Review of From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) by Xgary X — 16 Jan 2014

A pair of ruthless bank robbers on the run to Mexico hijack an ex pastor and his children, only to be trapped in a strip joint full of vampires. The first collaboration between Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, From Dusk Til Dawn is half twisted road movie, half schlock horror with a wide streak of humour; Grindhouse beta in other words.

It's also the film that made the male population finally understand what the ladies were on about when we collectively developed a huge man crush on Clooney whose fantastic performance as Seth Gecko turned him from soap star into Mr.

Coolest Of The Cool. He's ably supported by Quentin as his psychotic and delusional baby brother and Harvey Keitel as the hard-assed preacher, as well as some cameos from Sex Machine from Dawn Of The Dead and Shaft himself.

There's plenty of Tarantino's amusing hard-boiled dialogue and the action scenes are splatter at it's most frantic and funny. It may feel a little scizophrenic as it's essentially two stories stitched together, but both work brilliantly and it's a riot from beginning to end.

It suffers slightly for a dated score and the climax is slightly weak, but it's still one of my favourite vampire films and worth the admission price for Salma Hayek's jaw dropping burlesque turn alone.

Ay carumba.