Classic horror shoot em up

Rating: 9/10 (27 October 2015)

From Dusk Till Dawn is a gritty, bloody, psycho southern vampire western birthed of both the different artistic styles of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. It's a hybrid, charging out of the gate with the laconic dialogue and pulpy, cooked to perfection aura of Tarantino's crime outings, then plunges into the slimy, schlock bucket hell of a Rodriguez horror flick. It's that jarring upset in tone that makes it so memorable and hard to pin down in the genre books. George Clooney is an energetic viper as dangerous bandit Seth Gecko, and Quentin Tarantino, who can actually act when he puts his mind to it, is terrifying as his delusional, violent brother Richie, a monster prone to harsh acts of brutality. They are on the run from the Texas law after a violent bank robbery, and following a dusty prologue involving everyone's favourite Texas Ranger Earl McGraw (Michael Parks, his first trip out as the iconic lawman), they kidnap an ex preacher (Harvey Keitel) and his two kids (Juliette Lewis and Ernest Liu) and hightail it to a remote area for some waiting time as Seth plans to meet with a shady associate. It's their rotten luck that the place they pick to lie low, a rowdy hellhole of a roadhouse called the 'Titty Twister', is the last place they should have looked. No sooner have they settled into its chaotic interior, the staff bar the doors and all change into leering Mexican vampires, out to feast on the truckers, bikers and our unfortunate heroes until the sun comes up. From there the film ramps up for one of the biggest, baddest, bloodiest orgy of body parts, gooey effects, stakes through the heart, gunshot wounds galore, and fleshy, latex infested nastiness I've ever seen a horror movie keep up for an hour on end. I'd love to see the budget for practical effects on this one, and work put in. It's an endless parade of freak show proportions, and you'll feel the slime dripping off you when the closing credits come up. You haven't lived until you've seen the human spinal cord played as a saxophone with a screaming head on the end of it. The vamps come in all shapes and sizes too, from Cheech Marin's Chet Pussy (one of the three characters he plays), to Danny Trejo's tough guy bartender Razor Charlie, to sultry Salma Hayek's sexy Santanico Pandemonium. She has a dance sequence with a snake that will have anyone salivating, before she goes full beast mode and terrorizes everyone, that is. Tom Savini is great as Sex Machine, who has a gun for a willy, and Fred Williamson kills it as a nam vet who's seen some stuff, man. Juliette Lewis and Harvey Keitel provide the movie with what little heart that can be taken seriously among the silliness, and are both excellent. Rodriguez, Nicotero and team seriously outdo themselves in the effects department, turning the climax of their film into a claustrophobic, hairy shoot em up taking place in hell. Clooney has never been more of a bad boy, a tribal tattooed (lol), volatile prick with a good side only drawn forth by the baddest circumstances. Check out the sequels too, especially the third. They're toned down, but still a lot fun. Just avoid the new TV show like the plague, it's crap and doesn't deserve the title. Vampire westerns come in all forms, from poetic (Near Dark), to clunky (John Carpenter's Vampires) to slick (Priest). A few words that come to mind with this baby: Crazy, loud, insane, gross, bloody...fun.