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Sunday, May 28, 2006

"From Dusk till Dawn" review


From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

Directed by Robert Rodriguez
Writing credits Robert Kurtzman Quentin Tarantino

Harvey Keitel.... Jacob Fuller
George Clooney.... Seth Gecko
Quentin Tarantino.... Richard Gecko
Juliette Lewis.... Kate Fuller
Ernest Liu.... Scott Fuller
Salma Hayek.... Santanico Pandemonium
Cheech Marin.... Border Guard/Chet Pussy/Carlos

"From Dusk till Dawn" is neatly divided into two parts. The first half is a crime/road movie. The second half is a showcase for gruesome special effects. Put both parts together and you have an excellent vampire slaughter flick.

Clooney and Tarantino are the Gecko brothers. They are on the run from a bloody bank robbery. They nab some hostages and bolt for Mexico. Once there, they decide to kick back in a strip club. Too bad for them it's loaded with vampires. The slaughter begins.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It's obvious that the first part of the movie exists only to give the strip club massacre scenes some counterweight. "From Dusk till Dawn" has only one purpose: To show off the gory special effects as vampire after vampire gets impaled, melted, killed, destroyed etc. Fine with me. A good time was had by all.

One last thing, Salma Hayek gives the greatest strip club performance ever. She doesn't even get naked. Now that's quality.

SCORE: 3 out of 4 Salma stripteases


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

dr. gore this is the perfect example of how special effects movies are much better than non- special effects movies, the first hour is just a mediocre drama, (rubbish, in fact), however when the real mccoy arrives, (namely the incredible special effects), the film goes into an overdrive of entertainment magnificence, specifically because of the special effects, not because of any of the silly bastards who are in the film, (although there is one obvious exception of course, and i`ll get back to her in a moment), or the director, its the special effects wizards who make the last 40 minutes truly astounding. Now, back to that obvious exception, salma hayek did look fantastic in this film and its all the more incredible that she was 29 when this movie was shot in `95, a full 11 years past the peak of her physical attractiveness and desirability, can you imagine how breathtaking she must have been when she was 18 !!!, and just a word for juliet lewis, she`s a little darlin` too, well she was back in `95.

Dr. Gore said...

In this case, I would totally agree with you. "From Dusk till Dawn" was going nowhere fast until Salma Hayek showed up and gave the audience a reason to live. Then a vampire finally reared its head and jumpstarted the movie. Never was much into Juliette Lewis although I liked her in "Cape Fear". But then again she was a little, (at least her character was), too young for maximum babe potential.