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    From Dusk Till Dawn

    Reviewed by
    adamwatchesmovies@

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    “From Dusk till Dawn” is half of an intense thriller smashed into half of a goofy vampire movie so stupid it becomes fun. This collision of genres is an interesting mix, but ultimately not a successful blend. There are some elements of the film that work, but only dissected and separated from the whole.

    Seth (George Clooney) and Richie Gecko (Quentin Tarantino) have robbed a bank, left several dead and are on their way to the Mexican border with their money. That’s when they meet Jacob Fuller (Harvey Keitel) and his two children Katherine (Juliette Lewis) and Scott (Ernest Liu.) Previously, paranoid and sadistic Richie there is a place called “The Titty Twister” that is open from dusk till dawn and features the most beautiful women you’ll ever see, but the people inside are not at all what they seem.

    In a way, I admire the fact that “From Dusk till Dawn” changes itself completely halfway through. What you think you’re getting into is nothing like what you’ll get at the end so even trying to figure out who is going to make it out alive and how the captives are going to escape is pointless. You begin with a very intense and violent thriller that will have you frightened. This family has crossed paths with the human equivalent of a slice of bread dipped in a toilet whose flush handle is broken and who unfortunately found itself in the middle of a loud and stupid frat boy party where someone undercooked the hamburgers. You hate their captors and you desperately want them to escape. Then the picture changes completely.

    I enjoy the first half of FDtD as a thriller, the second half, it’s wannabe “so bad it’s good” vampire movie garbage. I say vampires by the way, but what I really mean are zombies because the vampires pitted against our heroes (who are now joined by Tom Savini and Fred Williamson) don’t act live bloodsuckers. They behave like mindless ghouls. They shamble around stupidly, tearing off people’s limbs and biting them in the neck, never doing typical vampire things like turning into bats or hypnotizing their victims and get this, they turn out to be too stupid to wear watches or pay attention to the time of night. It’s a film in which nobody has ever seen a horror movie. People can’t put together that once bitten, you will soon turn into a creature of the night yourself. Even witnessing this with their own eyes doesn’t help this crew put two and two together. I say soon by the way, but that’s more of an estimate on my part. Once bitten in “From Dusk till Dawn” it could take 30 seconds for you to become a vampire, or it could take an hour, it depends on how important you are to the plot. Once changed, sometimes a stake to the heart kills you and makes you burst into flames, sometimes the budget doesn’t allow for that kind of thing. The rules only apply when it’s convenient to filmmaker Robert Rodriguez.

    The elements of “From Dusk till Dawn” could have worked individually. I really wanted to see how the Fuller family was going to get away from Seth and Richie. A vampire film where our heroes decide that impractical weapons are the right way to go, proving themselves to be as stupid as the vampires they are facing could have been “so crazy you’ve got to see it”. Together? No.

    What was the director thinking? That we’d forget a brutal rape and murder scene because he introduces a character called “Sex Machine” in the picture? That’d we’d buy the shift in allegiances because of the wild action so drastically different from what we saw 40 minutes ago? I know I was supposed to laugh and that the loose mythology of this picture is intentional but I could never place myself in the mood I was supposed too. The shift is simply too radical. It’s like starting your comedy act with a montage of photos from Nanking post 1937. There’s no way it could have worked and the film is made only bearable because of the dialogue written by Tarantino.

    I hoped that seeing “From Dusk till Dawn” a second time would help. It didn’t. I loathe this film. I will set my feelings aside and point towards some of its strengths, such as the performances by the main characters, the makeup and special effects, the tension generated in the first half and the dialogue. The rest is cheap trash. (Theatrical version on the big screen, February 8, 2016)

    4
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    adamwatchesmovies@  11.2.2016 age: 26-35 2,867 reviews

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