From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money
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In Theaters : 16 March, 1999 |
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From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money description
B-movie mavens turned A-list genre fiends Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino teamed up in 1996 to take vampire gothic south of the border into spaghetti Western territory for the gory cult film From Dusk Till Dawn. The high-concept mix of southwestern criminals versus supernatural nasties proved too irresistible for either of the video-hound creators to allow it to remain dead (or undead, as the case may be), so they plotted and produced a pair of direct-to-video sequels. Tarantino takes a story credit on the first, a heist film coscripted and directed by Scott Speigel. A Mexican bank robbery helmed by drawling criminal Robert Patrick (Terminator 2) turns into a literal bloodbath when his crew are turned into hungry bloodsuckers. Speigel, a buddy of Sam Raimi, tops both Tarantino and Rodriguez for sheer cinematic acrobatics, putting his camera in the most absurd places (even from inside the mouth of a vampire chomping down on a victim) and driving the film with adrenaline-charged overkill, but despite some clever scenes and a hilarious Psycho spoof, it turns into another aggressively trashy latex-mask and rubber-bat gorefest as cops and robbers team up against the fanged gang. Bo Hopkins costars as the police detective dogging Patrick's trail. Bruce Campbell and Tiffani-Amber Thiessen make cameos in the jokey opening sequence and Speigel and fellow director Kevin Smith briefly appear as vampire bait. Bartender Danny Trejo is the only returning cast member. --Sean Axmaker |
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From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
"El Coyote? What's that mean in American?"
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Even though Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, the pair behind the original film released in 1996 (Tarantino wrote the screenplay, while Rodriguez directed), are displayed prominently on the cover for the film From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999), the pair had relatively little to do with any of the technical aspects of this feature, both taking executive producing credits (I'd guess they were mostly involved in the financing for the film, but I could be wrong). The film, co-written and directed by Scott Spiegel, who's most notable credit to date is being a co-writer on Sam Raimi's film Evil Dead II (1987), features Robert T-1000' Patrick (Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Double Dragon) and Bo Hopkins (The Getaway, White Lightning). Also appearing is Duane Whitaker (The Devil's Rejects), Muse Watson (Dead Birds), Brett Harrelson (Strangeland), brother of Woody Harrelson, Raymond Cruz (Clear and Present Danger, The Rock), James Parks (Crocodile 2: Death Swamp), and Danny Trejo (Con Air, The Replacement Killers), the only actor to appearing in all three of the From Dusk Till Dawn features. Appearing in bit parts are Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead II, Maniac Cop) and Tiffani-Amber Thiessen ("Just Shoot Me!"), who's since dropped the Amber' bit from her name, perhaps in an effort to separate herself from the goodie goodie character stereotype she received while starring on the popular series "Saved by the Bell" (I think the breast enlargement went further in this aspect than did the name change).
After an unrelated, five minute sequence featuring both Campbell and Thiessen (the pair do not appear again in the film), the story begins proper as we meet Buck (Patrick), an ex-con who's offered participation on a score (robbing a Mexican bank) by a friend named Luther (Whitaker), who's only recently escaped police custody, fleeing towards old Mexico way, with Sheriff Otis Lawson (Hopkins) in hot pursuit. Buck gathers a crew together including C.W. (Watson), who's specialty is safe cracking, Jesus (Cruz), the driver (and extra muscle), and Ray Bob (Harrelson), who's only purpose is apparently that of the group's goober. The foursome hit the road, ending up in a sleazy motel (where they're supposed to hook up with Luther), debating the positive and negative qualities of an adult feature playing on the television (watching four guys in a seedy motel room watching porn is as creepy as it sounds). Luther, on his way to the motel, has a little car trouble, and ends up at the (cue tie-in bit to the original movie) strip bar featured in the first film, the end result being Luther is no longer Luther, if you get my drift. Even though Luther now possesses the nocturnal tendencies, the bank job is still on, and various members of the crew are eventually turned, unbeknownst (initially) to Buck. Things begin to get a little hairy as once the boys are in the middle of the heist, as Sheriff Lawson shows up (apparently jurisdiction isn't as big an issue as I thought it was) with an army of Mexican police, thereby ensuring a ridiculously high body count. Eventually Buck finds himself in the position of teaming up with Sheriff Lawson in order to survive the night.
As others have mentioned, this film has very little to do with the original, other than sharing a title. What it lacks in substance (in terms of an actual story and interesting characters), it tries to make up for in mindless, gratuitous violence and lots of childish tough guy talk (at least it's something). The last third of the film is loaded up with lots of blazing guns, vampire action, and a quite a bit of bloody mayhem. Spiegel, taking a page out of the Raimi Book of Directing Tricks continually inserts numerous point of view shots, the most memorable being inside a vampire's mouth as the creature bites down on a victim. This was kinda cool the first couple of times, but by the eighth or ninth time it got old. And what was with all the shots of steer skulls in the desert, always featuring some sort of desert denizen emerging from the hollow eye socket? I think it was meant to be a cool transitional effect between sequences, but it got annoying after awhile. Spiegel does keep things moving along, so for that I was appreciative. I didn't really care for some of the overly obvious computer generated effects, especially those when the vampires met their demise. The characters are akin to cardboard, and held little interest form me, but I will say Robert Patrick came off better than most. What's up with Raymond Cruz? Does he play the same, damn character in very film he appears in? You know the one...the tightly wound, tough as nails, slightly psychotic, gun toting, token Hispanic character...in his defense, he did get to shag a really hot Latin woman in this film, played by Maria Checa, who, according to the IMDb, was a Playboy Playmate in the mid 1990s (a few more linger shots of her in the buff wouldn't have hurt this movie at all). The addition of Bo Hopkins to the cast did bring things up a little, as he's always been an actor I've enjoyed seeing, despite his role being one I've seen him in numerous times in the past. I did learn a couple of things from this movie...one being kicking a vampire in the gonasticles has absolutely no effect what so ever, and the second being that Mexican SWAT teams don't seem all that organized or capable (the vampire gang picked them apart fairly easy). I think the key to this film is to keep your expectations low, and don't give too much thought to that which came before. If you can manage these two things, you'll probably enjoy yourself with this forgettable feature. There are worse ways to kill an hour and twenty minutes...
The non-anamorphic, widescreen (1.85:1) picture on this DVD looks good, and the Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo comes through clean. English subtitles are available, but there are absolutely no special features included, other than a handful of film recommendations from Dimension Films, the company that released this title (no trailers, just recommendations). This feature was followed up by a sequel titled From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter (2000).
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From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money dvd movie.