"A grindhouse is an American term for a theater that mainly showed exploitation films. It is also a term used to describe the genre of films that played in such theatres. Grindhouse films are also referred to as "exploitation films." Grindhouses were known for non-stop programs of B movies, usually consisting of a double feature where two films were shown back to back. Many of these inner-city theatres formerly featured burlesque shows which included "bump and grind" dancing, leading to the term "grindhouse." Beginning in the late 1960s and especially during the 1970s, the subject matter of grindhouse films was dominated by explicit sex, violence, bizarre or perverse plot points, and other taboo content. Many grindhouses were exclusively pornographic.
The 1980s home video market threatened to render the grindhouse obsolete. By the end of that decade, grindhouse theaters had vanished from Los Angeles's Broadway and Hollywood Boulevard, New York City's Times Square and San Francisco's Market Street. By the mid-1990s, they had completely disappeared from the United States."

Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's loving homage to grindhouse cinema is fantastically over the top violent, hilariously funny, and interspersed with strategic "missing reels".

Rodriguez directs the first film, "Planet Terror", a gory, cheesy, zombie flick starring Rose McGowan and Freddy Rodriguez. Rose McGowan sports a machine gun and rocket launcher for an artificial leg. Really, that's all I needed to know to make this movie go down in my history of favorite films. ^_^ Also, seeing small Freddy Rodriguez (who stands at a whopping 5 feet 6 inches) playing an absolute badass complete with incredible body, scars, and tattoos (plus some big guns) was fantastic! Also, I'm far more used to seeing him play the testy funeral director's assistant in Six Feet Under. This is quite the departure from that role. Naveen Andrews of Lost also made an appearance as a scientist who carried around a jar of testicles. No, I'm not kidding. ^_^

Although the whole cast was good, Freddy Rodriguez and Rose McGowan steal the show. McGowan plays a down and out go go dancer who loses her leg to a zombie attack. She starts out with a piece of wood for an artificial leg which she breaks over someone's head, quickly replaced by a machine gun. ^_^ Throw on top of that Marley Shelton playing a doctor with some deadly needles, and you have a movie that could probably be called "Badasses R Us".

Tarantino directs the second film, "Deathproof", a crazy, fast paced thriller about a stuntman, fast cars, and picking on the wrong group of chicks. Not as graphically violent as "Planet Terror", this movie features more of a classic Tarantino twistedness. And if that's not a word, I just made it up. ^_^

The movie actually feels like two separate stories. It starts out slowly, focusing on a group of friends who are out to have a good time, hanging out at a bar, lots of dialogue, meeting Kurt Russel (a.k.a. Stuntman Mike). When they rap up their stay at the bar, their trip comes to a disastrous end. I'll say again that this movie is quintessential Tarantino. He can have his characters prattling on for nothing at all for ages, and you're still utterly enthralled, though you might not be able to say why.

Part two of the movie is basically a car chase. A fantastic car chase, I might add, and I generally find car chases boring. This is definitely where Tarantino's flick starts to pick up speed and doesn't slow down! Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms, and Zoe Bell are three daredevil chicks you don't want to miss with. Which Stuntman Mike quickly discovers.

This movie is also filled with humor, and like Plant Terror you're pretty much laughing all the way through it. I would try to compare the two, try to say "Oh, this one was better than that one," but really they were so different that I can't really say which one was better, more that they were both fantastically entertaining.