Robert Rodriguez's bloody homage to '60s and '70s horror films was originally released in America as one half of the ill-fated Grindhouse double-bill with Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof.

Planet Terror shoots to kill as a standalone feature on this side of the Atlantic. It's frenetic, fast-paced entertainment, with obvious nods to Roger Corman and the flesh-crazed work of George A Romero.

As usual, Rodriguez emphasises spectacle and style, embellished with a generous splatter of gore and entrails, that will have men in the audience howling with a mixture of laughter and pain.

As with Death Proof, Rodriguez's film opens with an old-fashioned OUR FEATURE PRESENTATION title card, but not before a trailer for a bogus feature called Machete. The faux scratches and blemishes on the celluloid continue in the main feature, set in a quaint backwater town, which has the misfortune to be the target of a biochemical attack.

Sexy stripper Cherry Darling (McGowan) loses one of her legs and is rushed to the hospital with old flame El Wray (Rodriguez) by her side - to be fitted with a rifle in place of the leg to give Cherry some invaluable firepower against the undead.

Rodriguez directs at full pelt from start to finish and the movie is at times highly amusing. But his film runs out of dramatic steam by the end of the first hour, leaving the majority of the overblown action to his feisty, gravity-defying heroine.

OUR RATING: Three stars out of five Action/Sci-Fi/Comedy/Horror/Thriller. Stars Freddy Rodriguez, Rose McGowan, Marley Shelton, Josh Brolin, Michael Biehn, Naveen Andrews, Bruce Willis. Director: Robert Rodriguez.