From Dusk Till Dawn


From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

The Plot: Brothers in the midst of a crime spree take a family hostage and head to Mexico where they find more than they bargained for.

 From Dusk Till Dawn is basically two movies. The first half is a Quentin Tarantino violent, snappy dialogue filled slow burn of a movie about two brothers in the midst of a crime spree. Tarantino himself plays Richie Gecko, the more depraved of the Gecko brothers. George Clooney plays the more intelligent, thief with some scruples. Well those scruples being he will only kill someone when he absolutely has no choice. But of course, he expertly kicks some lighter fluid down off a top shelf of a convenience store he is robbing,, which he uses to douse a toilet paper roll before lighting it on fire to douse a store clerk in flames after his brother shoots the liquor bottles over the clerks head thus dousing him in a liquor fueled accelerant like he's done that a dozen times before. So yea, about those scruples.
Clooney's pure 90s neck tattoo (R)

  The second half is where the Gecko brothers (no relation to Gordon Gekko, a more white collar criminal) take Harvey Keitel, a former minister who's lost his way after the death of his wife, and his 2 kids hostage and drive to the dive bar in Mexico where they will meet with the crime lord who will pay off the Geckos. This part is pure Robert Rodriguez. 
What's the name for a group of vampires? a gaggle?


  It doesn't take long for the Geckos et al to discover that this is a house of vampires who prey on bikers and truck drivers. Soon the whole bar is either a vampire, or a human fighting a vampire. And this fight is just bat shit insane (pun most definitely intended), featuring topless vampiric dancers, a crotch gun, a band playing instruments made out of human body parts, four dancers skewered by wooden legs of a table, a super soaker and condoms filled with holy water, whips and chains, beheadings, Fred Williamson telling 'Nam stories, Juliette Lewis with a crossbow, and total pandemonium. It's glorious. 
That's not a Fender!
It's tough to not love a movie that ends with the reveal that the bar is actually an Aztec pyramid that's been hosting these vampires for years and years. I give it 7 crotch guns!

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