The Schizo Plot

Rating: 7/10 (10 September 2001)

From Dusk Til Dawn is definitely a movie of two halfs
It starts off well enough, with the hellish Gecko brothers (Cooney and Tarantino) shooting and hijacking their way across Texas, picking up the hapless Harvey Keitel and family en route. The dialogue is sharp and the Geckos are a humourous, if unsympathetic, pair. Tarantino, as a rapist and psychotic given to hearing voices which tell him, basically, whatever he wants to hear, is both scary and funny.
So far so good. Until the mobile home carrying the desperados and their hostages goes over into Mexico and stops at a garish biker/trucker bar which must be one of the sleaziest joints ever portrayed in the history of Hollywood. Unfortunately, for the viewer as well as the characters, it proves to be a lair of vampires!
Selma Hayek performs one of the most sexily outrageous dance routines of all time but proves to be a vampire rather than a vamp. (Too bad - Juliette Lewis is one of the films liabilities, seeming to have a movie career based on being a piece of baggage for psychotic and violent men to tote around, without any deeper discernable skills on offer than the ability to pout when the bullets are flying)
Once Tarantino is dead (or undead, however you care to look at it) the movie is committed to being an out and out actioner with bursts of spoof putdowns of vampire movie cliches. Cooney, Keitel (who gives a first rate, understated performance as the disillusioned preacher / hi jack victim) and the two junior vampire hunters backing them up don't look as if they could bruise a bag of apples, let alone hold out all night against the legions of the undead. Fortunately, more convincing help is on hand in the shape of grim faced veteran Fred Williamson and ace horror make up artist Tom Savini, who steals scene after scene as whip cracking biker, 'Sex Machine'
Having said this, the movie rips along at a good pace whilst never quite being able to live up to the movies from which it borrows (Carpenter's 'Assault On Precinct 13' and G.A. Romero's 'Living Dead' films).
I'm in two minds about whether to rate it higher or lower than average, but I'll ignore the worst parts and rate 'From Dusk Til Dawn' a blood sucking 7 out of 10 (The vampires might get me if I don't, though if one is Selma Hayek, this might not be as bad as bus ride with Juliette Lewis)