Death Proof is the closest Quentin Tarantino ever came to filming a straightforward horror, and for those that have seen it, it’s certainly lacking, and the furthest thing from straightforward. More an undercover remake/ode to/pastiche of his favorite car-chase movie Vanishing Point and about a thousand other, similar movies (as per usual), Death Proof kind of exemplifies all the worst qualities of a Tarantino film: it’s overlong, it’s self-indulgent, and it’s prone to meaningless tangents and winks at irrelevant films. Death Proof is not the horror film we needed from Quentin Tarantino, and I doubt it’s even the one we deserved.
Ironically enough, Tarantino named Big Bad Wolves, which is almost slavishly indebted to him, as the best movie of 2013. This Israeli-bred horror film (what an unusual thing to say!) is as much comedy as horror, and in the spirit of Death Proof, feels like a send-up of many different sorts of exploitation plots balled up and packaged together with a masterfully dry sense of humor--think more Severance than Evil Dead, and you’re almost there, but its oddball genre setups and unpredictable turnouts also betray a hint of Coen Brothers flavor, as if the script happened to float by their desks on its way to production.
Big Bad Wolves is the story of a kidnapping gone awry wrapped around a whodunit mystery, or maybe the other way around. It’s a blast to watch even when it’s clearly referencing Tarantino (you’ll be reminded of Reservoir Dogs more often than Death Proof, actually!), and it’s surprisingly funny even when things take a turn toward the grotesque; but Big Bad Wolves is depth-charge horror, the sort that disguises itself in twists and hilarious diversions, but whose presence lingers long after you’ve stopped laughing.
-Brian L.
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- Recovery date
- 2026-07-22
- Stewardship polish
- 2026-07-22
- Preservation status
- restored
- Missing assets
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Preserved by Bloodsoaked Media · The Archives