Cinematical

From the minute I saw my SXSW goodie bag at registration, I knew what was on everyone's minds at the film festival this year. The front of the bag featured a big splashy double-feature poster for Grindhouse. (I wondered why they didn't use the "Burnet Road Drive-In" image that I love, but realized out-of-town registrants might then believe there's still a Burnet Road drive-in theater and get lost driving around looking for it.) I know a lot of people had hoped that a super-secret Grindhouse screening would occur during the festival, like last year's A Scanner Darkly screening, but it sounds like the film isn't quite complete so we'll all just have to wait a little longer.

SXSW has hosted some other events related to the grindhouse genre this year, though. On Saturday night, Republic Square Park was transformed into an outdoor theater for a grindhouse double-feature: the 1973 Italian film Torso and the Lucio Fulci 1979 film Zombie. The event was free for SXSW badgeholders but also open to non-festival attendees who bought tickets at the door (and by "door" I mean "tent"), so a large, varied crowd of hundreds of locals and festival attendees turned up with blankets and lawn chairs (photo after the jump).



Once it was dark enough to show the films, Grindhouse co-director Robert Rodriguez showed up to introduce the double-feature. He explained that Zombie and Torso were the two films that he and Quentin Tarantino decided to show to the Grindhouse actors before shooting their segments of the film, to give them a good background and explanation of the grindhouse genre. Rodriguez is a big fan of Zombie, and said the film contains "the all-time greatest zombie scene ever seen in film" -- the sequence in which a zombie and shark fight. "And then there's that eyeball scene that Quentin loves in this film; he screams every time he sees it."



Alamo Drafthouse founder Tim League discussed Torso, and explained about the Italian giallo genre to which the film belongs. League noted that the event was "the most offensive double-feature that's ever been shown in a park in Texas." A reel of vintage horror and exploitation-film trailers preceded the films, including Motel Hell, Suspiria, and a Sonny Chiba film called The Bodyguard. The crowd went wild over Sonny Chiba.

I stayed for part of Torso before I had to rush out to watch some other festival films. The print wasn't very good, but I figured that the splices and green lines running down the film made it a genuine grindhouse experience. The crowd was having a great time. I was a little weirded out at seeing images of topless women in the normally sedate Republic Square Park (which holds a farmers' market every weekend) but wished I could have stayed longer.

But that wasn't all for grindhouse at SXSW. On Sunday morning, a panel called "Grindhouse 101" with Robert Rodriguez was scheduled at 11 am. Even with daylight savings time kicking in, hundreds of conference attendees were lined up by 10:30 for the panel:



And that was just the line in front of me; it was almost as long behind, too. The panel took place in the ACC theater where movies are normally shown, and which I would guess holds about 400 people. The theater was packed. Rodriguez started, however, by saying that he didn't know much about the grindhouse genre, and invited Ain't It Cool News founder Harry Knowles to join him onstage for the discussion. They talked more about Rodriguez's films than grindhouse in general -- I think the session probably should have been called "Maverick Filmmaking 101 with Robert Rodriguez," which would have been more suitable and a better focus for Rodriguez, but probably less of a draw for people who were dying to see clips from Grindhouse.

Rodriguez talked a lot about the MPAA and how films have become more sanitized since the heyday of exploitation/grindhouse films in the 1960s and 1970s. He told us that the MPAA required a change in dialogue for one of the Grindhouse trailers: the line in the film was "If anyone comes to the door, shoot them," which had to be changed to "If anyone comes to the door, run." Rodriguez and Tarantino are adding scratches, splices, and tints to their segments of the films to make them look like well-worn prints of exploitation films, and Rodriguez pointed out that this would work in their favor if the MPAA demands cuts in order for the film to get an R rating. "We'll just make another splice" but include the original footage on the DVD, he said. "The MPAA will actually help us re-create the grindhouse experience."

The session included more vintage trailers, such as The Green Slime, They Call Her One Eye, and the kung-fu film Crippled Masters. After the trailers came the moment many attendees had been waiting for: a clip from Planet Terror, Rodriguez's film that is part of Grindhouse. The sound was cranked up so high that the theater shook, which only improved the experience. The clip showed a crowd of people on motorcycles and in military vehicles facing a mob of zombies. There was no shortage of gore, but it wasn't so bad that I had to look away. (That part came later in the session.)

Rodriguez again discussed the intentional flaws that he and Tarantino allowed in order to capture an authentic grindhouse feel, and noted that this meant they could make the occasional mistake and let it pass because "It's grindhouse. That's okay." He also liked having the opportunity to add tints to some scenes that might look like flaws in the print but which enhanced the tone of the scenes. "Here we had a whole new set of filmmaking tools we could use." He said they also could omit "the boring parts" of the movies they were making by simply faking a splice or inserting a "Missing Reel" card.

"Grindhouse exploitation films didn't have cash, didn't have any kind of budget -- they had to come up with ideas instead, anything to get your ass in a seat," he explained. He pointed out that sometimes the poster was created before the film to get the most eye-catching images and ideas across.

The "Grindhouse 101" session included a few of the finalists for the "fake grindhouse trailer" competition that Rodriguez and SXSW sponsored. We saw trailers for The Dead Won't Die and Maiden of Death, but it was Hobo with a Shotgun that won the prize. Rodriguez also held a brief Q&A and answered questions from the audience, which was the only time we were allowed to take pictures during the session:



During the Q&A, Rodriguez talked about projects he'd enjoy working on, like a trilogy starting with Once Upon a Time in Mexico about the blind gunfighter from that film, and a full-length film based on the Machete trailer with Danny Trejo that he shot for Grindhouse. "Danny Trejo wants to do it, says 'I'm in the best shape of my life,'" Rodriguez said. He said Machete could be made as a direct-to-DVD film -- but I didn't think he sounded entirely serious about actually working on the project.

The panel ended with a screening of horror director Eli Roth's fake trailer that will be included in Grindhouse. Rodriguez told us that "This one for sure will havea problem with the ratings board." It was for a slasher film called Thanksgiving. I had to close my eyes during the bit with the cheerleader and the trampoline and the knife, which I assume is the bit that he's worried the MPAA won't like. I'll be interested to see (or peek through my fingers to see) if the trailer changes in the finished film.

[If you want to see the vintage trailers and the finalists in the fake trailer competition, the Cinema Blend article on the "Grindhouse 101" panel has posted YouTube links.]