“Grindhouse” is the term used to describe the genre of cheaply-made exploitation films that attracted a cult following in the 1970s. These films wallowed in sensationalism, and often featured copious amounts of sex, nudity, violence, gore and other displays of taboo content. Playing at seedy inner-city theaters, grindhouse films were often shown back-to-back in double features. The genre holds a strong level of nostalgic affection for many movie fans.

Two such fans are acclaimed directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. Both men have frequently tipped their hats to the grindhouse era in several of their films, including “Reservoir Dogs,” “Desperado,” “From Dusk Till Dawn,” and “Kill Bill.” But those were merely warm-ups, and now they have joined forces to pay a complete tribute to the trash cinema they revere so deeply.

The result is “Grindhouse,” a film that lovingly recreates the experience of the bygone era for contemporary audiences.

Actually, make that two films, as “Grindhouse” is a double feature, with each director contributing his own film.

The first film is “Planet Terror,” directed by Rodriguez. The story centers on a small Texas town that becomes infected by an airborne virus released from a nearby military base after a deal between a shady scientist (Naveen Andrews from “Lost”) and an insane Army lieutenant (Bruce Willis), goes sour. A poisonous cloud of gas descends upon the populace, turning most of the citizens into grotesque flesh-eating zombies whose skin bubbles like overcooked mozzarella cheese.

Caught in the middle of this mess is Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan), a wryly morose Go-Go dancer with aspirations of becoming a stand-up comedian. After a chance meeting with her ex-boyfriend, the mysterious and deadly El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez), the two of them find themselves on the run from the zombies, but not before Cherry loses her right leg in an attack.

The duo joins forces with a group of townspeople, including Sheriff Hague (Michael Biehn), who initially sees El Wray to be as much of a threat as the zombies, and Dr. Dakota Block (Marley Shelton), whose husband, Dr. William Block (a creepy Josh Brolin), sought to kill her even before he became infected, due to learning of her secret lesbian affair. This makeshift army must continually shoot its way through wave after wave of zombies in a dire quest to get out of town alive, but once El Wray outfits Cherry with a machine-gun leg, the former dancer becomes the group’s best hope for survival.

“Planet Terror” is a blast from start to finish. The film is so far over the top that it functions at the level of insane comedy. It is astonishingly gory, but the gore is so absurdly excessive that the natural reaction is laughter rather than dry heaving. When the zombies take bullets (which is often), tremendous geysers of blood and goo erupt from them. The film adopts a cheeky tone for its mayhem, making a cartoonish joke of its splatter-happy gruesomeness.

The colorful cast of characters adds to the fun. Biehn makes the sheriff into a likably gruff man of action. Jeff Fahey is extremely amusing as a local cook who is as concerned with protecting his barbeque recipes as he is with avoiding having his brains eaten. And McGowan makes Cherry into more than a mere sex object by giving her a touch of sadness and vulnerability. When she finally lets loose with that gun-leg, it is an electrifying moment in a film filled with them.

After the giddy high of “Planet Terror,” the second film, Tarantino’s “Death Proof,” is quite a substantial comedown. “Death Proof” begins as a much quieter and more leisurely paced film. The film is set in Austin, Texas, not far from the town featured in “Planet Terror” (some characters appear in both films). At the outset, we follow a group of young women on a night out on the town. They are an arrogant DJ called Jungle Julia (Sydney Tamiia Poitier) and her pals, Arlene (Vanessa Ferlito) and Shanna (Jordan Ladd).

While hanging out at a dive bar, the group encounters a cheerfully odd, facially scarred fellow who calls himself Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell). Wearing a jacket bearing the “Icy Hot” brand logo on its back, Mike seems like a harmlessly nerdy, even mildly charming, fellow. But, after he offers to give an acquaintance of the group (McGowan, playing a different character) a ride home in his souped-up muscle car, we learn that Mike has a terribly dark side to him, and that he uses his car, which he claims renders the driver “death-proof,” for a purpose completely unrelated to transportation. Later in the film, we meet a second group of young women. Abernathy (Rosario Dawson), Kim (the impressively fiesty Tracie Thoms) and Zoe (Zoe Bell), hit the open road to test-drive a Dodge Challenger and end up engaging in a brutal and drawn-out highway confrontation with Stuntman Mike. However, what Mike does not know is that two of the three women are, themselves, stuntwomen and muscle-car enthusiasts, making them formidable adversaries in his sick game.

While the second half of “Death Proof” is a gleeful kinetic rush, the first half feels like dead weight. Tarantino engages in overindulgence by allowing extremely lengthy dialogue scenes between the girls go on for several minutes at a time. In his past films, Tarantino’s dialogue has been a pure joy for the ears, but the girl-talk sessions in “Death Proof” are incredibly dull to listen to. To his credit, Tarantino has a keen ear for how women actually speak to one another in groups. He perfectly nails the giggly discussions about relationships. They sounds completely authentic, but that authenticity is part of the problem because the conversations in the film are far too mundane to be interesting. He clearly wanted to humanize the girls by having us spend a significant amount of downtime with them before the action sets in, but he allows their scenes to drag on aimlessly for so long that they quickly grow tedious, making that entire section of the film seem disjointed and sluggish.

The film is redeemed by its genuinely enthralling climax, as well as by Russell’s performance as Stuntman Mike. Russell makes Mike very likable in his early scenes, coming off like the sort of friendly eccentric one often encounters in bars. When the monster within Mike emerges, it’s a creepy and unsettling turn. And, toward the end of the film, when Mike begins to lose control of the game, we finally see him for what he truly is, and Russell handles this revelation expertly (and hilariously). He helps to make “Death Proof” worthwhile in spite of its arduous first half.

It does bear mentioning, however, that, although it has substantially less carnage than “Planet Terror,” the gore in “Death Proof” is much more disturbing because of its realistic context. I foresee a lot of slow and cautious drives home from the theater.

Rodriguez and Tarantino have spared no detail in offering viewers full exposure to the grindhouse world. Their films have been artificially altered to appear as though the film stock is aged and degraded, with scratches, speckles, projector-bulb burns and choppy edits added in to approximate the well-worn look of the older films. They have purposefully included missing reels, where entire segments of the films are lost, as this was a common occurrence back in the day. Gaudy, 70s-era title cards and animated ratings bumpers have been included, as has a fake advertisement for a local eatery.

The most notable additions; however, are the schlocky trailers for nonexistent films that appear before each half of the double feature. Rodriguez created one for a spectacularly overblown action film called “Machete.” The other trailers were created by directors Rob Zombie, Edgar Wright and “Hostel’s” Eli Roth, whose contribution, an outrageously sick-humored trailer for the holiday-themed slasher flick “Thanksgiving,” is the best of the lot.

Having never experienced grindhouse cinema for myself, I cannot claim to know precisely how faithful “Grindhouse” is to the films that inspired it. But, as its own entity, it is a truly unique cinematic experience, and the love Rodriguez and Tarantino have for these films is palpable in every frame. While I wish “Death Proof” had been a more consistent film, I would not dream of deterring anyone from taking in this double feature. Except for those with stomachs too weak for the gore and bladders too weak for the three-and-a-half hour length.

Brandon Wolfe can be reached at [email protected]