YMMV / Planet Terror

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Are we really supposed to feel sorry for Dakota (who was cheating on her husband and whose irresponsibility got her son killed) just because she's a battered wife?
  • Some can excuse her cheating on her husband by her being a battered wife.
• Angst? What Angst?: Dakota seems to show very little angst over Tony's death, given that she moves on to lusting over Cherry. This one is partially justified by Robert Rodriguez re-cutting an alternate version of the film where Tony survives, so as not to scar his son Rebel.
• Awesome Music: The main title song by Graeme Revell.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: The movie's most famous moment is Rose McGowan pole dancing over the opening credits.
• Broken Base: The fact that Dakota's cheating on her husband makes her hard to root for in some viewers' eyes. The fact that she's a battered wife justifies it in others'.
• Catharsis Factor: Robert Rodriguez eventually revealed that he cast Rose McGowan as the lead - and an Action Girl at that - because she told him she'd been blacklisted by the Weinsteins. He then wrote the character played by Quentin Tarantino as a Take That! to Harvey Weinstein - so Cherry fighting off the rapist and kicking ass has become very cathartic once Rose went public about her sexual abuse in Hollywood.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Cherry having her leg amputated and having to be given a chair leg at first is played for comedy. Especially the scene where El Wray has to help her out of the hospital and she's wobbling on the chair leg the whole time.
  Cherry: I. Have. No. LEG!!!
  Wray: Fucking spilt milk!
• Harsher in Hindsight: Bruce Willis being an Advertised Extra in this film is a pretty hilarious in-joke if you know B-Movie conventions, but was eerily prescient to the way his career was going to go in the years leading to his retirement due to frontotemporal dementia.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Bruce Willis' character kills Osama Bin Laden by shooting him in the head. Four years later, he'd be killed in real life the exact same way (but not by Bruce Willis).
  • The hospital staff finding a trail of blood down the hallway floor (left by infectees they previously assumed to be dead) is likely to remind Tumblr users of a meme with a similar image.
• Narm Charm: Dakota's routine with the needles. Robert Rodriguez claimed this was inspired by a real anesthetist he saw once. It's so bizarre and yet so cool.
• One-Scene Wonder: Bruce Willis of course! Playing an Advertised Extra who is promoted as though he's the main character, he's still memorable in his two short scenes.
• Squick: The scene where Bill is checking out the guy who got bitten has another doctor looking at incredibly disgusting pictures of medical problems from soldiers returning from Iraq. This is before the really gross stuff starts.
• Tough Act to Follow: Having this film open Grindhouse has made fans feel this way. As it's so action packed and full of Gorn, Death Proof's slow pace is harder to live up to. Some fans prefer to watch Death Proof first; it helps that it chronologically takes place before Planet Terror.
• The Woobie: Dakota is a battered wife whose son dies as a result of her leaving him alone with a gun. That's not to mention her lover Tammy gets killed by the zombies before she can reach town.
  • Jerkass Woobie: And yet, she is the reason her son died and didn't seem too concerned about her son's death.

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