Movie Review: From Dusk 'Till Dawn

(1996, Robert Rodriguez)

To say that I am a fan of the zombie/vampire/werewolf monster genre is an understatement. I love when a movie can take the concept of any of those mythical monsters and turn it into a captivating story. From Dusk 'Till Dawn delivers on every level that I was hoping it would.

Some may know of director Robert Rodriguez from his Spy Kids movies; others may know him from his Mariachi trilogy, or even from his work in Sin City or his double-feature exclusive with Quentin Tarantino, Grindhouse. In the tradition of his more violence-explicit works, he packs the screen with enough excitement for a room full of vampires.

The screenplay itself was written by Quentin Tarantino, and it shows: several camera shots are idiosyncrasies that only Tarantino would use, and the overall style of dialogue would seem familiar to any fan of Tarantino. Tarantino himself is in the movie as Richie Gecko, playing the brother of George Clooney's character Seth Gecko. Both of them are criminals, though Richie is only slightly more deranged (when I say slightly, I mean crazy enough to go streaking in the Thanksgiving Day Parade). Both men had robbed a bank and were on the run to Mexico in an attempt to flee from the entire state police force of Texas. On the way, they force Jacob Fuller (Harvey Keitel) and his two children, Scott and Kate (played by Ernest Liu and Juliette Lewis) to ferry the two brothers across the border in the family's RV.

Needless to say, when all the characters think themselves safe, they were extremely wrong. The use of some over-the-top characters adds a good bit of humor to the film to give a satisfying feel to the movie overall. The action, make up, and overall ridiculousness of the movie makes it a very good summer action flick, especially if you aren't looking for anything too cranial after ending a semester in college.

In fact, I would recommend watching all of Rodriguez's and Tarantino's movies (minus the sequels to the original Spy Kids) because they are all well-written and show what can be done with relatively little budgets (the older movies especially); for instance, Rodriguez's first movie, El Mariachi cost only 7000$ to make. Rodriguez actually raised 3000$ of that by being a lab rat for clinical tests of a pharmaceutical.

Oh, and these vampires can kick the asses of those pansy Twilight vampires. What kind of vampire sparkles in the sun anyway? (Answer: The not-an-awesome-vampire kind.)



I really need a social life.

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