“From Dusk Till Dawn” soon became a go-to action horror favorite of mine, and while I haven’t closely followed the sequels or the Amazon TV series, the 1996 film has, over the years, became a Halloween staple. Seth Gecko (George Clooney) is one angry motor scooter… This wildly divergent film almost felt like a two-films-in-one, or a double-feature, something Rodriguez and Tarantino would later attempt with the cinematic release of “Grindhouse” in 2007 ( which featured both “Planet Terror” and “Death Proof” on a double-bill, along with trailers for “Machete” “Thanksgiving,” and other then-nonexistent exploitation flicks).
Renting the movie on laserdisc ( the clunky 12″ precursors to DVDs) is how I finally got to see “From Dusk Till Dawn.” The movie did a dramatic genre-reversal about halfway into its running time, switching from black humored, western/crime-drama to full horror at the flap of a bat wing. Contributing to its poor box office, I demurred and waited for its eventual home video release. However, none of my friends wanted to go–most of them weren’t into horror, as I was (and am). I was a bachelor in those days, and I sometimes went to movies by myself ( sometimes even catching midnight shows, if I couldn’t sleep), but based on my love of Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction,” I wanted to see this one with other people. I still vividly remember trying to get my friends to come with me to see the new vampire/crime-drama flick from director Robert Rodriguez ( “Desperado” “Spy Kids”) and writer/actor Quentin Tarantino ( “Pulp Fiction,” “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” ) back in February of 1996.