Amazon.com video review:
B-movie mavens turned A-list genre fiends Robert Rodriguez and
Quentin Tarantino teamed up in 1996 to take vampire gothic south of the
border into spaghetti Western territory for the gory cult film From Dusk
Till Dawn. The high-concept mix of southwestern criminals versus
supernatural nasties proved too irresistible for either of the video-hound
creators to allow it to remain dead (or undead, as the case may be), so they
plotted and produced a pair of direct-to-video sequels. Tarantino takes a
story credit on the first, a heist film coscripted and directed by Scott
Speigel. A Mexican bank robbery helmed by drawling criminal Robert Patrick
(Terminator 2) turns into a literal bloodbath when his crew are
turned into hungry bloodsuckers. Speigel, a buddy of Sam Raimi, tops both
Tarantino and Rodriguez for sheer cinematic acrobatics, putting his camera
in the most absurd places (even from inside the mouth of a vampire chomping
down on a victim) and driving the film with adrenaline-charged overkill,
but
despite some clever scenes and a hilarious Psycho spoof, it turns
into another aggressively trashy latex-mask and rubber-bat gorefest as
cops
and robbers team up against the fanged gang. Bo Hopkins costars as the police
detective dogging Patrick's trail. Bruce Campbell and Tiffani-Amber
Thiessen
make cameos in the jokey opening sequence and Speigel and fellow director
Kevin Smith briefly appear as vampire bait. Bartender Danny Trejo is the
only returning cast member. --Sean Axmaker
