AContrary to popular rumor, the missing reels idea in Death Proof and Planet Terror were NOT true staples of Grindhouse moviegoing. While many Grindhouse films would be missing frames, they were never missing entire 20-30 minute reels. The concept for this came from a film Quentin owns ("The Sell Out" starring Oliver Reed) which had a missing reel. He found he enjoyed watching the film with a chunk of the film's plot missing because it created an interesting mystery about what actually happened in that part of the film. This idea was then transferred to the two Grindhouse features. It also helped cut down the runtime for the movie's theatrical run.
A(1) Jason Eisener/Rob Cotterill/John Davies "Hobo with a Shotgun" trailer. (Canada only?), (2) Robert Rodriguez' "Machete" trailer, (3) Robert Rodriguez' "Planet Terror", (4) Rob Zombie's "Werewolf Women of the SS" trailer, (5) Edgar Wright's "Don't" trailer, (6) Eli Roth's "Thanksgiving" trailer, and (7) Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof."
AA "Grindhouse" was a type of inner city theatre that would play all night marathons of low budget exploitation films in the 60s, 70s and early 80s. These down n dirty theatres would often show offbeat ultraviolent and sexually charged films under the categories of Kung Fu (Shaw Brothers films), Hixploitation (White Lightning, Gator Bait), Blaxploitation (Shaft, Coffy, Superfly, Dolemite, The Mack), Sexploitation (Supervixens, The Swinging Cheerleaders), Zombie and Cannibal films (Dawn of the Dead, Zombi 2, Cannibal Holocaust) Biker films (The Wild Angels, The Glory Stompers, The Savage Seven, The Losers) among hundreds of other subgenres. In the suburbs during the 60s and 70s, Drive-ins were the equivalent to the inner city Grindhouses. You could see many of the same kinds of films from the convenience of your car. The title of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's first collaboration "From Dusk Til Dawn" (1996) was named after the catch phrase for the all night Drive-in movie marathons. Both Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino grew up watching these kinds of films in Grindhouse theatres & drive-ins in the 70s-early 80s. When they became friends in the early 90s they often held Exploitation film double features in their own home theaters (and also at QTs Film Fests in Austin, Texas). Flash forward to 2006, the two moviemaking pals decided to recreate these wild nights for movie audiences around the world by making their own traditional Grindhouse-Drive-In double feature extravaganza complete with two raunchy horror films, fake Exploitation film trailers, ads and other cool treats.