From Dusk Till Dawn

Two bank robbers, a lapsed preacher, and a recreational vehicle full of hostages cross the Texas border into Mexico, where a remote strip club called the Titty Twister promises shelter until morning. It does not deliver shelter. Robert Rodriguez directed from a Quentin Tarantino screenplay, and the film is remembered less for its plot than for its nerve: at roughly the halfway mark it abandons the crime thriller it has been building and becomes a vampire siege picture, with no apology and no easing of the transition.

George Clooney, then best known for television work on ER, plays Seth Gecko opposite Tarantino as his brother Richard. Harvey Keitel is the widowed minister Jacob Fuller, Juliette Lewis his daughter Kate, and Salma Hayek appears as the dancer Santanico Pandemonium. Dimension Films released the picture on January 19, 1996, on a budget of $19 million; it returned about $25.8 million in theaters and found a longer life on video.

The supporting cast reads like a roll call of horror and blaxploitation regulars: Tom Savini, Fred Williamson, Danny Trejo, Michael Parks, and Cheech Marin in three separate roles. Graeme Revell composed the score, and the house band Tito & Tarantula supplied the bar's on-screen music. The film spawned two direct-to-video sequels and a television series, but its main afterlife has been as a reference point for stories that change genre mid-stream. [edit]

A convenience store in rural Texas becomes the first crime scene. Seth Gecko (George Clooney) and his younger brother Richard (Quentin Tarantino) are driving toward the Mexican border with a hostage in the back seat and a trail of bodies behind them. Seth is the planner, controlled and unsentimental; Richard is the liability, given to visions and to violence that Seth cannot predict. The opening shootout establishes both the brothers' competence and the mess they leave: a clerk, a customer, and a police officer are dead before the title card.

Their escape route runs through a motel, a hostage situation, and a rendezvous with a contact who is supposed to deliver them across the border. Richard's instability complicates every step. Seth's response is to tighten the plan, which means finding a vehicle that will not attract attention and occupants who can pass a checkpoint. The vehicle turns out to be a recreational vehicle parked at a motel. The occupants are the Fuller family.

Jacob Fuller (Harvey Keitel) is a former minister who has lost his congregation and his belief. His wife is dead. He is traveling with his teenage daughter Kate (Juliette Lewis) and his young son Scott (Ernest Liu), and he is drinking more than he prays. Seth takes the family hostage and orders Jacob to drive across the border. The crossing is handled by a border guard played by Cheech Marin, one of three roles Marin fills in the film. The guard waves them through with a joke and a warning about the road ahead.

The road leads to the Titty Twister, a truck-stop bar in the middle of the desert that Seth's contact has named as the meeting point. The bar does not open until dark and does not close until dawn. Inside, the Fuller family and the Gecko brothers sit among truckers, bikers, and a Vietnamese veteran named Frost (Fred Williamson) who sells trinkets from a tray. The house band, Tito & Tarantula, plays on a small stage. The atmosphere is loud, hot, and faintly wrong.

The floor show introduces Santanico Pandemonium (Salma Hayek), who dances with a large snake draped across her shoulders. The performance is the last ordinary thing that happens in the film. A fight breaks out among the patrons, and the bar's staff respond by revealing what they are: vampires. The bouncers, including Razor Charlie (Danny Trejo) and Sex Machine (Tom Savini), bare fangs. The dancers and the bartender follow. Within minutes the club is a slaughterhouse, and the survivors are Seth, Kate, Jacob, Frost, Sex Machine, and a handful of others.

The film's second half is a siege. The vampires cannot enter the sunlight, which is hours away. The survivors cannot leave without crossing a desert full of enemies. They barricade the doors, raid the bar for weapons, and improvise. Holy water works. Crosses work, provided the wielder believes in them, which is a problem for Jacob. Stakes and decapitation work. The group argues about tactics, about trust, and about whether the vampires can be reasoned with, which they cannot.

Richard's condition deteriorates. He has been bitten, or he has simply come apart; the film leaves room for both readings. Seth watches his brother become something he will have to deal with. Jacob watches his daughter fight and begins to reconsider the terms of his own despair. The night is long, the bar is full of enemies, and the survivors are running out of ammunition, blood, and time. The film's remaining minutes resolve which of them see the sunrise, and how.[edit]