Item: Blood
Rating: 9
Author: The Arrow

From Dusk Till Dawn (Arrow Recommends)

March 10th 2018, 7:35am

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

"Arrow Recommends is a column that has my sorry ass advise older movies to your royal asses. I will be flexible in terms of genres i.e. I will cover whatever the bleep I want. For now, it will be the way to keep my voice on the site."

PLOT: Two hoods (Clooney – Tarantino) on the run take a family hostage and wind up hiding out in an establishment where hot chicks twirl on poles for a living. Problem is, there’s more than meets the crotch when it comes to them dames. Blood will flow and bullets will fly!

"Attention pussy shoppers! Take advantage of our penny pussy sale! If you buy one piece of pussy at the regular price, you get another piece of pussy of equal or lesser value for only a penny! " – Chet

LOWDOWN: I can’t remember the last time I tapped FROM DUSK TILL DAWN (GET THE BLU-RAY HERE), but in this day and age of the masses being at war with machismo and our air being polluted by political correctness overload, it was a breath of fresh DEAD AIR to watch a bold and "don't give a f*ck" horror/action movie like this one. As the end credits rolled the first thing that came to my one brain cell was: No f-ing way they would make a movie like this today. Somebody would get "outraged" (f*ck that word BTW) by something in it, online whiners would surface and lame apologizing from the powers that be would ensue. Am getting off track here. Sorry. Ummm… yeah, the flick… well, it has aged VERY WELL and I esteemed it WAYYYYY more today than I did upon its initial release – here’s why!

Everything about FROM DUSK TILL DAWN popped my cherries to high heaven! The screenplay by Quentin Tarantino was a sly and well-oiled cuss/smut heavy dialogue machine! This was QT at his best; his balance of superior wit, out of line humor, foul language and movie references was on the ball 200%. On his end, director Robert Rodriguez knocked it out of the petting Zoo, serving up kinetic shots galore, badass slow motion bits and sleek/iconic framing that made this a retina pleasing ride. And needless to say; his stylized shootouts and his relentless approach to mayhem would make Peckinpah and early Peter Jackson proud!

The novel structure of the story owned me as well! The first hour acted as an edgy and pulpy crime thriller while the last act went buck nuts as a horror film! And when I say buck nuts, I mean BUCK NUTS! I was served up mucho blood splattering, guts, dismemberment, nasty bites, inventive gore gags (A torso guitar? Nice!), you name it, you got it! The fact that the grisly goods were pimped out by the geniuses at KNB (look out for that Greg Nicotero cameo) meant that it was Grade A in execution as always! NOTE: The VFX work, although a pinch dated by today’s standards, still got the job done. END OF NOTE. It should also be stabbed that as a hetero sexual man with a fully functional penis lodged in his chinos – the fact that the last act was set in a raunchy strip club, was a plus! Salma Hayek’s sensual snake dance ALONE was worth the price of admission. Damn. No really, DAMNNNNN!

Casting wise, I was spoiled like some mook(s) with too much time on his/her hands who want to ban the word "man" from our vocabulary because it offends (f*ck that word too) them! We got some serious talent in this house! George Clooney (at his coolest in his big screen debut), Quentin Tarantino (pulling off his creepy perv role ideally), Harvey Keitel (all class, as always), Juliette Lewis (so talented this one), Salma Hayek (Again… DAMMMM!), Cheech Marin (killing it in 3 roles), Danny Trejo (being Trejo again, a role I love), Tom Savini (at his most memorable IMO), Fred Williamson (who stole the show every time he popped up – his monologue was one for the books), Michael Parks (dude was genius with the little he was given, I so wanted more of him) and cameos by the great John Saxon and Kelly Preston. You want dessert with that? Nope, you’re done!

Add to all that, a killer soundtrack, hilarious sight gags (all about Sex Machine’s weapon of choice), an endearing "lets go all out" approach to the gore, bonkers creature designs, meatier character development than the norm for a film of this ilk (loved Keitel’s character arc) and an easy pace and you get a well rounded bullets and blood thrill ride! If I had any complaints, it would be that some of the bigger names in the movie expired too quickly for my liking. I know it was probably for budgetary reasons – but it was still a tad of a bummer. I also felt that one of our lead characters took the fate of her/his loved ones a little too well when it was all over. But no biggie. This is an INSANE action/horror film, not Shakespeare in Love. Other than that I can’t think of anything to moan about. So, I'll stop right here.

In case you didn't get it; FROM DUSK TILL DAWN hit my spot hardcore! A man's man, meat and potatoes genre flick that brought me back to a time when society wasn’t so pathetically delicate! I so miss them days. Now that I think of it, it echoed the M.O. I had when I started this site in 2002: rough around the edges, care free, honest and un-pc. A unabashed celebration of exploitation! So crack open a cold one, call over some buds and re-watch FROM DUSK TILL DAWN right f-ing now. Thank me later with a brew and a lap-dance! Enjoy the weekend mofos and mofettes!