Bruce Willis Played A Zombie-Killing Villain In This Wonderfully Gory 2007 Horror Movie

Robert Rodriguez's sci-fi/horror flick "Planet Terror" was released as a portion of the 2007 two-for-one movie "Grindhouse." The idea behind "Grindhouse" was to recreate the experience of going to a rundown grindhouse movie theater in the late 1970s and catching a random double feature of salacious B-movies. The A-feature was "Planet Terror," and the B-feature was Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof." The two movies were preceded by a preview for a fake movie called "Machete," and in between the two features were fake previews for movies called "Werewolf Women of the SS" (directed by Rob Zombie), "Don't" (by Edgar Wright), and "Thanksgiving" (by Eli Roth). In some markets, the two features were followed by a preview for "Hobo with a Shotgun," which was made as part of a fake trailer competition.

To add to the authenticity, both "Planet Terror" and "Death Proof," along with all the fake trailers, were given fake scratches, color errors, and missing reels, all included to make the prints look old and worn. The movies weren't just stylistic throwbacks, but artificial 1970s relics. 

For the purposes of this article, we'll focus on "Planet Terror," a gory, slimy zombie thriller with Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Josh Brolin, Marley Shelton, Jeff Fahey, and Fergie. Quentin Tarantino has a cameo as a would-be sexual assault enthusiast, and, most surprisingly, Bruce Willis appears as an evil soldier who turns into a pustule monster. Tarantino and Rodriguez had worked together multiple times in the past, of course. They both directed segments in the 1995 anthology film "Four Rooms," and Tarantino wrote and co-starred in Rodriguez's 1996 film "From Dusk Till Dawn."  Willis had previously appeared in Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction," and his "Four Rooms" segment, as well as in Rodriguez's 2005 film "Sin City," so his appearance in "Planet Terror" was almost inevitable.

It should immediately be noted that, despite the pop culture stature of the film's two central directors, "Grindhouse" was a huge flop. On a collective budget of $67 million, the movie only made $25.4 million back. It seems that audiences weren't super hungry for a retro '70s theatrical experience that ran for a whopping 191 minutes. Despite its failure, though, "Grindhouse" became kind of notorious, and the fake trailers took on a life of their own; to date, actual features have been made of "Machete" (as well as a sequel called "Machete Kills"), "Thanksgiving," and "Hobo with a Shotgun." "Grindhouse" may be the most popular unpopular movie ever made.

"Planet Terror" also kind of eschewed the 1970s assignment. In terms of its gory content, musical score, and oversaturated color, "Planet Terror" has more in common with a mid-'80s gore flick than a proper 1970s grindhouse movie. Horror fans will be reminded of Dan O'Bannon's 1985 film "Return of the Living Dead" more than anything. Makeup master and film director Tom Savini appears in "Planet Terror," which may be a clue as to what Robert Rodriguez was going for; Savini directed the remake of "Night of the Living Dead" in 1990. 

The story of "Planet Terror" hardly matters, but it's enough to hang a zombie movie on. Freddie Rodriguez plays El Wray and Rose McGowan plays his ex-girlfriend and go-go dancer Cherry Darling. Willis plays Lieutenant Muldoon, a military dude who oversees a secret chemical exchange that goes awry. The chemical is released into the air, and the local Texas town experiences a zombie outbreak. The zombies of "Planet Terror" are nasty customers, covered with welts and oozing boils. 

Josh Brolin plays a cold-hearted doctor who discovers the zombie outbreak at his hospital, while Marley Shelton plays his beleaguered, abused wife, attempting to leave him and shack up with her girlfriend, played by Fergie. In the midst of the zombie outbreak, Cherry Darling loses her leg, and El Wray, being a resourceful fighter, replaces it with a leg-length machine gun. "Planet Terror" climaxes with Cherry busting into a military facility and blowing s*** up with her leg gun. 

Willis reappears in "Planet Terror" to explain that he was actually the one to personally kill Osama bin Laden (who was still alive in 2007), but that he and his platoon had been infected by zombie gas. As he explains this, his face puffs up into boils, and El Wray murders him just as he has mutated into a creature that is more pus than man. "Planet Terror" is a wild ride. 

Critics were largely positive about "Grindhouse," and the film has an 84% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert, however, gave it only two-and-a-half stars, saying it was an impressive exhibition experiment, but that, as individual films, both "Planet Terror" and "Death Proof" were unimpressive outings for their respective directors. He also noted that the contents of the exploitation movies of yore had, many years ago, moved into the mainstream. Ebert wrote that horny kids used to go to grindhouses to see boobs and 'splosions, but, "Now that the mainstream is showing lots of breasts and real big explosions, there is no longer a market for bad movies showing the same thing." 

The "Grindhouse" cut of "Planet Terror" was 91 minutes, but a longer, 105-minute version was released internationally. The longer version, however, lacks the scrappy brevity of the original.