I can’t tell you how joyous it is to see such shameless trash in competition for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Critics here are infinitely more familiar with a wrist-slittingly sincere masterpiece from Uzbekistan, so Quentin Tarantino’s black B-movie farce arrives like a breath of fresh air.

Kurt Russell plays a scar-faced psycho (styled on Burt Reynolds) called Stunt Man Mike. He stalks impossibly beautiful chicks with little brains and less morals. Then he frightens the life out of them by chasing them up and down empty highways in a souped-up monster car with a death’s head painted on the bonnet.

Tarantino's film is an eloquent lament for a sleazy age when drive-in movies were the norm and flea pits were tacky and smoky. Death Proof – so-called because Mike’s car seat is a reinforced cage – is painstakingly riddled with scratches, smudges, sudden jumps and vertical yellow lines. The sound quality – with the fabulous exception of the period juke box hits -- is terrible, and the continuity hysterical. The utter shoddiness of the film makes you exquisitely aware of how carefully it is assembled. But if you can't stomach the jokes, or reference the references, the film might leave you utterly cold.

Tarantino would be the first to admit that his is a very male kind of obsession. Once upon a time Death Proof was released in tandem with Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror under the title, Grindhouse, in America. The Weinstein Company and the directors rapidly agreed that the films would work better as separate items. So the famous “missing reel” featuring a sizzling lap dance has been restored to the delight of small boys.

But it would be wrong to write this film off simply as a sophisticated homage to the B-movie. It cleverly parodies a rich seam of classic road movies such as Vanishing Point, Duel and David Cronenberg’s Crash. There are also nods to cheesy television series and legends no one in their right mind would want to remember even if they could.

The cast themselves are in the know. They cheer roadside billboards, and at the end of one tense encounter, Russell turns to the camera and gives a large ludicrous smile. His first batch of victims include Vanessa Ferlito, Sydney Poitier (daughter of Sidney), Jordan Ladd (granddaughter of Alan), and Rose McGowan. The violence, when it comes, is a seminal piece of B-movie shock. The sight of a severed leg bouncing down the tarmac drew spontaneous applause from the Cannes audience.

Tarantino’s gravest sin is the wildly overwritten script. The appalling dialogue – mostly about the sexual predilections of the women and the various men they’ve slept with – is so badly garbled that it fails to make a relevant impact. The second-half action where Tracie Thoms, Rosario Dawson and Zoe Bell are out joy-riding in a 1970 Dodge Challenger (until Mike suddenly appears in the rear-view mirror) is far better worked. Tarantino’s fetish for naked feet is one of many running gags, and one entire reel is inexplicably shot in black and white.

I don’t think Tarantino will ever succeed in resurrecting a genre which, like most things in life, has moved irretrievably on. But you have to admire his dogged enthusiasm. There’s almost a piquant sense of loss and tragedy underlying the humour and homage in this film.

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010