From Dusk To Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money

Stuart:

Why am I even bothering to review this film? I didn’t even like the first one! And not only that, but I was quite angry at the original From Dusk Till Dawn ‘cos it could have been so good! Anyway, from what I am told, both 2 and 3 arrived in video stores at the same time, so that could have been a good indication of what I was in for.

The problem is that I have a soft spot for vampire films. I will watch just about anything that has vampires in it. They’re just so damn cool.

From Dusk to Dawn 2This sequel features the Titty Twister for about four minutes, so it doesn’t even really have much to do with the first film. The vampires don’t even look the same. I remember in the first one when the characters got their vamp on there was a large amount of prosthetics (rather like the Buffy vampires except more so). In Texas Blood Money, however, for some reason prosthetics appear on a couple of the vamps, but then not on others.

This film falls into that second vampire film camp – ie: they turn you simply by biting you. This always ruins a good vamp flick as there is an extra step to take in order to suspend disbelief.

The director of this film seems to have a fetish for point-of-view shots. At various stages the visuals take place from the perspective of not only the eyes of a character, but from a fan, a safe dial, and even from inside the vamp’s mouths. The film was more interesting if, rather than actually paying attention to the plot, you spend all your time trying to guess where he would stick the camera next.

Basically, the film is boring. (I had trouble staying awake.) And stupid. Apparently anything vaguely cross-like repels vamps (as we saw in the first film). There is simply no way these vamps could ever get anything done. I mean, come on! They couldn’t even use a calculator for fear of the plus sign!

Okay, so this movie’s shit. The plot meanders and the actors look as if they’re constantly uncertain. And I’m sure you’re glad that there are people like me who can warn you off films you had better sense than to see in the first place.

Oh, and this film’s hoopla factor gets half a star for Danny Treju’s overacting.

Rating: 0 stars
Review by Stuart Wilson, 20th April 2004
Hoopla Factor: 0.5 stars


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