked flicks. Many of them were like Death Proof, a movie that appealed to a certain demographic and didn't have the support of a big studio behind it. While I didn't appreciate the tomes of dialog that QT threw at us in some scenes, you can't help but marvel as Death Proof turns into a monster of an adventure -- building and building until a fantastic climax that just happens to coincide with 'The End' being sprayed across the screen. It's quite a trip.

But . . . I can't give all thanks to Grindhouse, it's not a perfect film -- but who expected it to be? My criticisms are probably similar to others': Tarantino's cameos were unneeded and only damaged the mood of the scenes; the long spouts of dialog in Planet Terror are neither interesting or entertaining; and Planet Terror too often wanders into a silly world that his movies at some point or another inhabit, a trend he will someday outgrow I hope. I only have one gripe with an issue that many have brought up: the near complete lack of nudity and sex, a staple of the genre. I wasn't disappointed by this because one early scene tipped me off to it: after the opening credits we follow Cherry into the changing room of her strip club, and the most we see is a pair of pasty-covered silicone bags. If there's no nudity in that scene, why would there be at any other point? But this puzzles me -- why not have some accurate level of boobage in that kind of setting, seeing as Rodriguez tries for most of the running time to shock our senses and test our limits? I wasn't expecting anything sexual in Death Proof, because Tarantino's movies almost always sidestep this, with his characters usually choosing to express their sexuality with weapons or cars.

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You may have noticed the row of pictures on the right, it's my latest attempt to take more advantage of my sidebars. I chose this route because I often find myself staring at bizarrely fascinating and befuddling pictures on the Net, and why not share them? I'm addicted to a variety of random image generators, so you'll soon be seeing a better variety than what's there now (this is just a dry-run).

The Real Grindhouse: A Double Feature of Sexy School Spirit and Stylish Zombies

By Charles Fontaine

The best movies of all time contain some combination of sex, drugs & death and were produced in the 70's; if you believe this statement, then you probably believe Grindhouse will be one of the greatest movie-going experiences in a decade, and you might not be wrong.
As a second-generation exploitation film junkie with a video stock pushing 1500, I have dedicated thousands upon thousands of hours to wading through the worst, vilest, most shoddily produced pieces of motion picture trash in order to find rare garbage that shines. There are a few gemstones that make the effort worth my time: grade-Z movies produced with enough love and creativity to elicit fear from Hollywood producers and threaten the stronghold of their monopoly.

The quality of grade-Z movies (or "grindhouse cinema" or "exploitation films" or "B-movies") reached its absolute peak in the 70's. Such cinema and its popularity contributed to creating one of the most resonant phenomena of the 20th century: when Hollywood studios turned to the little guys for inspiration, and mainstream theaters sold tickets to an abundance of the greatest motion pictures ever made.

In homage to the movies that created a revolution, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino will release Grindhouse, a back-to-back presentation of exploitation movies, on April 6 of 2007. And in homage to that revolutionary event, here's a back-to-back breakdown of two quintessential Grindhouse genres and summaries of some defining movies: the rare gemstones that shine through the mud.

# 1: The Pom Pom Girls
The 70's teen sex comedy typically created a vision of adolescence like we always wanted it to be. Unlike the sleazy, direct-to-video adolescent sex romps littering New Release shelves of today, 70's sex comedies often presented adolescence as a period of innocence when kids wanted nothing more than sunshine, good times and love. No single film channels this vibe better than The Pom Pom Girls. Produced by Crown International Pictures in '76, PPG was a drive-in smash hit, garnering approximately $20 million. The movie contains very little plot; football players score with the best girls, kids play pranks on each other and question authority, smoke pot, and enjoy life. If this sounds familiar, it's because Richard Linklater copied the concept verbatim when he made Dazed and Confused in '93. While that movie gave us a sense of what it could have been like to be in high school during the late 70's, The Pom Pom Girls presents a near-perfect image of youth in the sunshine era; it's apparent the kids in the movie enjoy life, on camera and off of it, and their love is genuine.

Some other movies produced by Crown International do a similarly amazing job of capturing the essence of youth and love in the 70's, most notably Malibu Beach, The Van, Van Nuys Blvd and The Beach Girls. While Malibu Beach is similar in tone to Pom Pom Girls (very innocent and loving), The Van and Van Nuys Blvd are slightly more sleazy, but still jam-packed with sunshine and good times. Both movies are about a guy who drives a van and uses it to score chicks, but The Van has a few more memorable characters, quotes and moments than Van Nuys Blvd. The Van also contains a cross-over character, the bully named Dugan, who returns in Malibu Beach: a little older and a little wiser the second time around, showing us The Progression of An Asshole over time, how his antics come back to haunt him, and how he must stop humping the dreams of youth and progress into adulthood. But fuck adulthood, because "it's worth every treasure on earth to be young at heart," and youth has never been more beautiful than it was in the 70's, so if you need more memories of good times that you never had, check out Revenge of the Cheerleaders, in which life-loving cheerleaders have an orgy with the football team in the locker-room after spiking the lunch lady's stew with marijuana, cocaine and a variety of other substances. And for further 70's cheerleader antics, see The Swinging Cheerleaders, Satan's Cheerleaders, Cheering Section and Cheerleader's Wild Weekend. If you burn out on cheerleaders, there's always Gas Pump Girls, and if you wonder how or why sex comedies were less sleazy in the 70's than they were in later decades, compare Gas Pump Girls to it's 80's remake, The Bikini Carwash Company, and see where love died and emotionless sex took over...

As a brief interlude to our double breakdown, here's glance at some classic exploitation genres and suggestions for heavenly viewing:

In you're into post-apocalyptic flicks, and you've seen The Road Warrior too many times, check out Exterminators in the Year 3000 and Warriors of the Wasteland for good gore and action with football pads, spikes and machinery. If you like cheesy entertainment and want the most ridiculous of the post apocalypse, go for America 3000 and Warrior of the Lost World. They're effin woggos! And if you ever wanted to become a vigilante but were too intelligent to get involved in law-enforcement, Young Warriors and Street Law will fill your void. But if you've been raped and seek revenge, you'll want to view Thriller: A Cruel Picture, Ms. 45, I Spit on Your Grave, and Last House on the Left. Some people might want even more demented movies, those should explore SS galore: Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS, SS Girls, SS Experimentation Love Camp, SS Hell Camp, and Love Camp 7 (I haven't seen all of these yet, so let me know which are the best, or worst). And if you feel you still haven't reached the hottest seat in hell, and you seek the most depraved, degraded, fucked-up shit ever, you will need to see Emanuelle in America, Blue Movie (1978) and Nekromantik 2. If those movies don't satisfy your urge to taint everything, call me; we'll hang out.

Next up: Zombie (and other Italian horrors)
Thanks to Italian filmmakers, people who loved George Romero's Dawn of the Dead can find about 3 dozen cheap rip-offs if they look hard enough. Of all the zombie movies produced in Italy in response Romero's masterpiece, none has been distributed more thoroughly than Lucio Fulci's magnificent Zombie. The movie pays homage to early zombie movies of the 30's, 40's and 50's, taking place on a deserted island where a mad doctor conducts experiments. Unlike early zombie movies, however, Fulci's Zombie is loaded with gore, style, and some of the creepiest music and zombies ever projected into a theater. Fulci followed zombie with two psuedo-sequels: The Beyond and House by the Cemetery. But Umberto Lenzi took the genre to new heights in 1980 with Nightmare City, perhaps the first movie about zombies who attack their prey with full force and run at high-speeds (this idea would be recycled two decades later in 28 Days Later and the remake of Dawn of the Dead). Though the zombies of Nightmare City look like they have nothing more than mud smeared on their faces, the music and style of the film makes up for it.

Most Italian horror movies of the era are very similar in tone: the music is atypically eerie (synthesized pipe-organ with a slight techno beat); the shot composition is almost always outstanding, and the camera movement is quick and jarring, sometimes exhibiting multiple zooms within a single shot. When style wasn't enough though, the Italians went for shock value. Burial Ground starts out as an average story about zombies hunting humans in an old castle, but the movie progresses into depravity as one of the main characters (a dwarf-like child) reveals his sexual obsession with his mother. Near the end of the movie, he becomes a zombie, his grieving mother offers her bare breast for him, and he bites it off (!). As Italian filmmakers looked for more and more disturbing ways to shock people, director Lamberto Bava found a niche like none other with Frozen Terror (aka Macabro, aka Macabre). The movie begins on a young girl drowning her brother in the bathtub. At the same time, their mother cheats on her husband at a distant residence. The woman comes home and sees her dead son (and her lying daughter gets away with murder), simultaneously, the woman's lover dies in freak motorcycle accident that leaves him decapitated. The film progresses, and the woman continues to dodge her motherly duties, disappearing into an apartment that she rents from a blind landlord; in the apartment, she hides something in the freezer, something the blind man can hear her making love to at night. Can you guess what that object is?

Beyond flesh-eating, beyond incest, beyond sex with death, lies the Italian cannibal movie: the single most shocking genre ever parlayed into money. There are maybe 2 dozen of these, and I won't tell you why they're the vilest, most heinous movies ever made. If you want to find out, you'll see Cannibal Holocaust, the mother of all Cannibal movies, and then you'll want to see more, so you'll probably check out Cannibal Ferox or Eaten Alive (1980), or one of the many others you can find by cross referencing any of these three on imdb. If you're lucky enough to have a father like mine, you can just borrow his book on Italian zombie and cannibal movies. Then all you need is Internet, money, time, and a place where you can sit and watch these movies without people questioning you're sanity.

But forget everything I mentioned above. Just go see Grindhouse this weekend. And hope that the bureaucratic, corporate, Hollywood monopoly wanes for an instant like it did in the 70's, so we can all go to the multiplex once or twice a week to see good movies. It's been awhile.
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Charles Fontaine is a writer and video junkie on the Oregon Coast.