Review of Planet Terror (2007) by Xgary X — 13 Feb 2013

A deadly plague that turns the populace into flesh eating mutants is released into the atmosphere and a band of misfits join together to fight their way to safety. Robert Rodriguez' pastiche of seventies and eighties style schlock horror seemed like a real breath of fresh air to me.

The fact that two of its greatest exponents, Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson have been heading further and further down the overlong, sterile, technology orientated road of mainstream cinema makes it all the more ironic.

Tarantino and Rodriguez seem to be headed completely in the opposite direction, concentrating on entertainment rather than ego and in this film they deliver just the right blend of tongue in cheek humour, knowing homage and outrageous gore the likes of which I haven't seen since Evil Dead 2.

It's half John Carpenter and half George Romero, but manages to ape the films of their heydays to such an extent it surpasses anything either of them has done for a couple of decades. The cast overact their cinematic stereotypes to just the right degree and the gore is amusingly ridiculous in a similar way to Return Of The Living Dead, itself a tongue in cheek semi-sequel to Romero's original zombie film.

It'll never change your world, but that's hardly the point. 100% proof pure entertainment.