Robert Rodriguez's bloody valentine to 1960s 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.

Tarantino enjoys the picture's most disgusting demise; a demonstration of icky make-up effects 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, starring Danny Trejo as the eponymous mean, gun-toting hombre.

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 epicentre of a biochemical attack launched by deranged Lieutenant Muldoon (Bruce Willis).

Soon, the local hospital is swamped with residents covered in nasty, gangrenous sores.

Doctor William Block (Josh Brolin) and his wife Dakota (Marley Shelton) struggle to cope with the flow of infected patients.

Sexy stripper Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan) loses one of her legs and is rushed to the hospital with old flame El Wray (Rodriguez) by her side.

Wray leads the survivors, including Sheriff Hague (Biehn), in a do-or-die race against time to escape from the zombie apocalypse but the advancing hordes sure do like the taste of human flesh.

Planet Terror has its fleeting pleasures including some pithy dialogue and breathless action sequences orchestrated with Rodriguez's customary brio.

A radio dedication, in loving memory of our own Jungle Julia, is a wink to Death Proof and a sweaty sex scene between Rodriguez and McGowan is amusingly cut short by the absence of the x-rated reel.

Sorry for The Inconvenience, reads the inserted title card, signed by the management.

Rodriguez directs at full pelt from start to finish 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.