The thrill of the ride

You might think Quentin Tarantino would be a little downbeat right now.

The pop-culture icon recently experienced his first proper flop with Grindhouse, a joint project with Robert Rodriguez that recreated the sleazy joys of 1970s exploitation movies and stiffed at the US box office. But Tarantino, bouncing up the stairs of his Liverpool hotel and throwing himself down into a plush chair, is as animate as he's always been.

His section of Grindhouse has now been re-edited for release as a single feature, Death Proof, in Britain. Get him on to the subject of the breathless car chases that form its core, and he's like a child again, back at the Carson Twin Cinema in Los Angeles enjoying films that provided cheap thrills on even cheaper budgets.

'It's so great to watch audiences when Zoe Bell's character is on the hood of the car in Death Proof. They're watching the movie with their hands over their face...' he wipes his own and exhales loudly. 'They're really getting into it. They do that because they can see it's really Zoe on the car. And they know I am not to be trusted.'

The devilish snigger that follows probably explains why Tarantino hasn't been laid too low by Grindhouse's failure. This is, after all, a guy who bleeds cinema, and who still has a hell of a time making movies. But surely the negative reaction must have got to him a little? 'I was definitely disappointed,' he admits. 'I thought I was on the verge of my biggest opening weekend ever. The only solace I take was that it wasn't
just me and Robert who were deluded. The entire industry was. Even Variety and The Hollywood Reporter predicted huge success for us.'

Two movies for the price of one, though. Who would turn down such a bargain? 'That's what we said,' yells Tarantino, 'and we even put it in the f***ing ad! But people want dinner and a movie. It's that f***ing simple. Everyone was like: "It's three and a half hours? When will we eat dinner? Ah, let's just go see Blades Of Glory. Whambam, thank you ma'am." It's sad, but I don't think I'm wrong.'

And so Death Proof arrives in Britain without Rodriguez's Planet Terror or the fake trailers that bridged the two films. Tarantino is sure Grindhouse will eventually play in Britain – 'I think you guys will end up seeing it. We own the prints, so it's not gonna be a problem' – but for now we have the longer cut of Death Proof.

It adds half an hour to the story of Kurt Russell's Stuntman Mike, a psychopathic loner who gets his kicks out of killing women in spectacular car crashes. It's prurient, kitschy and explicitly violent – everything you'd expect from a Tarantino film.

'Going to see a grindhouse movie wasn't just about the film,' he starts up again. 'It was the lurid subject matter; the fact that the projector was crappy and the lighting had blown out. You used to get these big responses from the audience when there was some over-the-top piece of violence. That's what I wanted with Death Proof. I've had a few of those big responses in my time and, let me tell you, they were always wonderful.'

Tarantino's enthusiasm is infectious, but being the golden boy also means there's pressure to deliver. 'The thing is, I want high expectations! I want people to be so excited about my films that they show up on a Friday to see them. Otherwise I don't wanna be making movies.'

This brings us to an interesting point. Tarantino, now 44, has been quite vocal about directors getting worse with age. Does that ever play on his mind? 'I'm not worried about it now, but I intend to retire at 60. I don't want to make old-man movies, just pissing away my entire filmography. Those are limp movies, made by guys who can't get erections any more. The minute your sex drive goes,' he adds, slamming his fist into his palm, 'you should go, all right?'

And how would Tarantino spend his retirement? 'Become a novelist.' It sounds like a throwaway quip, but it transpires he's being serious. 'I wrote two chapters of a book when I was younger, and I even thought it might get published. But I knew being a novelist would derail me from doing what I really wanted to
do, which was become a film-maker.'