From Dusk Till Dawn

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This entry was posted at
22:16 GMT on 18 September 2003

I picked up the second season of 24 last night, but haven't started going through the discs yet. They sure as heck made up for the bare-bones first season release, with something like 48 deleted scenes, commentary on one episode of each disc, and an entire seventh disc of nothing but extras.

But while I was getting that, I also picked up From Dusk Till Dawn in preparation for my discourse on Rob Rodriguez, as I'd never seen the film before. It was only $15, and wowzers, it kicks ass. Both the movie and the DVD.

Before I start into the film, this $15 DVD has two discs, and two movies. The other movie is Full Tilt Boogie, a feature-length documentary about the making of From Dusk Till Dawn which captures the union-busting production. I'll go into more detail on that later, after viewing the doc. It's also got deleted scenes, trailers, music videos, commentary from Quentin Tarantino (who wrote and co-starred) and Rodriguez himself. And I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff. Needless to say, lots of stuff for the price, and all of it that I've seen thus far is quite good.

Now to the movie.

Lots of people I know hated it. Hated it.

I understand why, really I do. But the reason why is also the reason I love it.

It starts off as a crime movie, two outlaw brothers on the road, with hostages. One of them is psycho, the other is cool and collected most of the time. (This relationship is very obviously influenced by Elmore Leonard's novels — an influence that Tarantino acknowledges over his work in general — and this one especially reminded me of Killshot.)

And that's the way the movie works up to at least the halfway point. It's a tough and gritty crime film, with strong ties to exploitation cinema. The characters are crime movie characters.

So when the movie pops the clutch and skips gears to become a vampire film, these characters are lost at sea. Up sh-t creek. No paddle. The rules they operate by, the rules of exploitation crime flicks, do not apply.

And I was right there with it. I thought it was great fun to watch these terrible characters try to readjust their worldviews. But I also see why people hate this aspect of the film. If you want a straight-on horror film from the get-go, then the crime stuff gets in the way of that.

When it was a crime drama with moments of violence and lots of slick dialogue, I was into it. When it shifted to a full-on tits-and-gore vampire flick, I rolled with it and had a blast.

Weirdly, I'm usually squeamish about gore. Not here. I don't know why, unless it's tone. We're not talking Evil Dead 2-style comedy, but Rodriguez doesn't linger lovingly over the effects either, except when they're obviously fake. That, I can handle.

I haven't gone deep into the special features on the discs, but I did watch a mini-documentary called "Hollywood Goes to Hell," which was a bit of fun, and I've gotten through a quarter of the commentary track.

Not being a huge fan of Tarantino, and in fact since I actively dislike him much of the time, I was doubly shocked here. As an actor in the film, for once, he is not playing himself. And he does a passable job of acting, believe it or not. And on the commentary, I'm actually liking him a bit. I prefer Rodriguez, but the two are obviously good friends, and maybe some of Rob's fondness for QT is rubbing off. They both very obviously love movies, and that helps too.

All in all, a fun and energetic time in exploitation-land. Which has my appetite all whetted for Kill Bill.

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