From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

2 years ago

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

FROM HERE ON OUT, YOU ARE ALL COOL IN MY BOOK

by Michelle Said

Let’s just get it out of the way: From Dusk Till Dawn is a ridiculous movie.

I’ll admit that I had never ever seen From Dusk Till Dawn until Tarantino Week rolled around and I realized how paltry my viewing experience of his films have been. And, what’s more, I didn’t pick this film due to any interest in the subject matter whatsoever (criminals + vampires + roadhouses + gore + violence = just about as interesting to me as watching an episode of I Love Money 2; it just ain’t my thing), but because I have a most tangential personal connection to the film.

Yep.

George Clooney wishes I was name dropping him right about now.

I don’t mean to brag or drop names, but Ernest (“Ernie”) Liu, who plays Scott Fuller in the film, was my best friend’s brother’s best friend when I was 14 years old. I remember her telling me after she saw the film that, “The first part was okay, I guess, but then it got really bad. Ernie was pretty good but Tarantino was awful.”

See that kid in the back? That’s Ernie.

That’s it. That’s all I knew.

For 13 years.

Fast forward to this week. As anybody with even a modicum of current pop-culture aptitude knows, vampires are all the rage these days. There’s Twilight, The Vampire Chronicles and, my personal favorite, True Blood. The undead have risen again and we find ourselves, as a society, at a true vampire zeitgeist. The vampires are glamour pusses, beautiful creatures far paler than your average human being, with pearly fangs that pop out at feeding time. And sometimes, if you’re lucky - and/or the most annoying protagonist in modern fiction - they even sparkle. It’s easy to forget the last vampire renaissance - all the way back in the mid-nineties - when vampires were actually creepy. If modern vampires are an allegory for homosexuality (they pass for “regular people” except they have different needs and desires), the vampires of the 1990’s were more akin to the decade’s reaction to the AIDS virus (you get bit, you’re infected, you’re a monster, there’s no cure and you’re DOOMED FORRRR-EVVVV-ERRRRR). When it came to feeding time, these Clinton-era vamps more often than not transformed into beasts that were kind of half-Klingon, half-Nightcrawler. Think Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Blade.

Mama, don’t let your children grow up to be vampires.

And, of course, From Dusk Til Dawn.

I really love these screenshots.

But the way the vampires look isn’t the only ridiculous part of the movie. There’s the fact that this is pretty much Quentin Tarantino’s Adaptation. You’re rolling along in a dusty 70’s crime movie with a pair of brothers (George Clooney, in a role that strongly reminded me of his turn in O Brother Where Art Thou?, and Quentin Tarantino in full-on psychopathic horndog mode) who pick up a family of God-fearing Texan hostages (the aforementioned Liu, Harvey Keitel, and Juliette Lewis), then all of a sudden you find yourself in Mexico battling a coven of Mexican roadhouse vampires in a horror flick so cheesy it’s dripping Velveeta. I wouldn’t be surprised if Charlie Kaufman (or Donald Kaufman) listed this film as an inspiration.

Who was asking for Quentin Tarantino’s head on a plate?

So, okay. Let’s back up.

This isn’t really a “true” Tarantino film - he wrote and starred in it but did not direct - though his fingerprints are everywhere. His director and partner-in-crime, Robert Rodriguez, helms the piece and it oozes with his Latino biker flavor. Rodriguez put the strippers dancing on the tables, but Tarantino put in the scene where he’s sucking whiskey off of Salma Hayek’s tootsies. They go together. The dialogue, though, is kind of like if Tarantino swapped brains with Joss Whedon. When Cheech Marin (who plays three distinct roles throughout the course of the film) snarls at the virginal character Kate (played by Lewis), “You know what people say about me? I suck!” the viewer can’t help but look for Sarah Michelle Gellar to pop up with a snappy comeback.

I wonder if Jack Donaghy knows about Elisa’s past.

The acting is great — particularly the turns by Keitel and Lewis. They bring gravitas to a movie where everybody else is basically just out for a good time. Clooney (complete with puzzling tribal tattoo) turns in a frenetic and mad-eyed performance and delivers monologues, like, “I know what’s going on. We gotta bunch of fucking vampires out there trying to get in here and suck our fucking blood and that’s it. Plain and simple. Now I don’t want to hear anything about, ‘I don’t believe in vampires.’ Because I don’t fucking believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what I saw is fucking vampires. Now do we all agree that what we are dealing with is vampires?”

Vampire disco party!

And then there are the vampires themselves. Upon arrival at the Titty Twster, where Marin, playing Chet Pussy, extols the virtues of the establishment by citing the plentitude and variety of the pussy there within, including, white, black, Spanish, yellow, hot, cold, wet, smelly, hairy, bloody, snappin’ silk, velvet, Naugahyde, horse, dog, and chicken. Bottom line: They got pussy. Too bad it’s dead.

Of course, this is a movie where one of the supporting characters is named Sex Machine. Like I said: ridiculous.

But it is, and forgive me, Melissa, because I’m going to have to disagree with your 14-year-old-self’s assessment, entirely enjoyable. The whole thing. I loved it. The beginning was typical Tarantino and the end was full-on Rodriguez and it’s all just awesome. So sure, it’s stupid and silly and awful in a way. But it’s fun. What other film has a vampire band playing a guitar made out of a human corpse?