FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 2 123MOVIES MOVIE

The contrived plot is tenuously linked to the original film by having a brief scene set in the bar (seemingly rebuilt after the slaughter that occurred there before), and also a cameo appearance from that vampire barman Danny Trejo, who sets the plot in motion. You can just imagine Spiegel trying to work out where he can place the camera next. Far from being annoying and over-the-top (well, maybe over-the-top) as some reviewers would have you think, these dodgy camera angles are the highlights of the film for me at least they're somewhat original and make the film more fun and interesting to watch. Spiegel's penchant is for bizarre camera angles, so we witness things occurring from behind moving fans, from the point of view of a man doing press-ups, from the mouth of a vampire, from the bottles of barrels and glasses, and lots more besides. Here, we find out that Spiegel hasn't progressed as a director (as has his pal Sam Raimi) in the twelve-odd years since then, as basically he uses exactly the same kind of comic-book style as in that movie.

FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 2 123MOVIES MOVIE

Director Scott Spiegel first cut his teeth by assisting with some of the EVIL DEADs back in the '80s, before making his debut with the incredibly gory slasher movie INTRUDER. It's definitely a tongue-in-cheek cross between comedy and horror, a fact which some reviewers seem to have missed, and is pretty enjoyable on a dumb-but-fun scale. Sure, it's just a rehash of the original film done on a much smaller scale (and lower budget, obviously), but what this film may lack in money and originality it more than makes up for in pacing and almost non-stop action. This straight-to-video sequel to the surprise cinema hit of '96 is a lot better than I had heard and expected. I think you already know whether you'll like this flick or not. Much cheaper, much cheesier, muchos muchos muchos. Oh, and don't expect anything like the first one, it's a totally different kettle of fish. If you like trashy B-movies, you'll like this. Fair enough, but sometimes people take movies too seriously. Alot of people are going to disagree though - the people i was watching this with, for example, all thought it sucked. Not as much fun as the Intruder (which is well worth getting if you're a Deadite fan, oh yeah) but still a good laugh a using loads of Spiegel's trade mark POV shots. Oh yeah - the film - well, it's good in a Scott Speigel kind of way. And, let's face it, that's how come Bruce Campbell's in this movie - they go way back. That's the kind of guy Scott Speigel is and I like him. Next day when Bruce arrived at the office he was stunned to find hundreds of girls lined up waiting to show Scott their boobs for the chance to get on the screen topless for maybe 2 or 3 seconds. Apparently it was all Scott's idea he steamrollered the idea past them when they weren't paying attention. I watched Army of Darkness the other day, the bootleg edition, with the commentary on and was belly laughing when two topless slave girls wander on to the screen and Bruce recounts the story of how they got into the movie. If you've read the 'Evil Dead companion' or 'If Chins could kill' you'll know what kind of guy Scott Speigel is. It's no classic, but it's mildly amusing. Overall, I'd recommend it if you can catch it on the cheap. It's kinda fun the first twenty times, but after that. As for the Raimi-esque POV shots, a little goes a long way - something that Scott Spiegel should have learned from the master. It's stuff like this which suggests the writers didn't know quite what they were doing. Adding the solar eclipse does nothing here. Which is another pointless plot point - if you want vampires to be in the darkness, just keep them in darkness and have the sun come up normally.

The ending is just one big shootout, prolonged by a convenient solar eclipse. There is no real climax - the vampire bad guys are subsequently interchangeable, and the only really competent one (Jesus) gets killed before the formerly-dimwitted one. The writers seemed to have run out of ideas, and so we just get interminable variations on these two basic ideas.

Once we get the first guy bit by a vampire, it moves along to 'vampires rob a bank' and 'vampires shoot it out with police.' But.that's really about it. Like the original, it tries to stay 'reality' grounded as a caper flick, but given this is a shorter movie, this goes on _way_ too long before you actually get to vampires. The problem is that that's really all there is, and there's not much running track. It takes a basic ideas (vampires robbing a bank) and goes with it and runs. I only caught the 'edited' version on Sci-Fi Channel, but must admit that I found this to be a mildly entertaining film.

From dusk till dawn 2 123movies