50 Fun Facts About Grindhouse

In Death Proof, Stuntman Mike reveals that his reinforced stunt car protects which of its occupants?

Only the driver is safe, as Pam learns too late on the passenger side; Tarantino built the story on the way stuntmen reinforce a car so they can walk away from a crash.

In Planet Terror, what does Sheriff Hague keep trying to pry out of his brother J.T.?

His barbecue recipe is J.T.'s closely guarded secret; Rodriguez carried the joke onto the home-video extras, where he hosts a cooking school on Texas barbecue.

Who plays Stuntman Mike, the killer who murders women with his modified cars in Death Proof?

Kurt Russell plays Stuntman Mike; Tarantino cast him because he wanted a younger audience to see Russell "be a badass again".

In Planet Terror, go-go dancer Cherry Darling loses a leg and eventually replaces it with what?

A machine gun replaces Cherry Darling's lost leg; both it and the table leg she wears first were added by computer after artists painted out the actress's real leg, shot by shot.

Which actress plays Cherry Darling in Planet Terror?

Rose McGowan plays Cherry Darling; on set her lower leg was wrapped in a grey stocking so that effects artists could paint it out and add the replacement limb by computer.

Which studio label released Grindhouse in US cinemas in 2007?

Dimension Films, the Weinstein brothers' genre label, released Grindhouse; the pair had carried the label with them when they walked away from Miramax in 2005.

Grindhouse opened fourth in 2007 while which comedy led the US chart for a second weekend?

Blades of Glory, Will Ferrell's ice-skating comedy, took over $22 million in its second weekend; Grindhouse made $11.6 million, far short of the $20 million forecasters had expected.

What happened to Planet Terror and Death Proof in cinemas outside North America?

Overseas the studio "Released them separately as extended films", a split planned before the US opening; Death Proof alone then out-grossed the whole double bill's American run.

The full theatrical Grindhouse first reached US home video in 2010 on which format?

Blu-ray brought the complete double feature to US shelves in October 2010, more than two years after a six-disc DVD box set had put the theatrical cut on sale in Japan.

Which Hollywood veteran plays the anti-immigration senator in the 2010 Machete feature?

Robert De Niro plays the senator Machete is hired to shoot; the hit is a set-up, staged so that the politician can rally support for his campaign against illegal immigrants.

The Thanksgiving fake trailer was shot in which European city, straight after its director wrapped Hostel: Part II there?

Prague hosted the two-day shoot just after the real Thanksgiving; short of English speakers, the director cast his Hostel actors, members of the crew and himself as the victims.

Rob Zombie said his SS werewolf trailer would be either a Nazi movie or which other exploitation subgenre?

Women-in-prison was Zombie's other candidate; he chose the Nazis, citing Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS as the most bizarre genre going, and shot enough footage for a half-hour short.

Which Hollywood star appears in Werewolf Women of the SS as Fu Manchu?

Nicolas Cage plays Fu Manchu because, as Rob Zombie put it, cheap exploitation films mixed whatever they had: a pile of Nazi uniforms, a Chinese set, "We'll put 'em together!"

Edgar Wright's fake trailer takes its one-word title from which stock warning of horror-film advertising?

Don't mocks the way European horror films were sold in 1970s America: a generic new title, and a trailer that carefully avoids letting anyone on screen speak.

Which Arrested Development star narrates Edgar Wright's fake trailer for Grindhouse?

Will Arnett narrates Edgar Wright's trailer at a frantic pace; to age the footage, Wright scratched the film with steel wool and dragged it around a parking lot.

In the Thanksgiving fake trailer, the killer stalks his victims dressed as what?

A Pilgrim costume hides the killer, played by the director's childhood friend Jeff Rendell; the two had dreamed up a whole Thanksgiving slasher as kids in Massachusetts.

The title design for the Thanksgiving trailer was based on a slasher parody in which magazine?

Mad called its slasher spoof Arbor Day; the trailer's director said he still owned that issue and lifted the title design for Thanksgiving straight from it.

Whose fake trailer nearly earned Grindhouse an NC-17 rating?

Eli Roth's Thanksgiving trailer nearly pushed Grindhouse to NC-17; Roth said the ratings board relaxed once they saw it with all the splices and scratches, and the film went out rated R.

Which fake trailer, shown mainly in Canada, came from a South by Southwest contest?

Hobo with a Shotgun won the South by Southwest trailer contest for Nova Scotia filmmakers who shot it in five days for about $150; added to Canadian prints, it grew into a 2011 feature.

Who plays the title role in the 2011 feature made from the hobo-vigilante trailer?

Rutger Hauer plays the hobo in the 2011 feature, while David Brunt, who played the hobo in the original trailer, appears as a dirty cop.

Rodriguez first wrote Machete in the 1990s, around the time of Desperado, as a vehicle for which actor?

Danny Trejo was the intended star; Rodriguez wanted him to headline his own line of "Mexploitation" films, the way Charles Bronson had his own vehicles.

Before Grindhouse, a character named Machete had already appeared in which Rodriguez film series?

Spy Kids came first: its Uncle Machete is a gadget-building tech genius, and Rodriguez has said the family films and the R-rated Machete movies sit in alternate universes.

Which action star plays the drug lord Torrez in the 2010 Machete feature?

Steven Seagal plays Torrez, the drug kingpin who kills Machete's wife in front of him, leaving the former federale a broken man when the story moves to Texas.

The 2023 film Thanksgiving is set in which Massachusetts town, where a Black Friday riot turns deadly?

Plymouth is the setting, but the cameras rolled in Ontario, where a Hamilton-area high school stood in for small-town Massachusetts.

Rodriguez pitched Grindhouse after seeing that Tarantino owned the same vintage what, advertising a 1957 double bill?

Movie poster: both had the same sheet for Dragstrip Girl and Rock All Night lying on the floor; Rodriguez proposed directing one film each, and Tarantino named it Grindhouse.

Which lawman, first seen in From Dusk till Dawn, appears in both halves of Grindhouse?

Earl McGraw, played by Michael Parks, links the two films: in Death Proof he is the Ranger who suspects Stuntman Mike after the crash, with Parks's real son James as his son Edgar.

Death Proof gave Tarantino his first screen credit in which crew role?

Cinematographer was a new credit for Tarantino, and he took it the old way: while Rodriguez shot Planet Terror on digital video, Death Proof was photographed on film.

What on-screen device lets Planet Terror skip a stretch of story and land in its third act?

A "missing reel" card covers the jump; Rodriguez said the idea came from a print Tarantino screened of an Italian crime film that still worked with twenty minutes gone.

The longer cut of Death Proof screened in competition at which 2007 film festival?

Cannes announced Death Proof in its main competition within two weeks of Grindhouse's failed American opening; Tarantino had won the festival's top prize with Pulp Fiction.

Which stuntwoman plays herself riding a Dodge Challenger's hood in Death Proof?

Zoë Bell plays herself; she had been Uma Thurman's stunt double on Kill Bill, and she rides the Challenger's hood for real in a game the women call Ship's Mast.

The women in Death Proof test-drive a 1970 Dodge Challenger because it's the car from which 1971 film?

Vanishing Point, the 1971 road movie, made the white 1970 Dodge Challenger a legend; one of the women wants the test drive not to sit behind the wheel but to ride on its hood.

The first half of Death Proof is set in which Texas city, home of Congress Avenue?

Austin, where both directors based the shoot at Rodriguez's Troublemaker Studios, is the setting; the first half's night of drinking was filmed at the city's real Texas Chili Parlor.

In Death Proof, Jungle Julia's listeners must recite which poem to Arlene?

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening supplies the line "miles to go before I sleep" that a listener must recite to Arlene to win a lap dance; Stuntman Mike has been listening and claims it.

Why can't Stuntman Mike be charged after his head-on crash kills four women?

The Texas Ranger investigating is sure the crash was deliberate, but since "He was sober and they were intoxicated" there is no case to build, and Mike is never charged.

In Planet Terror, Lieutenant Muldoon says he killed which real-life figure before his unit was infected?

Osama bin Laden is the kill Muldoon claims; Rodriguez said he won over his star for the villain role with the pitch, "You get to kill bin Laden."

Which action star plays the mutant soldier villain of Planet Terror?

Bruce Willis plays Lt. Muldoon in an extended cameo, leading a squad of mutating soldiers who are out to seize the town's supply of the gas for themselves.

Which pop star plays Tammy, Dakota Block's lover, in Planet Terror?

Fergie, billed under her real name Stacy Ferguson, plays Tammy, the lover Dakota is about to leave her husband for when the outbreak begins.

Which actress plays Dakota Block, the anesthesiologist whose husband disables her hands in Planet Terror?

Marley Shelton plays Dr. Dakota Block, who carries her syringes in a thigh belt and, once her hands are numbed, has to fight just to get her own car door open.

Which composer's synth-heavy style did Rodriguez imitate in his own score for Planet Terror?

John Carpenter was once in talks to score the film himself; Rodriguez ended up writing it, in a style so close that reviewers said it could pass for Carpenter's own.

Which horror makeup-effects legend plays Deputy Tolo in Planet Terror?

Tom Savini, famed for the gore of Dawn of the Dead, is here purely as an actor; Planet Terror's make-up effects were the work of another shop, KNB.

Per historian David Church, the term "grind house" first appeared in print in 1923 in which trade paper?

Variety used "grind house" in 1923, by historian David Church's account; he ties the name to the "grind policy" of nonstop cut-price shows rather than to bump-and-grind burlesque.

Which New York street was famous for its row of seedy grindhouse theaters?

42nd Street's grindhouses ran cheap films back to back, day and night; one account traces the name to that nonstop "grind", another to the bump and grind of burlesque.

In 2020, Tarantino said audiences never understood Grindhouse because he and Rodriguez had been what?

Tarantino said he and Rodriguez had been "A little too cool for school", arguing that audiences simply had no concept of double features or exploitation history.

The actresses who play Planet Terror's Crazy Babysitter Twins are related to Rodriguez in what way?

His nieces, Electra and Elise Avellan, are the daughters of a sibling of Elizabeth Avellán, his producer and former wife; the Venezuelan-born twins return as nurses in Machete.

Tarantino gives himself a small role in Death Proof as Warren, who has what job?

Bartender Warren serves the drinks in the first half's bar scenes; Tarantino then shows up in Planet Terror on the other side, as one of the villain's soldiers.

Which actor plays Death Camp 13 commandant Franz Hess in Werewolf Women of the SS?

Udo Kier plays Commandant Franz Hess; Rob Zombie shot so much extra footage that the film's later home-video release carries a five-minute extended cut of the trailer.

Which act's bossa nova cover of a Dead Kennedys song features on the Planet Terror soundtrack?

Nouvelle Vague, a French act built on bossa nova covers, turned the 1981 punk single into a lounge number; ex-singer Jello Biafra attacked his old bandmates for licensing it to the film.

What did the studio's research name as the single biggest reason audiences stayed away from Grindhouse?

Its running time of over three hours was the biggest deterrent, Harvey Weinstein said; his brother Bob had already admitted to resistance in smaller markets after the opening weekend.

Marley Shelton auditioned unsuccessfully for which Rodriguez film before Grindhouse?

The Faculty, Rodriguez's 1998 sci-fi horror film, passed on her; she said he later explained that her eyes looked too alien and would have given away the twist.

Which Lost star plays Abby, the scientist who trades in a deadly gas, in Planet Terror?

Naveen Andrews plays Abby, a money-minded scientist; his tense handover with the soldiers' leader, an extended cameo for both actors, is where the trouble starts.