FROM DUSK TIL DAWN 2:
TEXAS BLOOD MONEY
Unbelievably stupid

  I've been using the word "stupid" to define a lot of things lately, but I guess sometimes there's just no other word that makes the point.

The original From Dusk Til Dawn was disliked by a lot of people, but I wasn't one of them - I thought it was a hoot.  It had a lot of good FX, good writing, good action and probably the only performance from Quentin Tarantino I've taken halfways seriously.  Such cannot be said about its first sequel, which after viewing, I suspect came nowhere near as close to a theatrical release as I'd heard.

You know you're in trouble when the best part of the movie is the intro, and the intro turns out to just be a movie (starring Bruce Campbell!) somebody's watching on TV.  When all's said and done, I wish I'd watched that one instead.

A team of four Texas hoods (led by Robert Patrick) hook up to go south of the border to hook up with a fifth (Duane Whitaker, who cowrote the script) for a heist.  Unfortunately for them, Whitaker runs afoul of a couple of vampires from the much-more-sedate-than-in-the-original-film Titty Twister bar, and their heist goes, well, not quite according to plan.

Jesus, what's to say here - after that intro, everything goes to shit.  EVERYTHING.  The dialogue sucks ("I just dropped in for a quick bite!") (and that motel-room discussion of porno plots does not make up for Tarantino's absence).  The action is so lame it's almost funny in parts, like one scene where a guy is chased around by a bat (twice).  Or that climactic shootout which is way worse than just routine, because it basically consists of two groups of men standing in one spot and shooting at each other.

And these have to be the most pathetic vampires I've seen in years.  For one thing, they do all sorts of stupid shit - like when they're stalking one victim in a teargas-filled room, and every time they try to nab him, they say "HYAAH!" well in advance to give the victim plenty of time to defend himself.  And the cross thing...

Probably my least favorite thing about vampires is the cross thing.  If we're going to have vampires that are repelled by crosses, we should at least decide on some good guidelines as to what constitutes a vampire-repelling cross.  A cross blessed by a minister, that's good.  One in which the wielder has faith, that's good too.  The red cross painted on the back of an ambulance?  That's not good enough.  EVERYTHING cross-shaped acts as a cross in this movie - jeez, vampires repelled THAT easily by crosses couldn't go out very much because every time they came to an intersection they'd have to go back.  Mind you, none of these touch the all-time lamest anti-vampire cross, which was the cross-shaped shadow of a windmill in that Peter Cushing movie, Brides Of Dracula.  Still, this is very bad. (and don't ask about that 20-MINUTE solar eclipse)

Director (and longtime Sam Raimi collaborator) Scotty Spiegel uses a LOT of goofy camera angles - the bottom of a beer cooler, inside an elevator button, the POV of a man doing pushups...and that's just the first fifteen minutes.  Believe me, it gets WAY worse. (later there are two shots from inside skulls which, if you know anything about skulls, are impossible in that they show eyesockets and nasal slits at the same time)  Neat camera angles are one thing - rotating the camera as a character is turning a combination lock, that's just annoying.  I was wondering where I'd seen this silly, uh, "style" before - yeah, that's right, it's Intruder, the mildly amusing slasher spoof.  This isn't even mildly amusing.

Just totally awful after that intro, which used up just about all of the film's special FX budget, it would appear, because the FX for the rest of the movie are all pretty weak.  I had some cautious hopes for this one, since direct-to-video sequels to genre movie can be enjoyable (Tremors 2 was a lot of fun, and The Prophecy II - stay tuned for a full review - wasn't half bad).  I'll be more cautious yet if and when I decide to have a look at part 3.

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