From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999) from Scoopy Jr
This is the first of two straight-to video "sequels" to the Tarentino/Rodriguez movie, but once you get past the title, that's about where any real connection ends. Tarentino and Rodriguez are credited as executive producers, but I think that was more of a contractual requirement for the use of the franchise name.

Here's what stays the same... 

  1. The Titty Twister (set design, and Razor Charlie behind the bar only). 
  2. A black car from the 60's.
  3. The fact that there are vampires.
  4. Thousands of bullets.

That's pretty much it.

The story itself is not a sequel. I'd say it's either an alternate version, or a prequel. Robert Patrick rounds up a gang of thugs to rob a bank in Mexico. Naturally this particular bank happens to be the branch near the Titty Twister, the strip club home of our Vampires (where the girls are not naked by the way).

The lead thug ends up running into some vamps, gets attacked, fires a few hundred rounds of ammo, and ends up becoming a vamp himself before meeting up with Robert Patrick and the gang.

Without any planning, they head off to the bank (at least they do mention this). Slowly while cracking the safe, all of the other thugs are turned into vampires, except for Patrick. Next thing ya know, 8,000 of Mexico's finest and some Texas Rangers show up, and more bullets start to fly.
 Since the bullets don't kill vampires, they of course go outside after emptying the vault (yes, the bank robbery was at night) and start a feeding frenzy. All of the sudden, the world's fastest sunrise takes place! What's that you say...the end?

Hardly!

NUDITY REPORT
see the main commentary
 Just when you thought all of the vampire cliches were all used up they threw us a curve! Yup, you guessed it...immediately after the world's fastest sunrise, is the world's longest total solar eclipse! I kid you not. How long you ask? Well, if the story timeline were consistent, it was over 2 hours long. In actual minutes on the DVD clock...about 15. For the purpose of the plot...long enough for the vamps to kill 8,000 Federales, and long enough for the two human survivors (Robert Patrick and the head Texas Ranger) to kill the vamps.

Written and directed by Scott Spiegel, who is probably best known for writing "Evil Dead II" (1987). He's also associated with several other Sam Raimi projects, and that would explain much of the camera work in this film (and the cameo by B movie hero, Bruce Campbell). Unfortunately where Raimi's eye offers a unique look at the action in a scene. This guy just has a point of view shot on almost everything. It's like late talk shows during the mid 90's on crack!

Everything has a POV cam. Including:

  • The hood of the car-cam
  • The oscillating fan-cam
  • The radiator cam
  • The brim of the cowboy hat-cam
  • The bottom of the glass-cam
  • The vampires flying as bats-cam
  • The shower head-cam
  • The inside of the mouth as the vampires bite-cam

And so on. There are of course multiple other obscure and annoying angles too. Basically they said "Hey let's put the camera like this! Now let's put it like this!", etc. Further proving the point: "just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should".

In addition to the annoying camera angles, Spiegel rips off the shower scene from "Psycho", except the attack is by a killer bat, not by Bates. Paying homage to Hitchcock is one thing, but this was ridiculous. Spiegel also made a failed attempt to copy Tarentino. There is one scene that had some funny dialogue...The thugs engage in some Tarentino-esque witty banter about porno-movies that was rather entertaining. Let me clarify that....it was entertaining the first time, but not the other 2-3 times.

But enough of that....let's get to the goods!

DVD info from Amazon.

  • Widescreen anamorphic, 1.85:1

  • no meaningful features
The nudity is from former bunny Maria Checa who plays the much too hot for a bordertown no-tell-motel prostitute. For a former pin up babe in a very long nude scene, there were hardly any goodies. This of course defies one of the Scoopian Unities of film making...if you show violence or have language that will give you an R rating already...then the tits are free! Show 'em! Show a lot of 'em! It can only make the movie better! Especially if you're going straight-to-video!

Maria does show some excellent rear views getting out of bed. During the shower scene, eventually there is a breast peak or two. (Some better than others, and getting both breasts in focus in the same frame was just about impossible.)

The DVD transfer is quite nice, and this was a well photographed movie. 

The Critics Vote

The People Vote ...

  • With their votes ... IMDB summary: IMDb voters score it a dismal 3.3
  • straight to video
IMDb guideline: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence, about like three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, about like two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, about like two stars from the critics. Films under five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film, equivalent to about one and a half stars from the critics or less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

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