Death Proof
Death Proof is a 2007 American thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The film centers on a psychopathic stunt man who stalks young women before murdering them in staged car accidents using his “death-proof” stunt car. The film is a tribute to exploitation, muscle cars, and slasher film genres of the 1970s, and stars Kurt Russell, Zoë Bell, Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito, Jordan Ladd, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Tracie Thoms, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Rose McGowan.
Death Proof was released theatrically in the United States as part of a double feature with Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror under the collective title Grindhouse in order to replicate the experience of viewing exploitation film double features in a "grindhouse" theater. The films were released separately outside the United States and on DVD, with Death Proof going on sale in the United States on September 18, 2007. The budget of the film was an estimated USD$53 million.
[edit] Plot
Three friends -– Arlene (Vanessa Ferlito), Shanna (Jordan Ladd), and radio DJ “Jungle” Julia Lucai (Sydney Tamiia Poitier) -– drive down Colorado Street in Austin, Texas on their way to celebrate Jungle Julia's birthday. While drinking at Güero’s Taco Bar, Julia reveals that she made a radio announcement earlier that morning, offering a free lap dance from Arlene in return for addressing her as "Butterfly," buying her a drink, and reciting a segment of the poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”As the women bar-crawl to once named The Texas Chili Parlor, the scarred “Stuntman” Mike (Kurt Russell), an aging Hollywood stunt double, is seated at the bar. The women are unaware that he is quietly stalking them; only Arlene catches a quick glimpse of Mike’s matte black 1970 Chevy Nova, with a white skull and crossed lightning bolts on the hood. When customer Pam needs a ride home, Mike offers a ride, assuring her he is a teetotaler and a safe ride.
Stuntman Mike eventually convinces "Butterfly" to give him the lap dance and Pam takes him up on his offer to drive her home. Mike has seemed to be a normal, if overly intense, guy, but as he locks Pam into the passenger compartment, Mike looks directly into the camera and cheerfully smirks. Pulling out of the parking lot, he asks for directions, and when Pam says "right," he sighs and says they’re going left. He wished she had said left so she wouldn’t get scared right away.
A sadist, he begins to drive at extreme speeds and swerve the car, thrashing Pam around. She pleads to be let out, but Mike informs her that his car is “100% death proof, but to get the benefit of it, honey, you really need to be sittin’ in my seat!” He then slams on the brakes, smashing her skull on the dashboard and killing her.
Then saying it’s “time to find me my other girlfriends,” he tosses his voyeur photographs of the girls out the window so the police will not find evidence of premeditation. Mike then chases after the other four. Finding their car on an empty road, he speeds past and spins his car around. He proceeds to race at the girls’ car head-on with his headlights off, turning them back on at the last moment. Mike crashes into them, killing them all in equally grotesque ways. For instance, Jungle Julia's leg is severed and thrown on the road and Arlene's face is torn off by a tire.
At the hospital, it is revealed that Mike suffered only minor injuries. Because the girls were driving while intoxicated and Mike had not consumed any alcohol or marijuana, he is cleared of all criminal charges. (Pam’s death is likely attributed to the collision.) This angers Texas Ranger Earl McGraw, who knows the stuntman is guilty but can't investigate due to the lack of evidence. He suggests that if Stuntman Mike were to do it again, he'd "make damn sure" it wasn't in Texas.
Fourteen months later, three young women, Lee Montgomery (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Abernathy Ross (Rosario Dawson), and Kim Mathis (Tracie Thoms), are traveling through Lebanon, Tennessee. They stop at a convenience store where Mike has stationed himself in his new ride, a 1969 Dodge Charger. With Abernathy trying to sleep in the backseat, Mike gets out of his car and begins to tickle Abernathy’s bare feet, which are hanging out of the car window. He returns to his car and takes off.
The trio pick up their friend, stuntwoman Zoë Bell (playing herself), at the airport. Zoe informs them she wants to test-drive a white 1970 Dodge Challenger, the exact same type of car from the 1971 film, Vanishing Point, which just happens to be nearby. Convincing the car's redneck owner Jasper to accept Lee as a form of collateral, Abernathy, Kim, and Zoe take the Challenger for a test drive. Zoe reveals her true motives: she wants to play a game called “Ship’s Mast,” in which she will hang onto the car's hood with two belts while Kim drives at a high speed.
The three have a wild time until suddenly a stranger slams into the back of their car; it is Stuntman Mike. He rear-ends the Challenger quite a few times before sending Zoe flying off of the hood. Mike pulls over in the Charger and says, "Ladies, that was fun!" Kim pulls a gun and shoots him in the arm. He shouts in terror and is forced to flee. Zoe turns out to be unhurt from her fall. The three women decide to take revenge on Mike for his actions as Abernathy angrily says, "Let's kill this bastard."
Mike is tending to his wounds and crying when Kim rams into his car. Zoe beats him with a pipe and he flees yet again. The roles abruptly change as Mike goes from the hunter to the hunted. He begs them to back away and apologizes for what he did, but they show no mercy. The women eventually cause Mike's car to flip over and his arm to snap in two. He whines, whimpers, and screams in pain as the girls rip him out of the car. They surround Mike and overpower him by viciously punching his skull. He is thrown from girl to girl, spitting out blood and teeth as they beat him. Finally, Zoe delivers a spinning hook kick to his face and sends him flying to the ground, screaming in pain. After a brief credits segment, the film resumes as we see the three girls cheering around Mike's unconscious body. Abernathy smiles and walks over to Mike lying on the ground and swings her leg up into the air, then brings it back down delivering an axe kick . Through Mike's eyes, we see her stomp on his face and crush his head under her boot.
Characters
- Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike: A sociopathic stuntman/serial killer who kills women in and with his "death proof" car. When his next targets decide to fight back, he finds himself in an unusual position.
- Zoe Bell as Zoe: A stuntwoman from New Zealand who visits Abernathy, Kim and Lee on their days off from filming. She is the one who wants to test drive the Dodge Challenger car and play "ships mast." She is attacked by Stuntman Mike when on the hood of the car.
- Rosario Dawson as Abernathy Ross: A make-up artist who feels that she is always excluded from the exciting things that Zoe and Kim do. She insists they let her come along and is the one who actually kills Mike with a face smashing axe kick.
- Tracie Thoms as Kim Mathis: Another stuntwoman and close friend of Zoe, Abernathy and Lee. She is persuaded by Zoe to play "ship's mast" and is armed and dangerous while driving the car when Stuntman Mike attacks.
- Vanessa Ferlito as Arlene/Butterfly: A close friend of Julia and Shanna, who plan to go on holiday together after spending a night out. She is the one who spots Mike following the girls but accepts a dare to give him a lap dance. She is killed after having her face ripped off by Mike's tire.
- Sydney Tamiia Poitier as Jungle Julia Lucai: A radio DJ who dares Arlene to give a lap dance to the first man who comes up to her, buys her a drink and repeats a poem. She is made out to be a "bully" by Pam who tells Mike about their run-ins at school. She is crushed in between the dashboard and her seat, severing her leg in the process.
- Rose McGowan as Pam: A blonde customer at Warren's bar who needs a lift home. Mike comes across as a friendly non-drinker, so she is willing to ride with him. She is the first woman to die, not wearing a seat belt when he slams the brakes while driving at a fast speed and she hits her head against the dashboard.
- Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Lee Montgomery: An upcoming actress who picks up Zoe from the airport with Abernathy and Kim on their day off from filming. She wears a cheerleader outfit and is left with Jasper after they bargain for the car.
- Jonathan Loughran as Jasper, owner of the Dodge Challenger who accepts Lee as collateral while allowing his car to be taken out for a test drive. The character also appears in Kill Bill Volume 1.
- Jordan Ladd as Shanna: A friend of Arlene and Julia whose father owns a lake house they are intending to use. She informs the others it is a strictly girls-only holiday so none of the girls' partners can attend. Not wearing a seat belt in the crash, she is hurled out of the car as soon as it collides with Mike's.
- Michael Parks as Earl McGraw: A Texas sheriff (also the same sheriff in the Kill Bill series, From Dusk till Dawn and Planet Terror) who has no doubts about how guilty Mike is after the car crash in which the girls "all Princess Di'd." Although he is told that the girls were drunk and had smoked weed, he believes Mike caused the crash on purpose.
- Monica Staggs as Lena Frank, a drug-dealing friend of Julia, Shanna, and Arlene; she also murdered by Mike with her friends. Her neck is broken behind the car's wheel.
- Marley Shelton as Dr. Dakota Block, emergency medicine specialist and daughter of Sheriff Earl McGraw. Like her father, Block is developed more extensively in Planet Terror.
History and development
The story for Death Proof developed from Quentin Tarantino's fascination for the way stuntmen would “death-proof” stunt cars so a driver could survive horrific, high-speed crashes and collisions. This inspired Tarantino to create a slasher film featuring a deranged stuntman who stalks and murders sexy young women with his “death-proof” car.[1] Tarantino remembers, “I realized I couldn't do a straight slasher film, because with the exception of women-in-prison films, there is no other genre quite as rigid. And if you break that up, you aren't really doing it anymore. It's inorganic, so I realized—let me take the structure of a slasher film and just do what I do. My version is going to be fucked up and disjointed, but it seemingly uses the structure of a slasher film, hopefully against you.”[2] According to Robert Rodriguez, “[Tarantino] had an idea and a complete vision for it right away when he first talked about it. He started to tell me the story and said, ‘It’s got this death-proof car in it.’ I said, ‘You have to call it Death Proof.’ I helped title the movie, but that’s it.”[1] Of the car chases, Tarantino stated, “CGI for car stunts doesn’t make any sense to me—how is that supposed to be impressive? […] I don't think there have been any good car chases since I started making films in ’92—to me, the last terrific car chase was in Terminator 2. And Final Destination 2 had a magnificent car action piece. In between that, not a lot. Every time a stunt happens, there’s twelve cameras and they use every angle for Avid editing, but I don’t feel it in my stomach. It’s just action.”[2]Like many of Tarantino's films, Death Proof makes reference to other films and television shows, in Stuntman Mike's anecdotes about his career as a stuntman, for example. A unique feature of Death Proof, however, are the references to Tarantino's previous movies, which are all referenced though the course of the film. In one of the Jungle Julia billboards, she is dressed in the yellow and black motorcycle outfit from Kill Bill Volume 1. Stuntman Mike asks about another of the billboards near the "Big Kahuna Burger," a fictional restaurant mentioned in many of Tarantino's films, most notably Pulp Fiction. The diner scene is shot in the same style as the diner scene in Reservoir Dogs, while the opening car dialogue scene recalls the "Royale with cheese" scene in Pulp Fiction. The yellow car parked outside the circle A convenience store, has "Pussy Wagon" written on the back in the same style as the truck appearing in Kill Bill Volume 1. A character's cellphone ringtone (whistling) in one of the scenes is sampled from Twisted Nerve, which is later used in Tarantino's Kill Bill. A scene features a jukebox flipping through tracks, one of which is Dick Dale's 'Misirlou', the song in the opening of Pulp Fiction In Tarantino's subsequent film, Inglourious Basterds, no references are made to his previous films, Possibly because the film takes place before any of his previous work.
Production
Quentin Tarantino acted as cinematographer on Death Proof. Although Robert Rodriguez had previously worked as the cinematographer on six of his own feature films, Death Proof marked Tarantino's first credit as a cinematographer.[3][4]Tarantino attempted to cast John Travolta, Willem Dafoe, John Malkovich, Mickey Rourke, Ron Perlman, Bruce Willis, Kal Penn[5] and Sylvester Stallone[6] in Death Proof, but none were able to work due to prior commitments. In an interview, Tarantino revealed that he decided to cast Kurt Russell as the killer stunt driver because “for people of my generation, he's a true hero…but now, there's a whole audience out there that doesn't know what Kurt Russell can do. When I open the newspaper and see an ad that says ‘Kurt Russell in Dreamer,’ or ‘Kurt Russell in Miracle,’ I'm not disparaging these movies, but I'm thinking: When is Kurt Russell going to be a badass again?”[7] Eli Roth, Planet Terror leading actress Rose McGowan and Tarantino himself appear in small roles.
After being impressed by stuntwoman Zoe Bell (who worked as Uma Thurman's stunt double in Tarantino's earlier film Kill Bill), Tarantino wrote her the leading female role. This was her first on-screen acting which Bell initially thought was going to be a cameo role. The character Zoe was based on the stuntwoman herself and includes small stories based around real life experiences she had experienced, some with Tarantino. When her name was featured on the films posters opposite Kurt Russell, Rosario Dawson and Rose McGowan, she realized how big the role was.
Death Proof uses various unconventional techniques to make the film appear more like those that were shown in grindhouse theaters in the 1970s. Throughout the feature, the film was intentionally damaged to make it look like many of the exploitation films of the 1970s which were generally shipped around from theater to theater and usually ended up in bad shape. A notable example of one of the film's deliberate jump-cuts is seen at the beginning, when the title Quentin Tarantino's Thunderbolt is shown for a split second before abruptly being replaced by an insert with the title Death Proof, appearing in white lettering on a black background.[8] (Exploitation films were commonly retitled, especially if they received bad press on initial release.)
On the editing of Death Proof, Tarantino stated “There is half-an-hour’s difference between my Death Proof and what is playing in Grindhouse. […] I was like a brutish American exploitation distributor who cut the movie down almost to the point of incoherence. I cut it down to the bone and took all the fat off it to see if it could still exist, and it worked.”[9] An extended, 127-minute version of Death Proof was screened in competition for the Palme d'Or at the 60th Cannes Film Festival.[9][10][11][12] Tarantino is quoted as saying “It works great as a double feature, but I'm just as excited if not more excited about actually having the world see Death Proof unfiltered. […] It will be the first time everyone sees Death Proof by itself, including me.”[9]
Theatrical release
Death Proof was released in the United States and Canada alongside Planet Terror as part of a double feature under the title Grindhouse. Both films were released separately in extended versions internationally, approximately two months apart.[13] The additional material includes scenes that were replaced in the American theatrical release version with a “missing reel” title card, such as the lap dance scene. A total of 27 minutes were added for this version. One of the first screenings of Death Proof was made at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on August 20. 2007, with star Zoë Bell attending the screenings.[14] The Dutch poster artwork for Death Proof claimed that the film would feature “coming attractions” from Robert Rodriguez.[15] In the United Kingdom, Death Proof was released on September 21, 2007 and in Australia on November 1, 2007.[16] Explaining the split in foreign releases, Tarantino stated “Especially if they were dealing with non-English language countries, they don’t really have this tradition … not only do they not really know what a grind house is, they don’t even have the double feature tradition. So you are kind of trying to teach us something else.”[17]Soundtrack
The soundtrack for Death Proof consists entirely of non-original music, including excerpts from the scores of other films. It was released on April 3, 2007, alongside the Planet Terror soundtrack. Both albums featured dialogue excerpts from the film.Home releases
Death Proof was released on DVD in the United States on September 18, 2007 in a two-disc special edition featuring the extended version of the film, documentaries on the casting of the film, the various muscle cars and Tarantino's relationship with editor Sally Menke, trailers, and an international poster gallery.[18] On December 16, 2008, a BD release of identical content followed.A Japanese DVD release has the films Grindhouse, Death Proof and Planet Terror, with extras and fake trailers, in a six-DVD box set (English with optional Japanese subtitles). "Death Proof" was also released as a German HD DVD, believed to be the last film published in the now-defunct format.[19]
The Grindhouse double feature was eventually released on Blu-ray Disc in October of 2010.
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