TEXAS BLOOD MONEY: FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 2
I have just seen the straight to video sequel to From Dusk Till Dawn and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It has a definite straight to video feel to it (perhaps because it was filmed in South Africa) but also transcends the genre and will probably become a minor cult favorite in its own right. I am a fan of the original film although I consider it highly flawed. I think the first half is great and I love the idea of a bank robber movie that completely out of the blue turns into a vampire movie. Unfortunately, since the second half is really a whole different movie, it ends up feeling abrupt when it ends, like you've only seen one half of a vampire movie. I love the scene where they emerge from the Titty Twister into the sun ("What were they? Psychos?") but I still feel a little ripped off - I ought to feel exhausted, like they really were in there from dusk till dawn. I ought to feel the way I do at the end of the Evil Dead movies or Dawn of the Dead. But I just don't. For all the amusing bits in the vampire portion of the movie, it just doesn't come together smoothly and doesn't work either as a solid horror movie or as a perfect horror comedy like Evil Dead 2 or An American Werewolf in London. And the more comedic tone of the vampire section seems to betray some of the serious themes that were brought up in the first half. Texas Blood Money doesn't have the same vivid photography and atmosphere as Rodriguez's film, and it doesn't have as good of a cast. Robert Patrick, Brett Harrelson, Muse Watson, Duane Whitaker and Bo Hopkins *sounds* like a good cast to me, and they are adequate, but you can't help but notice that they don't have that powerful badass presence that Clooney and some of his co-stars (particularly Fred Williamson and Tom Savini) had in the original. I was disappointed that Harrelson's acting was weak, after having really liked him in The People vs. Larry Flynt. There he was as convincingly and likably dim as his real life brother Woody. Here he forces wide eyed naivete and reminds me of the young guy in the remake of Night of the Living Dead. This sequel also suffers from some cheesy Full Moon Video style keyboard scoring (although some of the music mimics Rodriguez's soundtrack style, even using a different version of a song that was used in Desperado). I think a real orchestral score would have improved the film immensely. It's hard to think of something as horrific when accompanied by a keyboard trying to sound like violins. The creepy, organic textures of Rodriguez's sets have been lost, and clearly the original Titty Twister set no longer exists. On the exterior we only see the sign, and the interior is a biker bar decked out in hubcaps and pink insulation. It doesn't have the epic decadence of the original bar, which was like an Aztec temple designed by a rock 'n roll Caligula. But that's the bad news. The good news is that the sequel is more over-the-top and constantly inventive than the original. The film is directed and co-written by Scott Spiegel, best known as the co-writer of Evil Dead 2, and it shows. Spiegel doesn't have as strong of a visual sense as his pal Sam Raimi, but it has certainly improved since his previous films. Texas Blood Money takes camera gimmicks to a hilariously excessive level. This film has bat-cams, mouth-cams, skull-cams, a pushup-cam, a rotating-fan-cam, a spinning-combination-lock-cam, even a pipe-impaling-a-vampire-played-by-famous-rapper-Yoyo-cam. The fight scenes are full of the vampire super strength we saw a little of in the original, allowing for many people to get socked and fly through the air. Vampires throw people through windows and kick cars across streets. Sometimes vampire powers aren't even necessary, since there are some explosions and gunshots that also send people flying like missiles. I love over-the-top touches like the scene where a vampire tosses a cop off the roof, causing him to be shocked by powerlines, then bounce through the air and come crashing down on top of a car. Then there is the scene where a SWAT team storms the bank off-camera. We hear gunshots and screams, followed by silence, and then a severed head comes flying out the door and splats against a wall across the street. There are also occasional funny dialogue bits that may or may not have been supervised by producer Quentin Tarantino. (The script is by Spiegel and Duane Whitaker from a story by Spiegel and Boaz Yakin [of Fresh fame], but Tarantino is said to have had input.) I like the scene where the gang waits in a hotel room watching a "fuck movie" and discussing whether or not it is legitimate to criticize a porn film for having a weak story. "You know what's wrong with this movie," asserts Muse Watson thoughtfully. "We've been watching it for a good half hour and there's been no ass fucking." Speaking of fucking, even the fucking in this movie is over-the-top, with Raymond Cruz's character Jesus apparently going for some sort of bouncing record. This scene seems to exist solely to set up a pretty well done variation on the Psycho shower scene, with a little bat playing the part of Mother. And the shower scene itself is a set up for the best bad pun I've heard in a while: "It looks like a real bloodbath," says one cop surveying the blood-drenched tub. If you like that kind of thing, you might want to check out this movie. And if you don't like that kind of thing, what the hell is wrong with you?
--Bryan Frankenseuss Theiss
"I write rhymes so fresh I try to bite my own verses." --Tash
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