From Dusk Till Dawn, the 1996 action/horror movie, is a milestone in cinema history as it marks the very first collaboration between Hollywood auteurs Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. When people hear those names in conjunction, they often think of Grindhouse, the double-feature horror film for which each of the men directed a segment. However, their very first collab was this quirky vampire flick from the mid-nineties. Watching this again, it’s easy to spot the influence on their later films.
It had been a while since I’d watched From Dusk Till Dawn, so I figured with its 25th anniversary today, I’d give it a rewatch, much to my wife’s irritation.
The movie focuses on a pair of brothers, Seth and Richard Gecko, played by George Clooney and Tarantino respectively. The brothers are ruthless bank robbers who aren’t afraid to hurt or kill anyone who stand in their way. They are making their way to Mexico after a stretch of robberies that leaves sixteen people dead. On their way, they kidnap a family of three for the use of their mobile home. After successfully crossing the border into Mexico, they stop at a shady, rowdy bar, cleverly called the Titty Twister, as they wait for their Mexican contact who will take them to safe harbor.
The majority of the film sounds like a straightforward action movie, and right up until the midpoint, it is. There isn’t a single monster until almost an hour in. While that may sound like a boring horror movie, Rodriguez punches everything up and makes it as interesting as possible. The film opens in a liquor store, with a conversation between the clerk and a Texas Ranger (the law enforcement, not the baseball team). That scene quickly devolves into a shootout in which Richard gets a bullet through the hand and Seth uses toilet paper and lighter fluid to set the clerk on fire. So, while the film may be light on vampires throughout the first act, it’s in no way boring.
The film itself is classic Tarantino, punctuated with razor-quick witty dialogue and over-the-top action scenes. Tarantino’s foot fetishism is also represented in the film; the audience is given two close-ups of Juliette Lewis’s feet early in the movie, and Tarantino drinks whiskey off Salma Hayek’s foot. Now, whether that was written into the script by Tarantino himself, or Rodriguez just wanted to have a little fun with his friend, I cannot say.
Both Tarantino and Rodriguez are filmmakers who like working with the same actors, and From Dusk Till Dawn continues that streak. Harvey Keitel plays Jacob, a faithless preacher, and Juliette Lewis plays his daughter Kate. Keitel appeared in two other Tarantino films before this one, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, while Lewis starred in the Tarantino-penned Natural Born Killers. Robert Rodriguez brought three actors he worked with on his film, Desperado, including Mexican bad-man Danny Trejo. Cheech Marin appears in Dusk in three separate roles, adding a comedic effect to the film. His roles range from a serious Border Control officer, to the cartel kingpin, Carlos, down to the lewd, over-the-top hype man outside the bar, whose name I don’t even feel comfortable sharing on a family-friendly website such as ours (but I will link to it, for the curious). Finally, we have Salma Hayek, whose breakout role was Desperado, showing up as the sexy, hypnotic dancer, Satanico Pandemonium.
Speaking of breakout roles, From Dusk Till Dawn marked George Clooney’s big Hollywood break. At that time, Clooney was best known for television roles, most specifically as Doug Ross on the hit show, ER. Clooney also appeared as a regular on Roseanne and The Facts of Life but hadn’t done much film acting. In fact, his most prolific movie role prior to this was probably Return of the Killer Tomatoes! Now, it’s hard to imagine a world in which Clooney isn’t a runaway movie star, even if he did kill the Batman franchise for almost a decade.
There’s a lot of great things I can say about From Dusk Till Dawn, but here’s just a few of my favorite parts:
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- Quentin Tarantino looking at George Clooney through the bullet hole in his hand
- George Clooney’s line “OK, hard drinkers, let’s drink hard. I’m buying.”
- Sex Machine’s (yes, that is the actual name of the character) codpiece pistol
- The makeshift weapons at the end (a Super Soaker filled with holy water, the jackhammer with a stake in the end, holy water-filler condoms)
- Sex Machine getting his head ripped off by his own bullwhip, then turning into a giant vampire rat
- The vampire Mariachi playing a human torso as a guitar
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Though From Dusk Till Dawn did modestly in theaters when it was released, it spawned two sequels and a television show (which launched on it’s own network, El Rey, named after the city in Mexico the Geckos are trying to get to). So it’s safe to say it has a bit of a following. But in all honesty, From Dusk Till Dawn isn’t going to appeal to everyone. Vampire purists may not like the liberties Tarantino and Rodriguez have taken with the creatures. It’s also a very gory film, full of blood, sex, and bad language. But for the subset of people who actively look for those qualities in their cinematic entertainment, then From Dusk Till Dawn is sure to please.
