If you've ever been in a nerdy movie conversation, you might have heard someone talk about wishing that a movie could surprise us, could shift gears wildly, to a completely different genre midstream. There might be a few examples that fit the bill, but probably the one that comes up the most would be From Dusk Till Dawn. I first saw and really liked this years ago, when I was at that perfect age where I was old enough to love Tarantino, but not yet old enough to realize his pal Robert Rodriguez was a hack. I remember most of the broad plot, some of the individual moments, and of course, the pivot twist from a Tarantino tense crime thriller to a Rodriguez high-budget B-movie gorefest.
One of the first things that hit me about this movie is that I had kind of forgotten or not noticed how nasty it was. The bank-robbing brothers Rickie (Tarantino) and Seth (Clooney) amass a pretty huge body count of innocents before the credits even start, and then add another dozen in a news report on their exploits further north in Texas. This makes it hard to figure out who is the main character, who are we supposed to be rooting for in this. Seth seems like he has a conscience, but on the other hand, he enables Rickie to do a few really gross things. I try not to bring the outside world into a movie, but I can't stop myself from retching as Quentin Tarantino as Rickie keeps staring at teenage hostage Kate (Juliette Lewis)'s feet, and then drinks whiskey flowing from vampire sex goddess Salma Hayek's foot. October is for horrific stuff, don't get me wrong, but those two scenes were hard to watch. There is some great tension between the brothers' liquor store shootout, kidnapping Jacob (Keitel)'s family, and the border crossing into Mexico. Tarantino is amazing bringing a scene right up to the boiling point without drawing it out too far. I'm not going to say the border crossing is on par with his opening scene from Inglourious Basterds, but it's at least from the same DNA.
All that being said about the Gecko brothers, Rickie in particular, being loathsome - I still bought Seth's frustration, rage, helplessness at the situation because, hey, George Clooney is a great actor. He didn't win the MTV Movie Award for "Breakout Performance - Male" for this movie for nothing. He fits in perfectly as a Tarantino character, buying Big Kahuna burgers and co-opting "Ramblers, let's get ramblin'" from Reservoir Dogs. Keitel and Clooney mostly have really clunky dialogue about faith and how to do what's right, but they make it not as bad as it could be. Keitel takes a really weird monologue near the end as he makes his children swear to kill him, and somehow skirts the line between touching and absurd. Fred Williamson and Tom Savini are pretty good in their one-note quirky violent survivors. Williamson in particular sells his insane Vietnam monologue, and has a couple great subtle scenes early as he tries to stack Chinese Checkers or something while the stripper/vampire dances and shakes his table.
Salma Hayek is billed pretty high for being Quentin Tarantino's whiskey funnel. She doesn't do much other than gyrate in a bikini with a snake and turn into a special effect. There was an inkling early in the vampire turn where it seemed like all the vampires were women. But then there were men too. But on the other hand, "Sex Machine" literally has a gun in his crotch. Despite all that, Rodriguez isn't really interested in the subtext of vampires being seductive and representative of lust or sex. There's no appeal to these vampires, they are simply monstrous demons. Once they turn, they become grotesque monsters. They're not as much sucking blood as they are ripping people apart and eating them like dogs. Sex Machine even turns into some sort of devil dog in a really cool special effect that made me instantly think of The Thing. There's no hook or appeal to the vampires at all. They could just as easily be zombies, aliens, gang members even. The weapons montage and climatic vampire ass kicking goes along mostly predictably, lacking any of the gonzo action of the first huge vampire attack scene. One touch I loved was the few beams of light coming through the boarded up building being a sort of laser defense system to help our heroes escape.
From Dusk Till Dawn's mean streak is slightly forgiveable in the context of it being a horror movie and black comedy, but it feels like a little much when the movie goes on to have nearly every speaking role eaten alive. Tarantino as actor and director does his best with his parts, and Clooney and Keitel are as good as you'd expect them to be. But all of the interesting bits get dropped in favor of sprays of blood once the directorial hand-off and genre shift is obvious. It's worth watching for the novelty and sheer energy of the first vampire scene, but it's in no way a classic.
Random other things I liked/noticed:
The liquor store in the cold open has a sign out saying "If we don't have it... you don't get it!", and in Cheech's pussy monologue he says "If we don't have it... you don't want it!". I am not sure what this means, I just noticed it.
That's also the great actor John Hawkes in that first scene as the poor liquor store cashier.
"Welcome to eternal slavery.
-No thank you, I've already had a wife" Just an awful kind of try-too-hard one liner.
"I'm a bastard, but I'm not a fucking bastard." I rather liked the ending, and Seth not wanting to go as far as quasi-adopt Kate, but did give her a big bundle of stolen bank money as an apology. It was one of the few not-corny things in the latter parts of the movie. Also, the last shot panning behind the establishment to show the ancient temple stuff was great.
Up Next: From Dusk Till Dawn, the original Netflix series. However many episodes I want to watch. I've never seen it!
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