Dal tramonto all'alba 2 - Texas sangue e denaro

OK. This is probably my guiltiest pleasure ever! The acting is extremely awful, and the movie is filled with immature draggings of the originals material. But still I like this movie. A cinescape reviewer wrote that some horror fans desperate for something new in the genre, may forgive the film for its problems. I think I'm probably one of those horror fans.

Its more entertaining than a lot of recent theatrical releases. I think the gore is great, and the Evil Dead qualities: Sam Raimi-ish camera angles (overdone), demon-like vampire deaths make this movie even more entertaining. I think its really a great cheeseball B-horror movie.

This movie was horrible. I couldn't believe how bad it was. I was expecting a great sequel to a great movie. But, I didn't get that. All I got was a terrible sequel with terrible acting, and terrible directing. Now don't get me wrong, I loved From Dusk till Dawn. In fact it's my favorite movie. But this can't even be compared to the first. It shouldn't even be associated with the first. Granted it didn't have the superb directing of Tarantino and Rodriguez, or the acting of Clooney, Tarantino, and Kietel. Bruce Campbell and Tiffani-Amber Thiessen were the only thing that made me keep watching. But they appeared for what, a whole five minutes. In fact I can't believe that Tarantino or Rodriguez had anything to do with this movie. Scott Spiegel, who is that?. Sorry Scott, your movie was TERRIBLE.

If you've read the 'Evil Dead companion' or 'If Chins could kill' you'll know what kind of guy Scott Speigel is. I watched Army of Darkness the other day, the bootleg edition, with the commentary on and was belly laughing when two topless slave girls wander on to the screen and Bruce recounts the story of how they got into the movie.

Apparently it was all Scott's idea; he steamrollered the idea past them when they weren't paying attention. Next day when Bruce arrived at the office he was stunned to find hundreds of girls lined up waiting to show Scott their boobs for the chance to get on the screen topless for maybe 2 or 3 seconds. That's the kind of guy Scott Speigel is and I like him.

And, let's face it, that's how come Bruce Campbell's in this movie - they go way back.

Oh yeah - the film - well, it's good in a Scott Speigel kind of way. Not as much fun as the Intruder (which is well worth getting if you're a Deadite fan, oh yeah) but still a good laugh a using loads of Spiegel's trade mark POV shots.

Alot of people are going to disagree though - the people i was watching this with, for example, all thought it sucked. Fair enough, but sometimes people take movies too seriously. If you like trashy B-movies, you'll like this.

If you don't you won't. Oh, and don't expect anything like the first one, it's a totally different kettle of fish. Much cheaper, much cheesier, muchos muchos muchos.

I think you already know whether you'll like this flick or not...

I only caught the "edited" version on Sci-Fi Channel, but must admit that I found this to be a mildly entertaining film. It takes a basic ideas (vampires robbing a bank) and goes with it and runs.

The problem is that that's really all there is, and there's not much running track. Like the original, it tries to stay "reality" grounded as a caper flick, but given this is a shorter movie, this goes on _way_ too long before you actually get to vampires.

Once we get the first guy bit by a vampire, it moves along to "vampires rob a bank" and "vampires shoot it out with police." But...that's really about it. The writers seemed to have run out of ideas, and so we just get interminable variations on these two basic ideas. There is no real climax - the vampire bad guys are subsequently interchangeable, and the only really competent one (Jesus) gets killed before the formerly-dimwitted one. The ending is just one big shootout, prolonged by a convenient solar eclipse. Which is another pointless plot point - if you want vampires to be in the darkness, just keep them in darkness and have the sun come up normally. Adding the solar eclipse does nothing here. It's stuff like this which suggests the writers didn't know quite what they were doing.

As for the Raimi-esque POV shots, a little goes a long way - something that Scott Spiegel should have learned from the master. It's kinda fun the first twenty times, but after that...

Overall, I'd recommend it if you can catch it on the cheap. It's no classic, but it's mildly amusing.

It goes the genre-blending of the original one better: it melds the heist movie, the vampire movie, and the good-ole-boy movie. The co-writer Duane Whitaker, who has made a number of witty and flavorfully scripted independent movies, is probably responsible for the Texas atmosphere, and the idiosyncracy of the gang of redneck layabouts who make up the cast. Despite the stripped-down special effects, you might feel grateful to the movie for being the first B picture in eons to feature actual characters. Robert Patrick is superb as the hero--who, in the fashion of the first film, seems convincingly about to be revealed as a hotheaded sociopath, then veers in a very different direction. Muse Watson as the safecracker C.W. and Bo Svenson, now ripened in late middle aged, is marvellous as the skeptical sheriff--he could play doubles with L.Q. Jones. The movie isn't much, but it has actors, characters and dialogue--three things that are by now extinct on the direct-to-video shelf.