Rating  - I know it's supposed to be a cool cult classic...
But that doesn't mean that these movies don't suck. I saw the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse movie and loved the whole thing so much that I thought I'd give a real grindhouse movie a chance. Honestly, this was painful. I couldn't possibly recommend it to anybody. I really do get that this is supposed to represent some kind of "experience," but in all fairness, stubbing your toe counts as an experience, too. I would put this movie somewhere between stubbing your toe and having your eyes gouged out.
Rating  - The "grindhouse" concept lives on
You have to feel bad for the folks who've put out this series of "Welcome to the Grindhouse" DVDs. After all, these DVDs were produced to ride the coattails of "Grindhouse", the recent Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino exploitation-style double feature that premiered in theaters in April, 2007. So what happens? As fun as it was, "Grindhouse" tanked at the box office, and- as was announced later- the film wouldn't be released on DVD in the same double-feature format as its theatrical exhibition, but split up as separate DVDs: one featuring Tarantino's half of "Grindhouse", the rockin' "Death Proof" and the other presenting the eerie, crazy "Planet Terror", Rodriguez's contribution to the original project. So, now you have all these "Welcome to the Grindhouse" double-feature DVDs that are meant to emulate Tarantino and Rodriguez's two-edgy-exploitation-movies-complete-with-trailers-and-other-goodies original presentation, and that original presentation doesn't exist anymore!
Oh, well-- things happen I guess. But that just makes me want to do my part to promote this entertaining series of DVDs and maybe help make up for the unforeseen promotion complications mentioned above.
Like 2007's "Grindhouse", these "Welcome to the Grindhouse" DVDs give you two movies peppered with a bunch of trailers. If you select "The Grindhouse Experience" on the main menu (as opposed to selecting an individual film to watch), the DVD will play a couple of trailers, then go right into the first feature, "The Teacher", play a couple of more trailers, then go into the second feature, "The Pick-Up"
Also like 2007's "Grindhouse", this "Welcome to the Grindhouse" DVD really feels like an afternoon at the movies at one of those low-rent movie houses that regularly showed low-rent movies in the 70's and 80's before the big chains wiped all those theaters out. The difference here is that these DVDs present films and trailers actually from that era, not lovingly created facsimiles of those films like the Tarantino/Rodriguez effort.
The other thing to remember is that your typical grindhouse-style movie, like the ones included on this DVD, didn't deliver entertainment value because they were "so bad they're good", but because most of them were genuinely worth seeing. While slapdash and amateurish is some ways (mostly due to their low budgets and short production schedules) they were also usually energetic, full of imagination, laced with ideas and scenarios not often seen in mainstream fare, and just plain gutsy. So how are the two movies on this particular DVD? Glad you asked...
"The Teacher"... Not nearly as exploitative as the poster and advertising suggest, this is nevertheless a pretty sexy movie. The main character doesn't pick up every student in the school, however, just the one she really likes... and it's done with the approval of the kid's mother, who thinks her kid needs to break out of his shell a little! So, yes, it's definitely an exploitation film, but a kind of sweet one. And it's funny how the saccharine-sweet theme song of "The Teacher" starts playing every time the teacher character makes her entry (often via bicycle) into a scene. It's like the producers told the director, "we paid good money for that song, so use it!" Be warned, though, there's a bit of a downer ending to the whole thing. Again, it's like the producers said, "hmmmm, we should have someone pay the price for all that sexy fun... we don't want to send the wrong message." You have to love exploitation film morality: Give the audiences 85 minutes of hedonism, then suddenly get all moralistic about it in the last two or three minutes.
"The Pick-Up": Two hitchhikers (pretty girls, natch), the guy who picked them up, and the big bus they're traveling in get stuck in the mud in the middle of the Everglades (don't ask). The rest of the movie depicts sexy fun between the guy and blonde-ish hitchhiker as they kill time waiting to be found, while the brunette hitchhiker wanders through the Everglades hallucinating about ancient rituals, her disturbing past, and other weirdness. It's all rather strange, but somehow compelling. It was also rather brave of the filmmakers, delivering loads of "artistic" imagery when the poster promised sexy hitchhiker fun. I guessed they figured that the numerous nude scenes would make the surreal imagery go down easier. And they were right.
The trailers? There are four or five of them, and they all provide great examples of the grindhouse form: girl-gang movies, Hell's Angels-style motorcycle thrillers, etc. I hope some of the movies these trailers advertise actually show up on future "Welcome to the Grindhouse" DVDs.
Oh, one more thing: Happily, one element that these DVDs (at least, not this DVD) don't emulate is the scratchy prints/missing reels gimmick of 2007's "Grindhouse". The gimmick was kind of fun there, because the scratches and missing reels were often strategically placed to induce a chuckle, but I'm glad that clean, clear prints were used on this DVD.
So, those are my thoughts, for what they're worth. In the end, I'd give the two actual films presented here three stars and the entertaining concept behind this DVD a full five stars, averaging out to the four stars at the top of this review. I'm definitely going to pick up a few more of these economically-priced "Welcome to the Grindhouse" DVDs. You get lots of bang for your buck.
Rating  - p140
the stories didn't make sense-----The Teacher was likable but i didn't
like the plot-----the pick-up was a bummer
Rating - Grindhouse? More like pornhouse...
I was suprised that neither of these movies are very violent. There is some level of suspense, but really this is just soft porn in disguise. Like it says on the cover, it's two sinful shockers accompanied by the cheesy previews that do give a nice "grindhouse" feel
The Teacher
Here you get the hot teacher seducing her student after school, how cool is that? After-school activities just don't get no better than this. There is the jealous stalker that tries to to ruin the fun.
Pick Up
Y'all need a ride? Well, just step on up into my mobile home then(of course they get lost in the middle of nowhere) Sex in the trees never looked so fun!
With the exception of the blood and guts spillage, these movies have everything you could expect...low budgets, bad acting, poor plots, lots of nudity...It's a fun time, worth checking out if you're a fan of the old grindhouse movies.
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