10 Moments That Literally Stopped Movies
7. The Fake Trailers & "Missing Reels" - Grindhouse
Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's epic double-feature project Grindhouse was a throwback to classic exploitation cinema, with the filmmakers making a zombie film, Planet Terror, and a serial killer flick, Death Proof, respectively.
But because stapling two movies together for a three-hour runtime wasn't enough, the directors also decided to include a number of fake trailers for fictional exploitation films created by their friends, such as Rob Zombie, Edgar Wright, and Eli Roth.
Though Rodriguez's own fake trailer for Machete - which would eventually become an actual film - is included at the start of the double-feature, the others are included as part of an eight-minute break between Planet Terror and Death Proof.
That's not the only way that the directors break up the form, though.
As an homage to the down-and-dirty films that inspired this collaboration, Planet Terror and Death Proof both feature "missing reels," intentional breaks in the action where footage is said to be missing, the implication being that these old movie reels are so tattered that crucial scenes have been lost.
Most memorably, Vanessa Ferlito's lap dance in Death Proof is replaced with a "reel missing" message, though like all other absent footage was restored for the film's longer standalone home video release.