Imagine it's 1985. You're John Carpenter, and you've decided to remake the Fog, . With Zombies. As a Comedy. All in the style of From Dusk 'Til Dawn (Quentin Tarantino even plays a demented, gun happy, sex pervert with mental health problems - just like From Dusk 'Til Dawn). With the bad guys from larry Cohens' seminal 1985 classic The Stuff. And even then.....you're not even close to just quite how over the top this movie is. All that, and I even haven't mentioned the acrobatic go go dancers with machine guns for legs on an mid-air killing spree yet. Honestly. Yes, its that mad. A mad mix of pretty much every low budget genre horror flick you've ever watched, with schlocky zombies, choppers, machine guns, go go dancers, mad rednecks, all topped with a generous serving of bikini girls with machine guns. Seriously. Yeehaw!

Planet Terror - originally released in the US as part of the 'Grindhouse' double bill - is, in all honesty, a bloody great movie in its own right. Stripped out of the grindhouse ethos and presented on its own, its loses the context of being paired up with Quentin Tarantino's 'Death Proof' (which is certainly less fun), but gains the fact that is a complete blast in its own right.

Story? You don't come to watch a film with a title like Planet Terror for the story. Its something about a toxic gas thats a chemical weapon, one that causes flesh eating viruses, and how it comes to infect a small American town, turning all the inhabitants who are bitten into goraning, moaning, mumbling, wandering flesh eating zombies.Somewhere in the middle of all this is a go go dancer named Cherry Darling, who having hooked with an ex going by the name of L.Wray whilst on the road, find themselves in the deluge of the zombie plague. Before you know it, there's a cuckolded doctor plotting revenge on his wife and her lesbian lover, a team of incompotent police officers, and a barbeque shack from hell. Or Texas, at least, whichever is closer. 

So there you go - in short. Zombies. helicopters. Green Mist that kills people. Go go dancers, kick ass chicks, machine guns and much more. No sooner than you can say "Missing Reel", our heroine Cherry Darling is missing a leg and still kicking ass, with everyone armed up to the teeth escaping the infected plague, leaving a trail of exploding cars and blown up buildings in their wake.

But come the third act and its a doozy which changes all the rules - enter the demented General Muldoon (Bruce Willis) leading his soldiers on a quest for redemption and a cure for the infection they carry, at whatever cost to whoever gets the way. Cue a big kick ass showdown with helicopters, zombies, machine guns and carnage.

What Planet Terror is is incredibly good fun, and fun that will be lost on anyone who isn't steeped in the lore of 80's Horror movies. Like the worst excesses of cheap low budget horror movies taken to the infinite degree, with every cliche in the book lovingly embraced for the ludicrous silliness it is, this film has fun with the genre and is pure tongue in cheek. With a cast of solid, superb B-movie actors such as Michael Biehn (Terminator,Aliens,Abyss, True Lies), Rose mcGowan, Bruce Willis, ludicrously over the top action, and a gore quotient that is splatteringly entertaining yet also groaningly horrible (check out the disintergrating penis scene), Planet Terror ticks all the boxes.

For those of you who loved the movies of John Carpenter, you'll love this. Keep your tongue in your cheek, and you might just love this for just quite how over the top and insane this movie is. As a pastiche, its unparallelled. As a love letter to the 80's, its unrepetant. As a filmgoing experience, its complete in itself, but might be lost on a hell of a lot of people. But you know something? Planet Terror is just one of those films you'll ever get completely and then love to death, or be completely mystified by. Just make sure you get there earlier for the supporting spoof trailer for 'Machete' too.

Planet Terror - the daily mail will hate it. BAN THIS SICK FILTH! I, on the other hand, say - go see it. You might just love it. I did.