I actually didn't realize this was a 90s movie until it was mentioned in our previous thread. I came to the movie after watching the first season of the TV series. I love the TV series, which of course is outside the time period for this message board.

I often find myself impressed with movies that blend genres. In the case of From Dusk Till Dawn, we have a violent crime caper blended with a nightmarish vampire story and quite seamlessly. This is my favorite Tarantino movie, and I'm a pretty big fan of Kill Bill.

What did you think of the characters in this film, and the actors who played them? What did you think of the directing, the overall tone, the concepts, the imagery, the pacing, the dialogue? The amazing thing is how much there is to analyze in a movie that on the surface is a B-movie frightfest.

... and watching that dance scene as a teenager

Only Drax the Legend can quote Drax the Legend. NT · Drax the Legend

I wasn't a teen, but yup. And that's where the true brilliance of the movie starts for me. I've never really been into the criminal genre, but Tarantino does them well. I was loving those Gecko brothers before the first fang. This really could have been two completely different movies, only one veered off into the Twilight Zone. Instead of ending with a massive shootout between gangsters and Federales, it's vampires.

The actors involved were brilliantly chosen. This was still early years for Clooney. ER started in 1994 and this was barely 2 years later. Salma was a newbie. Both went onto great things. Juliette Lewis isn't bad, herself. Keitel is... Keitel. Cheech just might be better here than any of his stoner movies.

City of Heroes is BACK!

I'm pretty sure I saw this at the theater. I heard about it from my local comic shop, probably from Fangoria or something. So we all knew it was a vampire movie and we were already familiar with Tarantino and Rodriguez.

I heard there was a series, but I dont think the channel it's on is part of my cable package. Is it on Netflix? What do you think of the show?



I love Kill Bill. But there's blending genres, and then there's a movie that is all one genre until it stops suddenly, turns 90 degrees and goes in a different direction like From Dusk Til Dawn. I like both halves of the movie but they don't feel like parts of the same movie. Which I think was by intent. Tarantino wrote the first half and Rodriguez the second. I think their intention was a collision at the midpoint.



I like what they point out on the commentary, how the movie starts with Earl McGraw (Michael Parks) and they wrote him such that if you didnt know better you'd think he was the main character, only to kill him off immediately. No wonder they brought him back for Kill Bill and Grindhouse.

Clooney was a good get, and is well used. They kept trying to make him a movie star after ER but most of them didn't work, I don't think he became a big deal until Ocean's Eleven. He works well with Tarantino who does a decent job acting. Keitel does his thing, Juliette Lewis is decent. It's also fun when they get to the bar and suddenly Tom Savini and Fred Williamson show up. Cheech does a good job as his trio of characters, but I think his best role was actually in Tin Cup.

I still love Clooney's line "They weren't psychos, they were vampires! Psychos don't explode when sunlight hits them, I don't give a f*** how crazy they are!"

We were all fairly let down by parts 2 and 3 which went straight to video.

The concept itself is immensely fun : 50% Tarantino - 50% Rodriguez, 50% abduction thriller - 50% vampire film




Juliette Lewis is one of the actresses that I systematically associates with the 1990s (Cape Fear, Kalifornia, Natural Born Killers, Strange Days, What's Eating Gilbert Grape ... and From Dusk Till Dawn). It is nearly forgotten nowadays but she used to be an iconic actress back then (at least, among French movie buffs anyway).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliette_Lewis

(NB : I've just found out that, like Tom Cruise, she is ... a scientologist. :-\ I didn't know that, back then.)