“From Dusk Till Dawn” (1996) directed by Robert Rodriguez, written by Quentin Tarantino, starring George Clooney, Harvey Keitel, Juliette Lewis & Quentin Tarantino / Z-View

Posted on by

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

Director: Robert Rodriguez

Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino, story by Robert Kurtzman

Stars: George Clooney, Harvey Keitel, Juliette Lewis, Quentin Tarantino, Ernest Liu, Salma Hayek, Cheech Marin, Danny Trejo, Tom Savini, Fred Williamson, Brenda Hillhouse, John Saxon, Marc Lawrence, Kelly Preston, John Hawkes, Greg Nicotero, Robert Rodriguez and Michael Parks.

Tagline: From Quentin Tarantino. From Robert Rodriguez. From Dusk Till Dawn

The Plot…

Seth (Clooney) and Richie (Tarantino) Gecko are bank robbers on the run.  They’re desperate to get to across the border to Mexico.  If they make it, they’ll meet Carlos at a strip club called The Titty Twister.  From there, for a price, they’ll be taken to a sanctuary.

The trip won’t be easy.  Every cop including the Texas Rangers are after them.  There are roadblocks, constant news reports plus Richie is liable to royally screw things up.  Seth is a thief and will kill anyone who attempts to bring him in, but there are lines he won’t cross.  Richie is a sadist, sexual deviant and is an eager killer.

Opportunity presents itself when the Gecko brothers see Jacob Fuller (Keitel) and his two teenage kids, Scott (Liu) and Kate (Lewis) outside their RV.  They kidnap the family and force Jacob to drive them across the border.

Now it’s a short journey to The Titty Twister.  Once there the family will be set free and the brothers will go to sanctuary.  Or so they think.  No one can imagine the horrors that await.  Not everyone will survive.

Thoughts (beware of spoilers)…

I love how From Dusk Till Dawn morphs from a crime flick to a horror movie.

There are movie easter eggs throughout the film.  Earl McGraw (Michael Parks) appears here and in Kill Bill, Planet Terror and Death Proof.  Big Kahuna Burgers, made famous in Pulp Fiction (and later Death Proof) show up.  A Precinct 13 shirt worn by Scott is a reference to John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13.  The crotch-gun that Sex Machine uses was also seen in Rodriguez’s film Desperado. Chango Beer seen in this film was also a beverage in Desperado.

Cheech Marin plays three roles in the film: a border patrol agent, the barker at The Titty Twister and Carlos.

From Dusk Till Dawn fits in perfectly with Rodriguez and Tarantino’s Grindhouse double feature… instead make it a triple feature that would run from, uh, dusk till dawn.

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) rates 5 of 5 stars.