From Studio To Video, Miss Out The Cinema (From Dusk Till Dawn 2 - Texas Blood Money (DVD))

Member Name: Andy.mack

Product:	From Dusk Till Dawn 2 - Texas Blood Money (DVD)
Date:	24/05/04 (38 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Plays off the name of 1 successful film

Disadvantages: Most of the film

Every now and then it seems that studio?s have the brilliant idea to cash in on a successful film by franchising it. When they find a film that worked they seem to drain it of any unique attributes just like they have with the From Dusk Till Dawn films. Now a trilogy Tarantino and Rodriguez have taken a back seat as Executive producers on this sequel. Of course when you?ve actually watched it you will see just why Tarantino and Rodriguez kept as far away as they could.

After a completely pointless opening scene in which two people are killed by bats the main film gets underway. Having escaped from prison Luther (Duane Whitaker) decides to contact his old pal Buck (Robert Patrick). Who has already had a visit from Sheriff Lawson (Bo Hopkins) asking him if he knows where Luther is. They have a job to do down in Mexico and after the Sheriff left Buck sets about gathering the team together.

Luther arranges to meet them at the El Coyote motel and starts to make his way down there he has a bit of car trouble as he hit?s a bat. He walks down the road to try and find some help. Its then that he comes across The Titty Twister, reopened after the events in the first film. He gets talking to the barman, Razor Eddie (Danny Trejo) who looks very worried as Luther explains about the bat hitting his car. He offers Luther a lift to the motel but instead takes him back to his car, where they find a man dying in the desert. It appears that he was the Bat Luther had hit and now Razor Eddie isn?t happy.

After his tussle with the Vampire, Luther finds he now has a few additional attributes. He heads for the meet with the other guys only now he has better ways of implementing his plans. Of course to do that he also needs to turn the o
ther guys and slowly sets about his task. The whole crew quickly become Vampires, apart from Buck. Now he has to Choose whether to take his chances with the Police surrounding the bank or become a Vampire like the others.

The continuation of the From Dusk Till Dawn series is obviously aimed at fans of the original film. This was the main reason I decided to watch it in the first place. I feel though that if you are a fan of the original I?d be very wary of watching this follow up. Unlike the first film there weren?t numerous people getting bitten or even really killed.

As Tarantino and Rodriguez have taken a back seat on this one it left the directors role open for someone else. This left the path clear for Scott Spiegel to take up the directors chair. He hasn?t really directed much before this film and hasn?t done that much since either. Of course when you actually take the time to sit and endure this film its easy to see why. The further into the film you go the patchier the plot seems to get and this seems to be down to the direction. He also had a hand in writing the story so it was inevitable that any plot holes in the script would translate into the finished film.

It doesn?t help that the first 5 minutes are completely unrelated and in a sense totally pointless. This interrupted the first part of the film for me as I kept trying to work out exactly what the point of it was. Like the rest of the film there doesn?t seem to be a reason for it. There are massive plot holes that really could have done with some explanation and again this disrupts the flow of the story. The special effects look pretty good but there haven?t really been any developments since the original. To be fair to the director though I don?t think this film would have been any better no matter who directed it. It seemed to
be missing that Tarantino edge, which I feel made the first film and shows where this one really fails.

The cast doesn?t exactly help him too much either. Robert Patrick takes on the lead role, but doesn?t really take charge of the role leaving his character to seem very weak. Compared to his role in Terminator 2 where he played T1000, he is incredibly weak. From there the rest of the cast is pretty much the same. I?d never seen Duane Whitaker (Luther) before this and he didn?t really do too much to make himself stand out in this either. The main problem is that the lead roles are filled by actors who I personally feel wouldn?t make a film come alive.

As support actors in other films they do a really good job, however here no one stands out as a proper lead. A few of the supporting cast do exactly what is asked of them. The main example of this is Danny Trejo, who I?m sure everyone has seen in a film at one point or another. He always seems to put in a good performance no matter how weak the script is. There just seems to be something missing from the cast that could have improved the film.

The soundtrack didn?t leave any impression on me either and in fact I can only remember one section of the film having any music at all. It fitted quite well but its not the hardest decision on what sort of music to play in a bar scene.

The end result is a major disappointment that probably should have been left as some ones bad idea. The direction is poor and the script not much better. Perhaps Tarantino and Rodriguez could have improved it had they taken a more active role. However I feel they made the right choice in only returning as Executive producers. If you like horror films that don?t include that much horror and are a fan of Vampire films then there is an outside chance you might like this
. From the point of view of someone who likes Vampire films and loved the first, I felt I wasted time watching this.

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