Starring: George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Harvey Keitel, Juliette Lewis, Salma Hayek

Director: Robert Rodriguez
Released: 1996

Mood: If you just love brutal-yet-campy vampire gore and there’s never a wrong day or time to watch it.

I first saw From Dusk Till Dawn when I was a teenager, and I can fully admit that I didn’t have the faculties to appreciate it. I was too insanely jealous of Salma Hayek getting to exist while being that gorgeous.

Now I’m a mature adult, and guess what? I’m still insanely jealous of Salma Hayek. Seriously, who just gets the looks, the brains, the talent, AND the money? It’s not fair. I just want to climb inside her skin and be her for a day.

Although, then I’d have made Bandidas and Wild Wild West, and that would be tragic. Salma, if you’re reading this – I will gladly screen all future Western scripts for you and make sure that you only do the really good ones. You don’t have to pay me. Just let me bask in your presence.

Oh right, we’re reviewing a movie here.

From Dusk Till Dawn is one part Quentin Tarantino crime thriller, one part Robert Rodriguez horror gore-fest, and takes its comedy from both of those parts. If you love the campiness of Sam Raimi’s Army of Darkness, Tarantino’s sharp dialogue, and Rodriguez’s El Mariachi trilogy and Machete movies… this will hit you on exactly the right level.

From Dusk Till Dawn begins with a violent roadside liquor store holdup by two extremely overqualified gunmen: Seth Gecko (George Clooney) and his deranged brother Richie (Quentin Tarantino). This is where we get the Western influences.

The Geckos are on the run after a bank robbery. Seth is the smart one, and has a plan to get across the border into Mexico. But Richie is deeply psychotic, and he rapes and kills their hostage.

Seth is forced to make another plan. They kidnap a devout Christian family and their RV, and force patriarch Jacob Fuller (Harvey Keitel) to drive them across the Mexican border.

The group goes directly to the Titty Twister, an all-night desert strip club where the Geckos expect to meet a contact who will hide them. The bar only serves truckers and bikers, and is now playing host to a religious dad, two teenagers, and two extremely dangerous outlaws. What could go wrong?

The juxtaposition of George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino is severely jarring in every single scene.

In From Dusk Till Dawn, Clooney was at a point in his career where he was daring to break out of his ‘hunky heartthrob’ image after two years as a lead in ER. Seth is a handsome, practical, sociopathic killer.

After seeing so many current Clooney movies, you keep expecting him to say something that softens his character, but he goes all-in. His performance is totally deadpan, which makes his lines even more enjoyable.

Richie is a thoroughly despicable character. Everything about the way Tarantino looks, talks, and acts in this role screams ‘NO’, which is similar to how he acts in other movies (hello, Planet Terror) and makes you kind of wonder how much of it is just Tarantino. Richie is gross, mean, messy, and has zero redeeming qualities.

• Fun Fact #1: This movie won George Clooney Fangoria’s Best Actor award, the MTV Movie award for Best Breakthrough Performance, and the Saturn Award for Best Actor. Quentin Tarantino won both the Razzie and Stinkers Bad Movie awards for Worst Supporting Actor.

Harvey Keitel seems to fit naturally into Jacob Fuller. He’s got a quiet strength and subtle warmth that make you instantly side with the character, making Fuller the perfect mix of morals and physicality to match the Geckos’ immoral antics.

Salma Hayek totally steals the show with Santánico’s sexy snake dance to a Chicano blues number, and her charisma is undeniable even when not saddled with a serpent. But just as memorable are Cheech Marin’s monologue as doorman Chet Pussy, and Tom Savini’s codpiece gun and skill with a whip as the biker Sex Machine.

• Fun Fact #2: Salma Hayek is afraid of snakes and was going to pass on the role, but director Robert Rodriguez told her that Madonna was also being considered to make her want to take it. Hayek did two months of hypnotherapy to prepare for the dance.
• Fun Fact #3: The infamous codpiece gun, and Tom Savini as Sex Machine, are both from Rodriguez’s Desperado.
• Fun Fact #4: Savini is not only skilled with a bullwhip in real life, he’s also a tournament fencer and gymnast, all of which make him a great stuntman.

You also get great scenes with Danny Trejo, Juliette Lewis, and Fred Williamson.

The cinematography in From Dusk Till Dawn’s Mexican scenes is just so, so well done.

Everything is worthy of praise, from the lighting, exterior of the Titty Twister, and interior set, to the small details and epic action shots. The songs by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Tito & Tarantula smoothly set the mood.

The brawl scenes alone are some of my favourites that I’ve ever seen in a horror or Western, because they deliver on graphic gore, brutal action, and a dash of camp. It feels like half of the movie is just fighting, and that’s what I WANT from a vampire Western. If you’re asking me to go along with this supernatural story, you’d better take it all the way down.

Even if you find the dialogue and themes offensive, there’s no arguing how well it’s all put together.

The plot is a bit crazy though. It’s like two movies bumped into each other in a bar, spent the night getting shitfaced, and then woke up the next day and had to make up a story to tell their spouses about what happened and why they didn’t come home.

Stories that get built up before the Mexican border are dropped in favour of the bloody frightfest. The genre suddenly switches, rather than seamlessly blending horror and Western from start to finish. And we get all these hints of Aztec history behind the vampires that go nowhere?!

Also, I can’t accept that any person, even a sociopathic criminal, would continue to look the other way for, and take care of, a rapist brother. I just can’t.

All that aside, From Dusk Till Dawn may have felt like a B-movie at its time, but its impact is still seen and felt today. It laid the groundwork for everything from music videos, like Rammstein’s Engel, through decades of books and TV shows about vampire bars, to the 2025 movie Sinners.

I’ll leave you with this final, epic fun fact list about this cast’s ties.

• Tarantino and Rodriguez made the Grindhouse movies together – Tarantino had a small role in Planet Terror and directed Death Proof, while Rodriguez directed Planet Terror
• But if we go way back, Clooney and Tarantino both appeared on The Golden Girls
• And Rodriguez once directed Clooney in a Nespresso commercial
• Meanwhile, Tarantino, Salma Hayek, Danny Trejo, and Cheech Marin were all in Rodriguez’s Desperado
• Trejo was also in Rodriguez’s Planet Terror
• Marin was also in Rodriguez’s Spy Kids trilogy
• Tom Savini has been in multiple other Rodriguez movies: Desperado, Planet Terror, Machete, and Machete Kills
• Savini also appeared in other Tarantino Westerns: Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight
• Harvey Keitel and Tarantino both appeared in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, directed by Tarantino
• Tarantino wrote the screenplay for Natural Born Killers, starring Juliette Lewis
• Michael Parks dies in the first scene as Texas Ranger Earl McGraw, a character who also appears in Tarantino’s Kill Bill, Kill Bill Vol. 2, and Death Proof, AND in Rodriguez’s Planet Terror 
• Parks also has a cameo in Tarantino’s Django Unchained and has a lead role in Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman’s Daughter