50 Fun Facts About Grindhouse

Grindhouse (2007) is a double feature made by which two directors?

The idea came out of double-feature nights Tarantino hosted at his house, complete with vintage trailers between the films.

Which director wrote and directed Planet Terror, the zombie half of Grindhouse?

Rodriguez had started the zombie script years earlier during The Faculty, telling Elijah Wood and Josh Hartnett that zombie movies were about to come back.

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

Tarantino cast him because he wanted a new audience to see Russell "be a badass again"; Kal Penn and Sylvester Stallone were also approached for the film.

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

Effects artists digitally erased the actress's real leg and replaced it first with a table leg and then an M16.

Which actress plays Cherry Darling in Planet Terror?

She also appears in Death Proof as Pam, and was Saturn-nominated for the double bill.

Which studio released Grindhouse in the US on April 6, 2007?

Dimension was then part of the Weinstein Company, whose boss Harvey Weinstein later said he considered re-releasing the halves separately.

Grindhouse grossed only about $25M in the US against a production budget in what range?

Analysts had predicted a $20–30 million opening; it did $11.5 million and finished behind the second weekend of Blades of Glory.

How did the studio handle Planet Terror and Death Proof outside the US after the domestic flop?

Death Proof went on to gross about $30 million on its own and Planet Terror about $11 million.

In what year did the full theatrical Grindhouse first appear on home video?

Early DVD releases split the films up; Rodriguez later said he thought Weinstein "buried" the movie.

Which three fake Grindhouse trailers were later turned into full feature films?

The three features trickled out over the following sixteen years, the last of them in November 2023.

According to Rodriguez, whose idea was it to put fake trailers in Grindhouse?

Rodriguez says he first learned about it by reading it in the trades and thinking, "There are?"

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

He went with the Nazis, citing Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS as the most bizarre genre going, and shot enough for a half-hour short before painfully cutting it down.

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

Udo Kier plays the commandant of Death Camp 13 and Sheri Moon Zombie and Sybil Danning play the SS sisters.

Edgar Wright's fake trailer, styled after a 1970s Hammer horror ad, has what one-word title?

None of the actors speaks, mimicking how US distributors hid that a film was British; Wright scratched the print with steel wool and dragged it around a parking lot.

Who provides the voice-over for Edgar Wright's fake trailer?

Pegg, Nick Frost, Jason Isaacs, Matthew Macfadyen and singer Katie Melua all appear on screen.

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

Roth's childhood friend Jeff Rendell plays the killer; 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?

The parody was called Arbor Day; the trailer also borrows excerpts of the Creepshow score.

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

Roth said the ratings board relaxed once they saw it with all the bad splices and scratches; the final film is rated R.

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

Made by Dartmouth, Nova Scotia filmmakers Jason Eisener, John Davies and Rob Cotterill, it became a feature film in 2011.

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

David Brunt, the hobo from the original trailer, plays a dirty cop in the film.

Rodriguez first wrote Machete back in 1993 as a star vehicle for which actor?

He wanted Trejo to have his own line of "Mexploitation" films like Charles Bronson.

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

The kid-friendly Uncle Machete and the blood-soaked federale are, canonically, the same guy.

Which action star made his first theatrical release since 2002 in Machete?

Machete Kills followed in 2013; the long-promised Machete Kills Again... in Space has not.

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

The killer wears a John Carver mask, after the first governor of Plymouth Colony; Patrick Dempsey plays the sheriff.

Grindhouse was born when Rodriguez and Tarantino found they owned the same poster for which 1957 double feature?

Rodriguez suggested each direct one half; Tarantino immediately replied, "And we've got to call it Grindhouse!"

Which recurring Texas Ranger, first seen in From Dusk till Dawn, appears in both halves of Grindhouse?

Michael Parks plays him; his real son James plays McGraw's son Edgar in Death Proof.

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

Rodriguez had already shot six of his own films; each director served as DP on his own segment.

What device, borrowed from a beat-up Italian crime film, lets Grindhouse jump straight to the third act?

Rodriguez loved that a movie could lose 20 minutes and still work, and that it skips the predictable late second act.

How long is the extended cut of Death Proof that competed for the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2007?

Tarantino said there was half an hour's difference from the Grindhouse cut, which he'd trimmed "like a brutish American exploitation distributor".

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

Bell had doubled for Uma Thurman in Kill Bill and for Lucy Lawless on Xena.

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

They leave their friend Lee behind as collateral after telling the owner she's a porn star.

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

The second half jumps 14 months and moves to Lebanon, Tennessee.

In Death Proof, Jungle Julia's radio contest requires listeners to recite part of which poem to Arlene?

Stuntman Mike, of course, has been listening and claims the lap dance.

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

Ranger McGraw is sure it was deliberate but can't make a case; Mike walks away with barely a scratch, as promised.

In Planet Terror, what is the deadly biochemical agent that turns the town into zombie-like mutants?

Lt. Muldoon's men are buying it from chemical engineer Abby when the deal goes wrong and the gas is released.

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

He'd previously worked with both directors, in Pulp Fiction and Sin City.

Which pop star appears in Grindhouse as Tammy, the ex-lover of Dr. Dakota Block in Planet Terror?

Between Poseidon and the musical Nine, it's one of the Black Eyed Peas singer's few film roles.

Which actress plays anesthesiologist Dakota Block, whose husband disables her hands, and cameos in Death Proof?

Rodriguez had passed on her for The Faculty, then gave her a bit part in Sin City before this starring role.

Which composer's music, often played on set, inspired Rodriguez's own score for Planet Terror?

Death Proof, by contrast, uses no original music at all, only borrowed songs and film-score excerpts.

How did Roger Ebert split his ratings for the two halves of Grindhouse?

He gave the whole thing two and a half stars; many other critics preferred Planet Terror.

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

The name comes from the "grind policy" of continuous cut-rate screenings, not, as often assumed, from bump-and-grind burlesque.

Grindhouse theaters are often wrongly linked to burlesque houses on which New York street?

The Oxford English Dictionary definition is about continuous shows, low prices and poor-quality films, not striptease.

In 2020, Tarantino called Grindhouse his most misunderstood film, saying he and Rodriguez had been what?

He argued audiences simply had no concept of double features or exploitation history and "had no idea what they were watching".

Which two actors play the Crazy Babysitter Twins, appearing in both halves of Grindhouse?

They are Robert Rodriguez's nieces, and he once floated a sequel pairing them with Machete.

How long did each of the fake Grindhouse trailers take to shoot?

Rob Zombie pitched Werewolf Women of the SS to Rodriguez at the Scream Awards.

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

Sheri Moon Zombie and Sybil Danning play the SS sisters Eva and Gretchen Krupp.

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

Rodriguez composed the rest of the Planet Terror score himself; Death Proof uses only nonoriginal music.

What average grade did CinemaScore audiences give Grindhouse?

Critics were kinder still: 84% positive on Rotten Tomatoes and 77 out of 100 on Metacritic.

Marley Shelton auditioned unsuccessfully for which Rodriguez film before Grindhouse?

She was eventually cast as a customer in the opening sequence of Sin City before landing Dr. Dakota Block.

Which company released the two-disc Blu-ray Special Edition of Grindhouse in October 2010?

Bill Moseley said the Blu-ray would include a five-minute version of Werewolf Women of the SS.