Outrageous, intentionally trashy comedy-horror-thriller.

Rating: 6/10 (19 August 2007)

In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock did something unthinkable in the film "Psycho". Halfway into the movie he killed off the main character (and the film's biggest star), thereby shocking the audience through sheer unpredictability while simultaneously changing the expected course of the narrative. A similar trick is employed in "From Dusk Till Dawn" (although the two films are nothing alike). For the first half the film is a kinetic crime thriller, characterised by writer Quentin Tarantino's trademark witty, hard-boiled dialogue and a clutch of well delineated characters. At the halfway point, the film suddenly switches to become an ultra-gory, ultra-violent vampire movie, almost a hyperactive homage to "Night Of The Living Dead"! It is a jarring switch; the effect is like watching half of two separate movies. There is an element of frustration that the serious crime thriller half never gets properly resolved, and similar frustration that the horror half is not introduced and built-up logically. But both halves are undeniably well-made and the actors seem to be having a great deal of fun with their outrageous roles.
Psychotic criminal brothers Seth (George Clooney) and Richard (Quentin Tarantino) Gecko go on a murderous robbery spree across Texas. Their aim is to cross the Mexican border and rendezvous with one of Seth's buddies, and to ensure their safe passage they take a female hostage. When Richard kills the hostage the brothers are forced to find new ones, so they seize a family travelling in a RV - ex-preacher Jacob Fuller (Harvey Keitel) and his kids Scott (Ernest Liu) and Kate (Juliette Lewis). After a palm-sweating trip across the border the crooks and their hostages arrive at the rendezvous point, a raunchy biker-/trucker nightclub called the Titty Twister that stands in the middle of nowhere. Seth is hell-bent on getting drunk while waiting for his contact to arrive, but soon has to change his plans when it becomes apparent the Titty Twister is actually the lair of a bunch of super-strong blood-sucking vampires that have been feeding off their customers for years! An all-out gore-fest ensues as the mortals take on the vampires in a battle that literally lasts from dusk till dawn!
Tarantino's intentionally vulgar, tongue-in-cheek script is complemented by the frenetic direction of his real-life pal Robert Rodriguez. They are making their own rules here, delivering a movie that cannily taps into the juvenile wish-fulfilment fantasies of tough kids, adding heaps of bad language, gore, nudity and stylized violence. The special effects are quite good, with limbs being ripped out and vampire bodies melting and burning and exploding left, right and centre. Clooney turns in a spirited star-making performance, while Tarantino is OK as his unbalanced brother. Keitel is clearly much too good for his role as the disillusioned preacher but in spite of this he slums it with considerable spirit. Similarly, Lewis doesn't have to register much real acting emotion as the hostage daughter but she enters into the simple-minded violent action with panache. "From Dusk Till Dawn" is a raucous, self-indulgent action/comedy/road movie/horror flick - crazy nonsense that was great fun for the cast and crew to make, and is a guilty pleasure for the audience to watch.