From Dusk Till Dawn

Rating: 8/10 (31 October 2006)

From director Robert Rodriguez (Desperado, Sin City) and writers Quentin Tarantino and Robert Kurtzman (director of Wishmaster), this is a fantastic black comedy action horror. Basically brothers Seth (young looking George Clooney, during his success in ER) and Richard (Tarantino) are fugitive criminals have done a bank robbery. They kidnap the Fuller family, father Jacob Fuller (Harvey Keitel), daughter Kate (Juliette Lewis) and son Scott (Ernest Liu) to help them get across the border into Mexico. They have arranged to meet a kingpin (for a payoff) at a bar called the Titty Twister, and they have all night to drink and enjoy themselves. When a situation develops where they get their guns out and start shooting, this is when the exotic dancer Santanico Pandemonium (Salma Hayek) is the first of many to suddenly turn into a vampire, which (even with the clue title you don't expect it to turn into a horror film, because of previous events). The few people that have got through the first bunch of the vampires, including Sex Machine (Tom Savini) and Frost (Fred Williamson) are using what they know to defend themselves from the approaching terror, including making crosses, stakes through the heart, holy water and guns. Also starring Cheech Marin as Border Guard/Chet Pussy/Carlos, Desperado's Danny Trejo as Razor Charlie and Kelly Preston as Newscaster Kelly Houge. The special effects and make-up is impressive, plenty of gory explosions of blood, guts and goo, and some humorous inventive Tarantino style moments, including a penis shaped gun (barrel and two side chambers in Sex Machine's crotch), a dead torso as a guitar, and of course, a very sexy dance by Hayek, which was number 3 on The 100 Greatest Sexy Moments. Very, very good!