Viewed in
2010
Formats
HD TV
Premise
Two crooks, with three hostages in tow, hide in a Mexican bar, only to discover it houses vampires.
Liked
The enthusiastic gorefest.
Hated
The boring first act.
Thoughts
A very uneven movie.
The second half was fun, with all sorts of nasty and gross stuff involving human/vampire blood and guts. Considering its budget, it had some decent makeup and one gnarly animatronic. The cast was pretty cool, with George Clooney's leading role debut, Quentin Tarantino, Cheech Marin pulling triple duty, Tarantino stable regulars like Danny Trejo, and Harvey Keitel in a nice performance in the second hour.
However, the first half was a complete bore. It lacked any interesting dialogue that we're used to from Tarantino. A lot of stuff happened that meant nothing to the story, including all the time dedicated to the sex offender aspect of Tarantino's character, only to have it be completely inconsequential. It was so boring, I wasn't even up for it when they finally busted out the boobies and bikini-clad Selma Hayek.
This movie would have been much more entertaining if the movie makers had reduced the first act. Considering that Robert Rodriguez and Taratino were behind his, and the genre-hybrid nature of the story, I wonder if this was their attempt at making the Grindhouse films before making Grindhouse.
What I would change
Start the movie at the five characters reaching the bar, then gradually explain how they got there in between the vampires and squirting blood packs.
Random
Robert Blake was mentioned in the Special Thanks section.
