Watching the trailer, one might wonder how a trailer so gory, so violent, so grotesque and so tasteless could possibly be stretched out into a 90 minute feature. Not only does it deliver to your disgusting needs, it shoots you in the balls with it. Still interested, sicko? Well, once upon a time in Hollywood, directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino wanted to make a film that would be a throwback to the "classic" grindhouse features, which mainly consisted of exploitation B-movies. An exploitation film is essentially a genre that one-ups another to the point where if the film could vomit, it would vomit that genre into your eyes forever. So, the two collaborated to release Grindhouse, a double-feature including Planet Terror and Death Proof, directed by Rodriguez and Tarantino, respectively. If you saw the film in theaters, you got a special treat. Before the opening of each film, a series of fake trailers were shown, each offering something more ridiculous and insane than the features succeeding them. What's special about these trailers is that they were significant efforts by some famous names. Such trailers include Werewolf Women of the SS, directed by Rob Zombie and starring Nicolas Cage; Thanksgiving, directed by Eli Roth; Don't, directed by Edgar Wright, and Machete, directed by Rodriguez himself. As you might know, Machete was later made into a feature film, because of the praise received from the trailer. As you might not know, the script for Machete was actually already written several years prior to the release of the fake trailer, which rekindled his interest in finally bringing it to the big screen. The last fake trailer to precede Grindhouse wasn't created by a famous director, but rather a winner of Rodriguez's "South by Southwest" contest. The winner's trailer would be featured in Grindhouse. As you might have guessed, the winner was Hobo With a Shotgun. Obviously, someone must have appreciated the trailer, as it too was later shot as a feature-length.
