FROM DUSK TILL DAWN
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1996 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: Robert Rodriguez and Quentin
Tarantino team up to tell a crime and vampire
story, an elaboration on a segment from 1973's
VAULT OF HORROR. Then they turn up the violence
and throw in a lot of visual effects. The result
is fast but uneven, sometimes witty but sometimes
strangely serious, occasionally entertaining but
never worthy of the talents involved. Rating: 0
(-4 to +4). A very mild spoiler follows the review
in which I discuss some sloppy aspects of the
filming of scenes late in the film.
Let's say you are a video store clerk with some ideas of what you would like to see in films. So you make the crime film you have in mind, inspired by Hong Kong crime films, and it is a moderate success and popular with critics. You take most of your remaining plot ideas and combine them all in one script and surprise, the film is an international sensation. You bask in fame, but soon the question arises: just what do you do for an encore. The world is waiting for your next film expectantly. Can you imagine the pressure? What are you going to give us next, Mr. Tarantino? Well, there is an old Hitchcock plot you can turn into a short film for FOUR ROOMS. This time the critics are unimpressed. But your name is gold so you make another film. This time you dust off a horror script you wrote as a video clerk. So what happens? Well, in my opinion you have made a fairly standard video store sort of horror film, a hyper-version of a story that has been done before. FROM DUSK TO DAWN is somewhat dressed up with familiar actors and a big special effects budget, but these can not raise the film much above its modest origins. As director, Robert Rodriguez handles his characters and his first large budget well. Rodriguez is best known for his ultra-low-budget EL MARIACHI and still-low-budget DESPERADO. By his standards this is an epic spectacle film. But Tarantino, whose real forte is in creating the script, the writing is already a big step down. He needed to be associated with a strong film and this was not it.
The Gecko Brothers are loose and headed for the border. Richard Gecko (played by Quentin Tarantino) has helped Seth Gecko (George Clooney) escape from prison and the two are cutting a swath, killing and kidnapping their way to the Mexican border. Along the way they kidnap a family of three: widower and pastor Jacob Fuller (Harvey Keitel), his daughter Kate (Juliette Lewis) and son Scott (Ernest Liu). They sneak across the border and make for a rendezvous at a trucker and biker bar. The most sophisticated and stylish thing about this bar is its name, The Titty Twister. It is a place of drugs and sleazy strippers with wild bar fights during the day. Then after dark the folks really let their hair down and not, long after, their fangs. Yes, the whole bar is a front for a den of vampires. Our two killers and three hostages find themselves besieged by, if not an army, at least a platoon of vampires presented in the special effects tradition of FRIGHT NIGHT. If this plot seems new and creative you haven't seen the "Midnight Mess" chapter of 1973's VAULT OF HORROR.
FROM DUSK TO DAWN will be a real disappointment for most Tarantino fans. While his trademarked hyper-violence is present in all its gory glory, the dialog is not nearly so finely honed as it was in PULP FICTION. My guess is that Tarantino has not rewritten his script to give audiences the sort of writing characterizations--he has given to previous films. One place where this film does stand out is in one of Harvey Keitel's rare subdued performances.
FROM DUSK TO DAWN may well get the attention of the critics because of the names involved and the ad campaign, but more creative vampire films get made and go unnoticed to video stores and to cable. In specific, whatever creativity FROM DUSK TO DAWN has, it pales next to the latter two chapters of Ted Nicolaou's nearly unnoticed SUBSPECIES trilogy or Anthony Hickox's SUNDOWN: THE VAMPIRE IN RETREAT. You will find them on the same shelf of your video store where FROM DUSK TO DAWN will probably end up. I give the new film a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale. My suspicion is that Tarantino used up his creative plots on PULP FICTION and now his writing subsists of small borrowings from old Hitchcock plots and an Amicus anthology film, and a bit from NATURAL BORN KILLERS.
Spoiler..Spoiler..Spoiler..Spoiler..Spoiler..Spoiler..Spoiler..
While Rodriguez gives us some fast-paced action, much of it does not make a lot of sense. We once again have the BLOOD SIMPLE visual image of a dark and dusty room with bullets cutting holes in the walls so we see beams of light pierce the room. But Rodriguez does not do it right. Following a beam backwards should take you directly to a source the light. If the beams are from sunlight they should all be parallel. But Rodriguez has them pierce the room at all angles as if there are many suns in the sky. It is important to the plot of a vampire film that the beams of light be from sunlight as you can imagine. The same error was made in NEAR DARK.
A vampire must be staked through the heart to kill it. Technically the stake should pin the vampire's heart to the coffin, according to expert Montague Summers. But Rodriguez allows several scenes to pass where vampires are staked in the stomach.
Mark R. Leeper
mark.leeper@att.com
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