From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money
 | Average Customer Rating: Recommend Get ready for nonstop action when a bank-robbing gang of misfits heads to Mexico with the blueprints for the perfect million-dollar heist! But when one of the key crooks wanders into the wrong bar ... and crosses the wrong vampire ... the thieving cohorts one by one develop a thirst for blood to match their hunger for money! Ultimately, the last fully human burglar (Robert Patrick -- THE… Product details and pricing info |
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67 Customer Reviews Posted
- A surprisingly fun movie throughout.
- What a great movie. A real put-on of a horror flick with Robert Patrick (The Unit, Terminator 2) as Buck; one of the would-be bank robbers who doesn't end up as a Vampire. And Bo Hopkins (Smokey And The Bandit Movies, Killer Elite, The Wild Bunch) as the Sherrif Lawson; hunting down Luther (Duane Whitaker) the leader of the gang.
It's very funny how the movie starts off with vampires attacking people in a movie, only to become real when the bank robbers head down to Mexico to rob a bank; as it turns out at night - the only time vampires can come out.
Anyway, without dragging on with the plot; one vampire; bartender Danny Trejo (Delta Farce, Grindhouse, Halloween, Heat, Spy Kids) starts off the bloddletting biting Luther; so forth and so on. A great short movie that you immediately recognize as a Quentin Tarantino flick once the Western-style guitar starts twanging. Blood and gore galore, with many comedic moments, as one would expect from a Quentin Tarantino collaboration. The ubiquitous crosses are pulled out any which way they can be to ward off the blood-suckers with the resultant spike in the heart or Sun rising and the "you-know-what" conclusion. Refreshing humor. - 2008-09-05, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Not worth it!
- This is one of the cheesiest, most low-budget movies you'll ever come across, doesn't hold a candle to the original! Run far away from this stinker!
- 2008-05-23, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- "El Coyote? What's that mean in American?"
- Even though Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, the pair behind the original film released in 1996 (Tarantino wrote the screenplay, while Rodriguez directed), are displayed prominently on the cover for the film From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999), the pair had relatively little to do with any of the technical aspects of this feature, both taking executive producing credits (I'd guess they were mostly involved in the financing for the film, but I could be wrong). The film, co-written and directed by Scott Spiegel, who's most notable credit to date is being a co-writer on Sam Raimi's film Evil Dead II (1987), features Robert `T-1000' Patrick (Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Double Dragon) and Bo Hopkins (The Getaway, White Lightning). Also appearing is Duane Whitaker (The Devil's Rejects), Muse Watson (Dead Birds), Brett Harrelson (Strangeland), brother of Woody Harrelson, Raymond Cruz (Clear and Present Danger, The Rock), James Parks (Crocodile 2: Death Swamp), and Danny Trejo (Con Air, The Replacement Killers), the only actor to appearing in all three of the From Dusk Till Dawn features. Appearing in bit parts are Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead II, Maniac Cop) and Tiffani-Amber Thiessen ("Just Shoot Me!"), who's since dropped the `Amber' bit from her name, perhaps in an effort to separate herself from the goodie goodie character stereotype she received while starring on the popular series "Saved by the Bell" (I think the breast enlargement went further in this aspect than did the name change).
After an unrelated, five minute sequence featuring both Campbell and Thiessen (the pair do not appear again in the film), the story begins proper as we meet Buck (Patrick), an ex-con who's offered participation on a score (robbing a Mexican bank) by a friend named Luther (Whitaker), who's only recently escaped police custody, fleeing towards old Mexico way, with Sheriff Otis Lawson (Hopkins) in hot pursuit. Buck gathers a crew together including C.W. (Watson), who's specialty is safe cracking, Jesus (Cruz), the driver (and extra muscle), and Ray Bob (Harrelson), who's only purpose is apparently that of the group's goober. The foursome hit the road, ending up in a sleazy motel (where they're supposed to hook up with Luther), debating the positive and negative qualities of an adult feature playing on the television (watching four guys in a seedy motel room watching porn is as creepy as it sounds). Luther, on his way to the motel, has a little car trouble, and ends up at the (cue tie-in bit to the original movie) strip bar featured in the first film, the end result being Luther is no longer Luther, if you get my drift. Even though Luther now possesses the nocturnal tendencies, the bank job is still on, and various members of the crew are eventually turned, unbeknownst (initially) to Buck. Things begin to get a little hairy as once the boys are in the middle of the heist, as Sheriff Lawson shows up (apparently jurisdiction isn't as big an issue as I thought it was) with an army of Mexican police, thereby ensuring a ridiculously high body count. Eventually Buck finds himself in the position of teaming up with Sheriff Lawson in order to survive the night.
As others have mentioned, this film has very little to do with the original, other than sharing a title. What it lacks in substance (in terms of an actual story and interesting characters), it tries to make up for in mindless, gratuitous violence and lots of childish tough guy talk (at least it's something). The last third of the film is loaded up with lots of blazing guns, vampire action, and a quite a bit of bloody mayhem. Spiegel, taking a page out of the Raimi Book of Directing Tricks continually inserts numerous point of view shots, the most memorable being inside a vampire's mouth as the creature bites down on a victim. This was kinda cool the first couple of times, but by the eighth or ninth time it got old. And what was with all the shots of steer skulls in the desert, always featuring some sort of desert denizen emerging from the hollow eye socket? I think it was meant to be a cool transitional effect between sequences, but it got annoying after awhile. Spiegel does keep things moving along, so for that I was appreciative. I didn't really care for some of the overly obvious computer generated effects, especially those when the vampires met their demise. The characters are akin to cardboard, and held little interest form me, but I will say Robert Patrick came off better than most. What's up with Raymond Cruz? Does he play the same, damn character in very film he appears in? You know the one...the tightly wound, tough as nails, slightly psychotic, gun toting, token Hispanic character...in his defense, he did get to shag a really hot Latin woman in this film, played by Maria Checa, who, according to the IMDb, was a Playboy Playmate in the mid 1990s (a few more linger shots of her in the buff wouldn't have hurt this movie at all). The addition of Bo Hopkins to the cast did bring things up a little, as he's always been an actor I've enjoyed seeing, despite his role being one I've seen him in numerous times in the past. I did learn a couple of things from this movie...one being kicking a vampire in the gonasticles has absolutely no effect what so ever, and the second being that Mexican SWAT teams don't seem all that organized or capable (the vampire gang picked them apart fairly easy). I think the key to this film is to keep your expectations low, and don't give too much thought to that which came before. If you can manage these two things, you'll probably enjoy yourself with this forgettable feature. There are worse ways to kill an hour and twenty minutes...
The non-anamorphic, widescreen (1.85:1) picture on this DVD looks good, and the Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo comes through clean. English subtitles are available, but there are absolutely no special features included, other than a handful of film recommendations from Dimension Films, the company that released this title (no trailers, just recommendations). This feature was followed up by a sequel titled From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter (2000).
Cookieman108 - 2006-03-10, 3 of 6 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Not much of a follow up to the first, but it's ok
- This has probably been said a million times already. This sequel just about has nothing to do with the last film other then there is vampires. The first on edefinitly has a much better plot and development, script, concept etc.... but this sequel is OK but I bet people are probably saying what I did, "It's an OK movie, but it wasnt really worthy of being called DTD2, it should have been something else"
Overall, the movies OK IMO, it stars the guy from Terminator 2 who played the T-1000... him and his buddies go to Mexicon to rob a bank and one of them gets bitten and turned into a vampire, and then that one turns the next guy into one untill whats-his-face is the only one not a vampire and he decides to help against killing them with the cops.
Not scary, nothing comapred to the 1st, not enough gore and killing, but overall it's OK... but please keep in mind, it really is being critisized as being a followup to the 1st without having much to do with it at all. - 2005-08-15, 2 of 2 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- I wanted to like it.
- 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.
- 2005-08-09, 2 of 2 people found this review helpful, Rated:
