The movie starts with Rose McGowan as Cherry Darling doing a go go dance where her boss Skip (Skip Reissig) scolds her for crying the dance. Cherry walks out of her job and is almost run over by some military trucks. The trucks go to an exchange between chemical engineer "Abby" (Naveen Andrews) for quantities of DC2, a deadly nerve agent. Lieutenant Muldoon finds out that Abby is keeping some of the DC2 from him and attempts to take him hostage. As he does Abby shoots some of the biochemical making it spray into the air and infect people in the local town.
We meet El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez) a drifter who reunites with Cherry, his ex. This happens at J.T.'s (Jeff Fahey) restaurant called the Bone Shack. He owns the restaurant with his brother Sheriff Hague (Michael Biehn). Meanwhile Doctor Block (Josh Brolin) and his unhappy, unfaithful, and bisexual wife Dr. Dakota Block (Marley Shelton) treat infected people at the hospital. She has been seeing Tammy (Fergie), behind his back. Ranger Earl McGraw (Michael Parks) helps out the local sheriff's department while taking care of his ill wife Ramona (Jerili Romero).
Rose McGowan as Cherry Darling
Marley Shelton as Dr. Dakota Block. She is effectively creepy and sexy in this. Props to her for allowing running makeup and having a chipped tooth in the second half of the movie. Not all actresses would do that. Between her and Jeff Fahey this movie has a share of people with piercing blue eyes.
I'm just going to leave you a link to all the clips from this film on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZbXA4lyCtqp-i8pQuMUFzXF0Bw8HU1u9
I could talk about every scene and every character and why I love it. I love Rodriguez's style in this movie. He frequently goes from close ups, to extreme close ups and back to medium shots which feels like an older exploitation movie and something Lucio Fulci might do. The scratching of the film makes this look like it is from a different time. Rodriguez shoots this digitally though which actually makes for a good hybrid. Most of the time that style doesn't work. Rodriguez might be the only person who has made the digital throwback style work well. Some of the coloring makes it look digital. Nicotero and Berger's effects are out of this world. The exploding blood squibs when anyone gets shot are awesome. I love the effect when Tom Savini's deputy character is torn apart and you hear him scream high pitched. A hybrid of some of the effects Savini himself did in Day of the Dead, I love the effect of Fergie's split open head. The most disgusting effects of course come in the form of pulsating boils on faces due to the bioweapon infection and the infected herpes looking testicles. It is a double whammy of gross out when the herpes is seen on screen and then Dr. Block pops abscesses on someone's tongue. Those effects actually made me gag at times and throughout this movie Rodriguez with his FX crew do things that Fulci used to do which is push the audience to the breaking point with blood and gore.
Before I move to the spoiler section I'm just going to say some of the my favorite lines from some characters:
Earl McGraw (talking about Dr. Block): I never did like that son of a bitch. About as useless as a pecker on a pope."
Cherry Darling: That's the thing about goals, they become the thing you talk about instead of the thing you do."
J.T.: I finally figured it out. Blood has salt in it. My sauce needs more salt.
Sheriff Hague: "Try not to shoot yourselves. Don't shoot each other. But especially...don't shoot me."
Dakota Block (talking about her anesthesia needles): These…are my friends. My yellow friend is to take the sting off. My blue friend you’ll barely feel. That means my yellow friend is all ready taking effect. See how fast my friends work? And after my red-headed friend, you’ll never see me again.”
Without the characters having some degree of relativity this wouldn't be as good. Everyone feels grounded in some way even in such a ridiculous movie. I love so many little things that happen. I enjoy the scene where the Block's son shoots himself after Dakota gives him the gun. It feels like something a real little kid would do and a great comedy moment. I love when El Wray wrecks zombies in the hospital with his knives. I love the shootout outside with the cops. Another great Rodriguez moment is when he lingers on the closeup of the deputy's arm and it gets bit off. I love Abby and his Rambo knife that can cut off other men's balls. There are so many fun character moments in between the madness. I enjoy the score by Rodriguez which feels like a throwback to John Carpenter's more minimalist synth scores.
Spoiler Section
All of the characters end up meeting at the Bone Shack. Cherry escapes the hospital with Wray after having her leg eaten off by a zombie. The cops at first arrest Wray because he isn't allowed to own guns. Dr. Block eventually figures out Dakota is cheating on him and locks her in a closet from which she escapes. Dr. Block is infected by one of the zombies when they overrun the hospital. Dakota flees to her father, Earl McGraw whom she is estranged from because he didn't like her marrying Dr. Block. This ties in with Death Proof as does Fergie listening to the radio and hearing "in memory of Jungle Julia." When all the surviving characters gather at J.T.'s Wray and Cherry have sex after he reveals a wedding ring that was in the jacket she stole. During this scene there is a missing reel. The film resumes sometime after the sex scene when Deputy Tolo (Tom Savini) had shot Sheriff Hague and the restaurant become overrun. In an ode to Night of the Living Dead Cherry goes to grab the truck outside near gas tanks and a lot of zombies as Wray covers her. He is one hell of a shot. They all escape on the tow truck, a car, a motorcycle, and Wray rides minibike. This sequence as they to escape is awesome. Michael Biehn driving the tow truck and splattering zombies is awesome.
Eventually they are surrounded on the bridge by many zombies and the military shows up and kills them all. Two soldiers take Cherry and Dakota away. Abby tells them about the DC2 and him and Wray escape. They confront Lt. Muldoon who says his team killed Bin Laden and because he wasn't supposed to be there he got infected to keep quiet. They have to breathe in a gas every so often to stay human. They kill Muldoon. Dakota and Cherry kill the two soldiers who attempt to rape them. This is a nice homage to Lucio Fulci as Cherry stabs Quentin Tarantino's character with the splintered part of her peg leg. Dakota shoots the other with a syringe gun she has. Wray then tapes an M16 to Cherry's leg. She is able to stand on the barrel and they all escape and kill all the soldiers. Earl kills the infected Dr. Block. Wray is shot though trying to protect Cherry. Cherry leads the survivors to a Caribbean Beach where she is seen with her and Wray's baby daughter.
How awesome is it seeing Cherry with the M16 use the grenade launcher to blow herself into the air over a gate and then use it again to kill a bunch of soldiers as she comes down? That was like something out of a Halo game and I loved it. There really isn't anything I disliked about this movie and if it were even longer with more zombie carnage, awesome character moments and dialogue I'd be there for it. I haven't even talked about the scenes where Cherry says she wants to be a comedian and how J.T. finds her funny. There isn't a moment that I don't like. Rose McGowan as Cherry is one of the hottest characters in all of horror movies. She has never looked better.
Rating: 10/10
Trivia: Casting Bruce Willis in a small part was an homage to Grindhouse movies where big stars were cast to enhance the credibility of the movie.
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