Customer Reviews

From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

I'm not entirely sure why I rented this movie, but I suspect it's because Bruce Campbell was involved. The thought of Bruce Campbell and Quentin Tarantino connected to a horror movie is enough to make me plunk down ten bucks to see anything they create in the theater. Fortunately, this movie went directly to video, so I didn't waste my ten bucks.

Bruce isn't really in the film. He's in a film within a film and he dies early. Grrr. If you're a fan of Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, she dies along with him.

And what do they die from? Why, bats of course. Vampire bats, to be precise. Bats figure as villains in this movie, which is unfortunate as they're not particularly scary and look like bad Halloween decorations most of the time. Must all bats flop around like two fish connected by a wire hanger? Don't any of them glide?

Anyway, the plot, such as it is, involves four guys planning to rob a bank in Mexico: C.W. the safecracker (Muse Watson), Ray Bob the dimwitted comedic relief (Brett Harrelson), Jesus the muscle (Raymod Cruz), and Buck the Main Character (Robert Patrick). Luther the mastermind (Duane Whitaker) is supposed to meet up with them at some random seedy hotel, but on the way he hits a bat.

No not the baseball bat, but a big vampire bat. He runs over it with his jeep then shoots it with his gun. Of course, that's a vampire he shot, who eventually bites Luther. Luther decides to go on with the bank heist and keeps his appointment, slowly turning the other members into vampires.

"Why would vampires want to rob a bank?" asked Buck of Sheriff Lawson (Bo Hopkins), who was hunting him before they banded together to kill vampires.

"I suppose vampires need money too," says Lawson.

Vampires in this series are super vulnerable to sunlight. They can turn into bats at will. They are invulnerable to most weapons but die if anything pokes through their heart (steel rods, antlers, you name it). But most hysterical of all, they are terrified of ANYTHING IN THE SHAPE OF A CROSS.

I have to restate the ludicrousness of this vulnerability, because at one point one of the vampires is upset by a CROSSBAR. That is, a naturally occurring series of right angles. At various moments throughout the movie, characters suddenly remember to make the sign of the cross with whatever their holding. Apparently, it never strikes anyone that they should just put up their fingers in a cross. Or their arms. Or two shoes.

Eventually, the Mexican police show up and then the carnage begins. In between, we have a homage to Reservoir Dogs, Psycho, and Evil Dead. In fact, the director (Scott Spiegel) takes the Sam-o-cam to new heights. We get the blood-puddle cam, the inside-a-vampire's-mouth cam, and the ultra rare up-the-phone-cord cam. When a character cracks a safe, the camera moves around in circles from the dial on the safe's point of view. When a character walks by a moving fan, we see the fan's point of view. Inspired moviemaking at its finest.

In the middle of all this is the obligatory solar eclipse, which extends the carnage for another twenty minutes.

From Dusk Till Dawn: Texas Blood Money is not a good film, but it never tries to be. Completely unpretentious, it seeks to add to the direct-to-video horror bin. In that regard it succeeds admirably.

Robert Patrick couldn't save this. Bruce Campbell with his 5 minute cameo that had nothing to do with the rest of the movie couldn't save it. So, what could have saved this movie from mediocredom. Well, better atmosphere, characterisation, and music would've been a start. On top of that the bland locations could've been changed and actually made interesting, but that didn't happen. So, what we are left with is a movie that doesn't have any likeable characters, acting that isn't that great, boring locations, special effects that don't have enough screen time, standard video fare soundtrack, no scares. This is a horror movie right? There is nothing that is either gross, scarey, or creepy about the movie at all. It's not overlly violent. The R rating seems to come from a scene of the protagonists watching a porno in their motel room discussing other porns that they've seen. Does this scene help the movie? Well, an R rating won't help it, so I guess not. Don't see this movie, it's not good.

This was just as good as the first,excellent cast,how can so many people bad mouth this?

This movie was actually very good. It had a good dose of action, humor, discusting scenes of eating dead cops, and enough scenes with Robert Patrick to keep me happy for years to come!! It's really good, and it also has some petty nice lines. I would also say that you should rent it before buying it.

This movie is not worth watching let alone buying. It has poor acting, average plot, bad special effects. If you're expecting a follow on from the first, you will be very disappointed.

I had HIGH hopes for this film. I loved the first one and watched it more then a million times. I was looking SO forward to this sequel. In the end, it just goes to show that the old saying is right. "Sequels are never as good as the original". I cant believe what a piece of foulness this movie is. The only thing I really found excellent was the Sam Raimi-like Camera shots. The movie itself is just boring and a foul mess. I dident enjoy it for a second and I have lost quite a lot of respect for Tarantino. I lost respect for Rodriguez after I saw the Faculty. I just want to tell everyone that this movie has killed a lot of high hopes of hardcore Dusk Till Dawn Fans.

Being a big fan of the original film, I intentionally lowered my expectations for this film, considering it was a direct-to-video release. But I wasn't expecting it to be even half as bad as it turned out! What's truly disappointing is that it actually starts out okay, but once the outlaws in the story reach the bank they intend to rob, the entire thing turns into a really bad B-movie vampire thriller with absolutely nothing new to offer as far as genuine surprises are concerned. The only thing that saves this film from being a total waste of time is the amusing appearance by Tiffani-Amber Thiessen and Bruce Campbell (a parody of a more popular horror film's "gimmick"), and some interesting camera angles. But frankly, if you're bored on a weekend with nothing else to rent, even Howard The Duck would be a far better option.

i would give this movie a negative amount of stars if i were able to. the plot in this movie was completely non-existent. the sole motivation for making this movie was to make another film where all but a few of the "good guys" get ripped apart! the only reason any sane person would rent this movie is because it bares the name of the original and they were expecting more then just a pointless blood bath... unfortunately, a pointless blood bath was all that we got! i've seen many B-movies, but this is the worst of any catagorie! a seperate section should be created just for movies as bad as this one! save your money and rent another movie, one with at least a slight plot to it!

Such a subpar effort that it doesnt deserve to be released. Why the producers decided to tag the "Dusk til Dawn" logo on this crap is obvious, they needed to make a quick bug. If you are a fan of the original, you'll be hard pressed to find anything tying the 2 movies together except for the inclusion of " The Titty Twister" from the first film and it only makes a cameo, if you can imagine that. This film lacks the intelligent scripting, funny action and great F/X of the original and replaces it with no F/X and cheesy action you've seen a hundred times before from a no name director I've never heard of. Save your money!

(enough said