FAQ for
Death Proof (2007)

In the opening credits, the camera lingers on a set of feet lying on the dashboard. The feet belong to Shannon Hazlett, but they are meant to belong to the character Arlene (Vanessa Ferlito).

Later, Tarantino devotes screen time to the feet of Jungle Julia (Sydney Tamiia Poitier).

The faces that appear during the credits are from Film color tests. The card with the colors that appears in them is a way for the color corrector to get the best possible image out of the film.

"Hold Tight" by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Titch.

"Chick Habit" and "Laisse Tomber Les Filles" by April March.

Stuntman Mike had a 1970 Chevy Nova (for the first half of the movie) and a 1969 Dodge Charger (the second half of the movie), Kim had a 1972 Mustang Grande, and the girls were test driving a 1970 Dodge Challenger 440 Magnum at the end of the film.

The Mustang was a Kill Bill "Pussy Wagon" inspired custom job, looking at the paint/interior. The longer "Grande" model also would originally have had a vinyl top, but this is nowhere to be seen in the film. The Mustang also appears to be the only muscle car in the film without a roll cage installed.

The Challenger is referenced in the film as the car driven by Barry Newman in "Vanishing Point." If the Challenger was actually supposed to be the "Vanishing Point" car, it should be supercharged (according to that film). The Challenger was modified in this film to add in the window posts that Zoe straps herself to, as no Challenger had enclosed windows in 1970.

No real mention is made of engines, besides the 440 in the Challenger, and, considering the highly modified appearances of all of the other cars, practically anything could be under the hoods of those beasts. Stock configurations, however, assuming all V8s, would be as follows:

Nova - either a 307 or a 350 (396 discontinued after 1970) Charger - 383, 426 Hemi, or 440 Magnum Mustang - 302 or 351 (Windsor, I believe) Challenger - 440 Magnum

This is a matter of personal opinion, and has caused many debates among viewers, so it is left up to the individual person to decide what they believe.

Some people actually think the girls were enjoying themselves, since Kim and Zoe are stunt people...however, all three girls were crying...so take that for what you will.

Some people believe that because Death Proof is a spoof of a grindhouse movie, that the characters are suppose to do stupid things.

This is my (Zeeboe's) opinion: In a situation like that, people tend to panic and not think clearly and in my humble opinion, the girls not stopping the car was a result of them panicking and not knowing what to do. Some debate this, and believe because Kim is a stunt woman that she should have been able to remain calm, but you have to keep in mind...she is not a police officer or a solider. She works in the film business, and did not have a director there to yell "cut" or give her instructions.

In real life, when most people are caught off-guard by some threatening occurrence, they don't become heroes instantaneously. They become confused and bumble around and make mistakes. People aren't Rambo. They are civilians.

It's also one thing to be watching people on a screen in the comforts of a movie theater or in your home, and be able to think clearly because you're relaxed and safe, but try to understand things from the characters point of view. We the audience knew Stuntman Mike was coming for them, and that this was a horror film we were watching so we had the right frame of mind about what was going to happen, and even had time to think about what we would do, and we were not going to be shocked when Stuntman Mike came driving down the road.

However, from the girls perspective, everything to them was a goofy comedy at that point, and they were just having fun............then all of nowhere comes this psycho who they didn't see coming. That happens in real life all the time. One minute, your life is a fun comedy...then some lunatic comes along, and turns your life into a horror movie. That fact right there could have caused the girls to panic...because they were shocked, and not expecting him and didn't once imagine that what happened would happen, so they were totally thrown off guard.

Also, for the most part....Stuntman Mike was RIGHT behind them...and driving a very fast car, so if they stopped, Stuntman Mike would have had enough time to either run Zoe over, crash right into the side of them, or ram Zoe up against the side of the car.

Again, this is all a matter of personal opinion...but in my (Zeeboe's) view...Stuntman Mike was a bully who picked on who he thought were weak and helpless young women, and enjoyed scaring them before killing them. Most bullies (in the movie world) get off on knowing they are scaring weak people because they're insecure and have low self-esteem, but once one of their targets shows they're not scared of them and stands up for themselves, the bullies will quickly turn into cowards and back down. Remember when Scott Farkus, the mean school bully from The Christmas Story, loved scaring kids and chasing them, and laughed whenever they ran away from him, but then turned into a screaming, crying wimp when Ralphie stood up to him and started beating him up? Then the other bully, Grover Gill, tried to stop him, only to get pushed away by Ralphie-and how did he react? "I'm tellin' my Dad!" and ran away. It's the same thing with the ending in Death Proof.

Kurt Russell himself has also compared the character of Stuntman Mike to the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz, and has talked before in interviews about how shocked he was when he first saw the lion go from being a scary, trash-talking, dog-chasing and ferocious beast to a crying coward...all because he got a small slap to the nose.

That's where Russell got the inspiration to turn Stuntman Mike into a scared wuss after he gets shot in the arm. The original script implies that is how Stuntman Mike reacts to the bullet, but it was Russell who went all out with it.

It's been brought up on the boards before how in the first half of the film, Stuntman Mike plotted out the deaths of the first group, but then he has no plan when he attacks the second group.

His decision to go after them was a random decision so he didn't have time to plot everything. And once again, it all boils down to personal opinion, but I (Zeeboe) believe at that point in the movie, Stuntman Mike was just too cocky for his own good when he took on Kim and her posse.

As of right now, there are no plans to do a sequel.

Many fans debate what happened to Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) after she was left at Jasper's while Kim, Zoe and Abernathy took the car out to play Ship's Mast. Since Jasper was depicted as a rapist during the events of Kill Bill Vol. 1, it is generally thought that she was raped by him. Again, Tarantino leaves many questions unaswered in his films (e.g., Who shot Nice Guy Eddie?), so we'll probably never know for sure.

Zeeboe's opinion: There is a chance that Jasper is a harmless pervert. Maybe he thought Lee wanted to get fresh with him because he thinks she is a porn star, and in the original script Abby lies and tells Jasper that he looks like Lee's ex-boyfriend and that he is her type. So there is a chance that Jasper thought Lee wanted to fool around with him. Then in the event that she didn't, once he realized that, he backed off. And Jasper knew the other girls would be coming back, and he thought that Lee was a famous porn star. So why would he risk going to prison by raping her?

Heck, he also tried to have sex with a woman whom he thought would never wake up in "Kill Bill." How do we know Jasper would ever force himself on any woman that knew he was trying to rape her? There are plenty of perverted guys out there that do perverted things, but not all of them are rapists.

It's also possible that the character is not meant to be the man from Kill Bill. Sure, they're both redneck perverts, but Joe Pesci played Italian mobsters in Goodfellas and Casino. Doesn't mean he's played the same role twice.

In closing, I think the whole scene was just meant to be comical, and that some people are looking way too deeply into it. I believe what happened between Jasper and Lee is up to the individual viewer to personally decide.

1. The opening conversation is longer.

2. We see the girls drunkenly leave the taco bar while Stuntman Mike watches and laughs.

3. We find out where Butterfly and her boyfriend went.

4. We see the lap dance.

5. The "Hold Tight" car crash is longer.

6. A black and white sequence introduces Abernathy, Kim, and Lee on their way to pick up Zoe. Stuntman Mike also meets these girls the first time. The scene later changes to color.

They are seen in the bar in the beginning. They are the laughing girls who are seen entering Warren's Bar when we first see it. Look for them in the lapdance sequence (white and green shirts with matching skirts, holding drinks).

Yes; look for the black shirted man when the camera does a 360.