Kurt Russell names his favourite grindhouse movie: “On the existential level, really cool”
Throughout the 1980s, Kurt Russell established himself as an action movie antihero with a series of films with John Carpenter, such as The Escape from New York and Big Trouble in Little China. Decades later, Russell would appear in a very different kind of action movie for Quentin Tarantino.
In 2007’s action slasher film Death Proof, half of the double feature Grindhouse alongside Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, Russell played a deranged stuntman who terrorises a group of young women by murdering with his modified stunt car that he tells them is indeed “death proof”.
The film serves as Tarantino’s homage to the grindhouse movies of the 1970s, the kind of low-budget, high-shock films that could be caught in double features at many cinemas in the United States. Russell loved the chance to take on Death Proof, and in an interview with Collider, the legendary actor once spoke of his love for the genre.
Russell was asked whether he had ever visited grindhouses in his early years, and he replied, “Oh, sure. I went to double features all the time.” In fact, Russell remembers auditioning for grindhouse movies on several occasions, during which he would look around the waiting room and wonder whether his professional competitors were really going to take the role if offered.
According to Russell, the auditioners would be willing to take on a grindhouse movie just to put “food on the table”, even if they might have to perform in scenes of a genuinely gruesome nature. Still, Russell never quite “qualified” for a grindhouse movie, so he could just go and watch them without worrying about “eating a rat” or something of that nature.
As for the grindhouse movie that Russell considers his favourite, he names the “one that qualifies” as Richard C. Sarafian’s 1971 action film Vanishing Point, starring Barry Newman, Cleavon Little and Dean Jagger. The film tells of an alienated ex-police officer and current race driver tasked with delivering a muscle car to California whilst being chased down by the authorities, all the while being high on speed.
Discussing his impressions of the film, Russell noted, “I always thought that Vanishing Point was on the existential level really cool in that world.” In fact, the actor proceeded to draw parallels between Sarafian’s movie and Death Proof in the way that both movies present themselves in peculiar manners.
“I kind of liked Death Proof in that regard,” Russell admitted. “Death Proof has that kind of sort of just off thing. It’s just off. It has sort of spectacular moments.” Indeed, Death Proof is perhaps just about as crazy a film as Tarantino has made, at least in the sense of its entire runtime. After all, the director has provided several bonkers moments throughout his career, but Death Proof is the film from his catalogue that never takes the foot off the pedal.
While Russell never had to resort to featuring in a grindhouse or exploitation movie of the 1970s early into his career in order to put food on the table, instead featuring in the likes of The Strongest Man in the World and Elvis, it remains that he holds a soft spot for the genre. By starring in Death Proof, the legendary actor managed to pay his respects to his favourite grindhouse movie in the shape of Vanishing Point and put the fear of God into young hitchhikers in the same breath.