From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money | |
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Directed by | Scott Spiegel |
Screenplay by |
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Story by |
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Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Philip Lee |
Edited by | Bob Murawski |
Music by | Joseph Stanley Williams |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Buena Vista Home Entertainment |
Release date |
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Running time | 85 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money is an American direct-to-video Western horror film released on March 16, 1999. It is the second film in the From Dusk till Dawn series and is a sequel to From Dusk till Dawn . The film was an early test release by Dimension Films for the direct-to-video market. [1] It was co-written and directed by Scott Spiegel. Michael S. Murphey, Gianni Nunnari, and Meir Teper produced. Quentin Tarantino and Lawrence Bender executive produced, and Elizabeth Avellan co-produced. [2] The film was filmed on location in South Africa and features cameos by Bruce Campbell and Tiffani Thiessen. It won a Saturn Award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films for the "Best Home Video Release" of 1999. [3]
A third film in the series, From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter , which is a prequel to From Dusk Till Dawn, was released in 2000. In late 2010, a possible fourth film in the series was in production, but no progress was made after its initial stage. [4] A TV series adaptation was released in 2014. [5] James Parks would also later reprise his role as Edgar McGraw in Kill Bill: Volume 1 , Kill Bill: Volume 2 , Grindhouse (within Death Proof ) and Machete; despite having the same actor and character, those films are not related to each other and the character is considered to be an Easter Egg.
This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed.(March 2022) |
After escaping from prison, bank robber Luther Heggs (Duane Whitaker) is the subject of a manhunt led by Texas Ranger Otis Lawson. Luther contacts his reformed former accomplice Buck Bowers (Robert Patrick) and tells him to get their old gang back together. Buck starts rounding up the old team, which consists of C.W. Niles (Muse Watson), Jesus Draven (Raymond Cruz), and Ray Bob (Brett Harrelson).
The team arrive at the motel, where they wait for Luther. Whilst on his way in his car, Luther hits a bat resulting in his car breaking down. When the car won't start, Luther walks to a nearby bar, the Titty Twister. He calls Buck from the bar to tell him about the breakdown. Luther in the meantime is offered a ride to the El Coyote by the bartender, Razor Eddie (Danny Trejo). However, when Razor discovers that Luther hit and then tried to kill a bat that was actually his friend Victor (Joe Virzi), he drives him back to his car, where Victor and Razor attack and turn Luther into a vampire.
Back at the motel, Jesus has sex with Lupe (Maria Checa), a woman he bumped into when he arrived at the motel. After they finish, Jesus sleeps while Lupe grabs a shower. Luther arrives in bat form and kills Lupe. Jesus awakes and starts to get dressed. The shower turns off, and he notices blood seeping from underneath the door of the bathroom. He goes to investigate and sees the body of Lupe lying lifeless in the bath. Luther then attacks Jesus before he hides in the bathroom. Lupe then reanimates as a vampire and attacks Jesus. He manages to kill Lupe by cutting her head off and then jumps out of the window in order to escape.
Luther catches up with Jesus, transforming him into a vampire. Hearing the noise, the owner of the motel goes to investigate and sees Luther killing Jesus. She panics and runs to the office and tries to call the police but is attacked and killed by Luther. While Buck is still in the room watching porn, somebody tries to get in through the locked door. Realizing it is Jesus, Buck opens the door where they find out that Luther has arrived. They then plan the heist which involves the robbery of the Banco Bravos bank.
The gang drive off to the bank, with Jesus and Luther covering the windows with black paper. Unbeknownst to the gang, this is to allow Jesus and Luther to have a place to escape to when the sun rises. Back at the Motel, after receiving the call from the Motel manager, Otis observes the crime scene. Upon arriving at the bank, Luther enters the building through the vents and proceeds to kill the security guard on duty and snatches the keys to let the others in.
Luther and C.W. proceed to the safe where they begin cracking it open. As they try to open the safe, they notice that the handle on the vault resembles a cross causing Luther to squeal before quickly covering it. While working with C.W. closely, Luther gets tempted to bite C.W.'s neck. C.W., feeling uncomfortable due to Luther's proximity tells him to back off, before removing Luther's coat from the handle. Luther reacts again and bites C.W, turning him into a vampire.
The police arrive at the bank. Buck encourages the others to escape, but they refuse. Buck and Ray Bob leave the bank but are forced back in by the police and SWAT team. With the bank surrounded by police and no escape in sight, Otis arrives and calls the bank. Otis asks to speak to the guard. With the guard dead, Buck tells Jesus to pretend to be the guard and tell Otis in Spanish that he is fine.
Otis then tells the SWAT team to enter the bank via the roof. Jesus rips the phone out of Buck's hand and tears it from the wall. Luther and C.W. unlock the vaults, before filling the bags with money. The SWAT team on the roof throw tear gas down the vent. Luther throws it back up to them before killing them in bat form. Luther returns and bites Ray Bob, turning him into a vampire as well. Back in the guard's room, Buck and Jesus are still waiting. Buck lights a cigarette and notices that Jesus has no reflection in the computer screen.
Luther then enters telling the two to help load the money. Buck holds a gun to Luther, Jesus and C.W. and tells Ray Bob to stand by his side. Ray Bob reveals that he too is now a vampire. The group attacks Buck but he escapes the bank and gets arrested by Otis. Otis sends in the SWAT team to clear out the bank, despite Buck's warning. The group of vampires brutally kills and feed on the SWAT Team.
Suddenly, sunlight appears, and the vampires try to hide. However, an eclipse takes place and the Sun disappears. The vampires leave the bank and start to kill the police and SWAT Teams in a full blown blood bath. Once all the police have been killed, only Buck, Otis, and Edgar McGraw remain. A face-off between the survivors and the vampires takes place. Just as all of the vampires appear to be defeated, a female police officer, who has been turned, attacks the survivors and succeeds in freeing the vampires. Buck kills the female vampire, just as Jesus kills McGraw.
Jesus then attempts to take the money for himself before being caught by Luther. C.W. is then killed by Otis while Jesus is killed by Buck after being impaled by a horned hood ornament. Luther attacks Otis, as Ray Bob attacks Buck. Seeing that the eclipse is ending, Luther and Ray Bob try to escape to their car. Luther is killed by Buck, who had been hiding in the back seat. Ray Bob mistimes his retreat and the eclipse ends, revealing the Sun. Buck uses his sunglasses to reflect sunlight onto Ray Bob, killing him. Otis and Buck reunite and take in the events that have just occurred. As sirens are heard approaching, Buck flees with Otis giving him a head start.
From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money and From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter were produced at the same time as one another with Robert Rodríguez and his cousin Álvaro Rodríguez shepherding their own prequel pitch which would serve as the basis for From Dusk Till Dawn 3, while Quentin Tarantino, Lawrence Bender, and Scott Spiegel produced their own sequel pitch which would become From Dusk Till Dawn 2. [6]
Tarantino and Scott Spiegel attended the premiere of From Dusk till Dawn and met Bob Weinstein whom Scott had worked with while writing a draft of Halloween 6 that was rejected by Moustapha Akkad. [7] When the subject of the sequel came up in their discussion, Weinstein offhandedly suggest Spiegel handle the sequel. [7] Shortly thereafter Spiegel wrote the story with friend Boaz Yakin and successfully pitched it to both Tarantino and Weinstein. [7] In the initial premise Spiegel outlined, Seth Gecko would have been killed shortly after the events of the last film while heading to meet up with his criminal associates in Mexico for a larger heist. When the news reaches the crew they learn that the Titty Twister was the location he came from and go there to see if Richie Gecko is still alive and has the loot from the heist only to find out he's now King of the vampires. [7] Tarantino was reluctant to reprise his role as Richie so instead the concept was retooled as a standalone follow-up. [7] The film was shot over the course of 40 days in Cape Town, South Africa. [7] Inspired by the success of previously produced direct-to-video The Prophecy II , Miramax used From Dusk Till Dawn 2 as a way of testing the waters to see if direct-to-video franchise sequels were a viable avenue. [7]
From Dusk Till Dawn 2 was originally released direct-to-video on March 16, 1999.
Echo Bridge Entertainment released it on Blu-ray on May 15, 2011. [8]
Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 9% of 11 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating was 3.4/10. [9] Bilge Ebiri of Entertainment Weekly rated it D− and wrote: "Without the genre-bending goofiness and engaging characters of the first Dusk, all that's left is cheap splatter effects and cliched Western/horror homages". [10] Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club called it "a gigantic waste of everyone's time, money, and energy". [11] Youssef Kdiry of DVD Talk rated the film 4/5 stars. [12] Jim Thomas of DVD Verdict called the film "half-baked" and "disappointing", even for a direct-to-video release. [13]
Robert Anthony Rodriguez is an American filmmaker, composer, and visual effects supervisor. He shoots, edits, produces, and scores many of his films in Mexico and in his home state of Texas. Rodriguez directed the 1992 action film El Mariachi, which was a commercial success after grossing $2.6 million against a budget of $7,000. The film spawned two sequels known collectively as the Mexico Trilogy: Desperado (1995) and Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003).
Kill Bill: Volume 1 is a 2003 American martial arts film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It stars Uma Thurman as the Bride, who swears revenge on a group of assassins and their leader, Bill, after they try to kill her and her unborn child. Her journey takes her to Tokyo, where she battles the yakuza.
From Dusk till Dawn is a 1996 American action horror film directed by Robert Rodriguez and written by Quentin Tarantino from a concept and story by Robert Kurtzman. Starring Harvey Keitel, George Clooney, Tarantino, Ernest Liu, and Juliette Lewis, the plot follows a pair of American criminal brothers who take a family as hostages in order to cross into Mexico, but ultimately find themselves trapped in a saloon defending against a horde of vampires.
The trunk shot is a cinematic camera angle which captures film from inside the trunk of a car. Though the trunk shot can be produced by placing the camera inside the trunk, the considerable bulk of a conventional movie camera and camera operator makes this difficult. Therefore, the shot is usually "cheated" by having the art department place a trunk door and some of the trunk frame close enough to the camera to make it appear to be shot from within a car. The trunk shot is a specialized type of low-angle shot.
Curdled is a 1996 black comedy crime film written and directed by Reb Braddock. The film stars Angela Jones as a Colombian immigrant who takes a crime scene cleanup job and discovers evidence about a local serial killer dubbed the "Blue Blood Killer" for his targeting of socialites. The film is a remake of a 1991 short film of the same name, which was also directed by Braddock and starred Jones.
Thomas Vincent Savini is an American prosthetic makeup artist, actor, stunt performer and film director. He is known for his makeup and special effects work on many films directed by George A. Romero, including Martin, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Creepshow, and Monkey Shines; he also created the special effects and makeup for many cult classics like Friday the 13th, Maniac, The Burning, The Prowler, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.
Lawrence Bender is an American film producer. Throughout his career, Bender-produced films have received 36 Academy Award nominations, resulting in eight wins.
Vamp is a 1986 American black comedy horror film directed by Richard Wenk, co-written by Wenk and Donald P. Borchers, and starring Chris Makepeace, Sandy Baron, Robert Rusler, Dedee Pfeiffer, Gedde Watanabe, and Grace Jones.
The Devil's Rejects is a 2005 American black comedy horror film written, produced and directed by Rob Zombie, and is the second film in the Firefly film series, serving as a sequel to his 2003 film House of 1000 Corpses. The film is centered on the three fugitive members of the psychopathic antagonist family from the previous film, acting as the film's villainous protagonists, with Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, and Zombie's wife Sheri Moon Zombie reprising their roles, and Leslie Easterbrook replacing Karen Black as the matriarch.
Nathan Duane Whitaker Jr. is an American character actor.
From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter is a 1999 American Western horror film directed by P. J. Pesce. It serves as a prequel to the 1996 film From Dusk till Dawn. It was released directly to video and was nominated at the 26th Saturn Awards for "Best Home Video Release". In late 2010, the production of a fourth film in the series was discussed, but, as of August 2012, further work on this possibility has not been revealed. A TV series adaptation was released in 2014.
Scott Spiegel is an American screenwriter, film director, producer and actor. He co-wrote the screenplay for Evil Dead II with longtime friend, film director Sam Raimi, with whom he attended Wylie E. Groves High School in Birmingham, Michigan. Spiegel played the role of Scotty in Raimi's Within the Woods, which served as a precursor to The Evil Dead, where Spiegel was replaced by Richard DeManincor.
James Jean Parks is an American actor known for his roles as Texas Ranger Edgar McGraw in From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money, Kill Bill: Volume 1, Kill Bill: Volume 2, Death Proof and Machete.
Seth Gecko is the name of two fictional characters in the From Dusk till Dawn film series. The original Seth is the protagonist of the original film, described as a cool, suave, short-fused, anti-heroic criminal in the From Dusk till Dawn universe consisting of the 1996 film and its 2001 spin-off video game of the same name. An alternate universe version of the character appears in the 2014–16 television series. He is portrayed by George Clooney in the original film and by D. J. Cotrona in the television series.
From Dusk Till Dawn: Music from the Motion Picture is the soundtrack album for the 1996 action-comedy-horror film, From Dusk till Dawn, directed by Robert Rodriguez and screenplay by Quentin Tarantino. The album is predominantly Texas blues, featuring such artists as ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimmie Vaughan. The film's score was composed by Graeme Revell, and two short excerpts of his work are featured on the album. There are also extracts of dialogue from the film. The Chicano rock band Tito & Tarantula, who portrayed the band in the Titty Twister bar, appears on the soundtrack as well.
James Ryan is a South African actor, writer and director. Ryan played the lead in the South African made martial arts film Kill or Be Killed (1976), which became an international success. This launched Ryan as an actor, who also found success with its sequel Kill and Kill Again (1981).
From Dusk till Dawn is an American media franchise created by Robert Kurtzman, including three films, a video game and a TV series.
From Dusk till Dawn: The Series is an American horror television series developed by Robert Rodriguez. It forms part of the franchise of film, direct-to-video, and comics of From Dusk till Dawn, expanding on the chronicles of the Gecko Brothers, Seth and Richie, the Fuller family, and Santanico Pandemonium. The series adds to the tone of the film, with new characters and backstories, while expanding the snake creatures' Mesoamerican mythology. The series also references the Popol Vuh, drawing on its rich, mythological history and, in particular, on the legend of the Hero Twins Hunahpú and Xbalanqué to add greater depth to the backstories and to fully flesh out the characters of the show's protagonists.