From Dusk till Dawn

From Dusk till Dawn
Directed by	Robert Rodriguez
Produced by	Robert Rodriguez Quentin Tarantino Lawrence Bender
Written by	Quentin Tarantino Robert Kurtzman (Story)
Starring	George Clooney Harvey Keitel Quentin Tarantino Juliette Lewis Ernest Liu Fred Williamson Tom Savini Cheech Marin Salma Hayek
Music by	Graeme Revell
Cinematography	Guillermo Navarro
Studio	Dimension Films A Band Apart Los Hooligans
Distributed by	Dimension Films
Release date(s)	January 19, 1996 (1996-01-19)
Running time	108 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$19 million[1]
Gross revenue	$25,836,616[1]
Followed by	From Dusk till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money

From Dusk till Dawn is a 1996 action-comedy horror film directed by Robert Rodriguez and written by Quentin Tarantino. The movie stars George Clooney, Harvey Keitel, Quentin Tarantino and Juliette Lewis.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Labor issues during production 4 Reception 5 Soundtrack 6 Sequel and prequel 7 References 8 External links

Plot

The film opens with fugitive bank robbers and brothers Seth (George Clooney) and Richie Gecko (Quentin Tarantino) fleeing the F.B.I. and Texas police. They hold up a liquor store during which they kill the store clerk and a cop. They hold a bank clerk hostage in the trunk of their car, whom Richie later rapes and murders.

Jacob (Harvey Keitel), the father, a pastor who is experiencing a crisis of faith, his Chinese American stepson Scott (Ernest Liu) and his daughter Kate (Juliette Lewis) are family introduced in the film, who are on a vacation and, as they stop at a motel, are promptly kidnapped by the Geckos, who force the Fullers to smuggle them across the Mexican border. Seth and Jacob make an uneasy truce: if the Geckos can make it past the border, Jacob and his family will come out of the ordeal unharmed. They succeed in entering Mexico and arrive at the "Titty Twister", a strip club in the middle of a desolate part of Mexico, where the Geckos will be met by their contact Carlos (Cheech Marin) at dawn.

The group is initially rebuffed at the door by the doorman, Chet Pussy (Cheech Marin), and Seth, overreacting, attacks him before entering the club. Inside, they are again confronted and ordered to leave by the bartender (Danny Trejo) until Jacob manages to convince him to let them stay by showing him his driver's license, which has a trucker rating. Seth, in a frustrated and angry demeanor, begins drinking heavily, encouraging the entire group to do the same. Richie drinks as well and takes special notice of the club's star performer, Satánico Pandemónium (Salma Hayek) during an extended solo performance. Unfortunately, after the performance, Chet Pussy approaches with back-up, looking to settle the score with the Geckos. In a short confrontation, Richie is stabbed in his already wounded hand, and as he bleeds, he is attacked by a transformed Satánico, now revealed as a vampire.

Chaos ensues as the employees and strippers are all revealed to be vampires. Most of the patrons are quickly killed, and Richie is bitten by Satánico and bleeds to death. Only Seth, Jacob, Kate, Scott, a biker named Sex Machine (Tom Savini) and Frost (Fred Williamson), a Vietnam War veteran, survive the attack. They quickly establish an alliance in order to survive through the night. Seth also convinces the group that Jacob is their best weapon, but only if he rediscovers his faith.

The slain patrons, including Richie, suddenly reawaken as vampires, forcing the group to kill them all. During this second struggle, one of the vampires bites Sex Machine's arm. Sex Machine eventually transforms into a vampire and bites both Frost and Jacob before Frost flings him through the barricaded door, which allows an army of vampires to enter as bats from the outside. Seth and the Fullers desperately escape to a back storeroom and fashion anti-vampire weapons from items found therein, including a jackhammer, crossbow, shotgun and improvised holy water. Jacob, knowing he will soon become a vampire, makes a reluctant Scott and Kate promise to kill him when he changes.

The four stage their final assault on the undead. During the battle, Sex Machine is killed by Kate and Jacob slays Frost. Jacob transforms but Scott hesitates to dispatch his father, allowing Jacob to bite him. Scott hits him with holy water and shoots him, but is subsequently seized by several vampires who begin to feed upon him. Begging for death, he is shot and killed by Kate.

Only Seth and Kate remain alive, surrounded by vampires. Just as the situation grows increasingly bleak, streams of sunlight suddenly shine through holes in the walls, harming any vampire that comes into contact with it. Then Carlos arrives, and on Seth's call, Carlos' bodyguards blast open the door, bringing in more sunlight that destroys every vampire inside, aided in part by the disco ball in the center of the bar. Safely outside and angry over the deaths of Richie, Jacob and Scott, Seth demands that Carlos lowers his 30% take for his stay in El Rey, to which Carlos reluctantly agrees.

Kate offers to accompany Seth to El Rey, but he declines, and both go their separate ways after he gives her some cash for a fresh start. As they leave, the camera pans back to reveal that the "Titty Twister" is actually part of a partially buried ancient Aztec temple, with many abandoned vehicles scattered about at the bottom of the temple.

Cast

• George Clooney as Seth Gecko
• Quentin Tarantino as Richie Gecko
• Harvey Keitel as Jacob Fuller
• Juliette Lewis as Kate Fuller
• Ernest Liu as Scott Fuller
• Salma Hayek as Satánico Pandemónium
• Cheech Marin as Border Guard/Chet Pussy/Carlos
• Danny Trejo as Razor Charlie
• Tom Savini as Sex Machine
• Fred Williamson as Frost
• Michael Parks as Texas Ranger Earl McGraw
• Kelly Preston as Kelly Houge/Newscaster

Labor issues during production

From Dusk till Dawn employed a non-union production crew, which is unusual for a production with a budget above $15 million. Rodriguez, Tarantino and producer Lawrence Bender defended this choice because it made for a more team-like atmosphere on the set instead of people having to stick to their certified jobs. Yet the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts targeted the production for strike action seeking to shut down filming, feeling that the film was a large enough production to warrant a unionized crew. Police were employed on set during some shooting days although no industrial action took place. This issue is covered in the making-of documentary Full Tilt Boogie featured on the film's DVD.

Reception

Critical reception for From Dusk Till Dawn was mixed. Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars and described it as "a skillful meat-and-potatoes action extravaganza with some added neat touches".^[2] In his review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, "The latter part of From Dusk Till Dawn is so relentless that it's as if a spigot has been turned on and then broken. Though some of the tricks are entertainingly staged, the film loses its clever edge when its action heats up so gruesomely and exploitatively that there's no time for talk".^[3] Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "B" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, "Rodriguez and Tarantino have taken the let-'em-eat-trash cynicism of modern corporate moviemaking and repackaged it as junk-conscious 'attitude.' In From Dusk Till Dawn, they put on such a show of cooking up popcorn that they make pandering to the audience seem hip".^[4] However, in his review for the Washington Post, Desson Howe wrote, "The movie, which treats you with contempt for even watching it, is a monument to its own lack of imagination. It's a triumph of vile over content; mindless nihilism posing as hipness".^[5] Cinefantastique magazine's Steve Biodrowski wrote, "Whereas one might reasonably have expected that the combo of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez would yield a critical mass of nuclear proportions, instead of an atomic fireball's worth of entertainment, we get a long fuse, quite a bit of fizzle, and a rather minor blast".^[6] In his review for the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle called the film, "an ugly, unpleasant criminals-on-the-lam film that midway turns into a boring and completely repellent vampire 'comedy.' If it's not one of the worst films of 1996 it will have been one miserable year".^[7] In Marc Savlov's review for the Austin Chronicle, he wrote, "Fans of Merchant-Ivory will do well to steer clear of Rodriguez's newest opus, but both action and horror film fans have cause for celebration after what seems like a particularly long splatter-drought. This is horror with a wink and a nod to drive-in theatres and sweaty back seats. This is how it's done".^[8]

Quentin Tarantino was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack features mainly Texas blues by such artists as ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimmie Vaughan. The Chicano rock band Tito & Tarantula, who portrayed the band in the Titty Twister, appears on the soundtrack as well. The film's score is by Graeme Revell. "Dark Night" by The Blasters plays over the film's opening credits.

Sequel and prequel

The film was followed by two direct-to-video follow-ups, a sequel, From Dusk till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money and a prequel, From Dusk till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter. Danny Trejo is the only actor to appear in all three, although Michael Parks appears in both From Dusk till Dawn and The Hangman's Daughter. Rodriguez, Tarantino and Bender served as producers on all three movies. Both sequels were received poorly by critics.^[9]

References

External links

• From Dusk till Dawn at the Internet Movie Database
• From Dusk till Dawn at Allmovie
• From Dusk till Dawn at Box Office Mojo
• From Dusk till Dawn at Rotten Tomatoes
• From Dusk till Dawn at Metacritic
• The Script

From Dusk till Dawn series Films From Dusk till Dawn • From Dusk till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money • From Dusk till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter Other Full Tilt Boogie Characters Earl McGraw • Full list of characters Soundtrack From Dusk till Dawn: Music from the Motion Picture Video game From Dusk till Dawn

Works by Quentin Tarantino Written and directed Reservoir Dogs (1992) · Pulp Fiction (1994) · Jackie Brown (1997) · Kill Bill (2003, 2004) · Death Proof (2007) · Inglourious Basterds (2009) Written True Romance (1993) · Natural Born Killers (1994) · From Dusk till Dawn (1996) Other work Past Midnight (1992) · Killing Zoe (1994) · Four Rooms (1995) · Curdled (1996) · Daltry Calhoun (2005) · Hostel (2005) · Sin City (2005) · The Muppets' Wizard of Oz (2005) · Hostel: Part II (2007) · Planet Terror (2007) · Sukiyaki Western Django (2007) · Hell Ride (2008) Film soundtracks Reservoir Dogs · Pulp Fiction · Jackie Brown · Kill Bill: Vol. 1 · Kill Bill: Vol. 2 · Death Proof · Inglourious Basterds Short films My Best Friend's Birthday (1987)

Works of Robert Rodriguez 1990s El Mariachi (1992) • Desperado (1995) • From Dusk till Dawn (1996) • The Faculty (1998) 2000s Spy Kids (2001) • Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams (2002) • Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003) • Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003) • Sin City (2005) • The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D (2005) • Planet Terror (2007) • Shorts (2009) 2010s Machete (2010) • Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World (2011) Other works Bedhead (1991) • Roadracers (1994) • Four Rooms (1995) • Rebel Without a Crew (1995) • Chingon (band) • Predators (2010) • Filmography