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From Dusk 'til Dawn II: Texas Blood Money
Subject: Maria
Checa in FDTD-II
From: William A.
Arvola <arvola@gte.net>
Digest:
volume99/156
Date: Tue, 23 Mar
1999 22:23:02 -0600
Here's a quick review of the movie "From Dusk 'til Dawn II: Texas Blood Money" with Maria Checa in a supporting role.
Executive Producers:
Lawrence Bender, Robert Rodriguez, and Quentin Tarantino.
Producers: Gianni
Nunnari, Meir Teper, and Michael Murphy.
Director: Scott
Spiegel
Starring:
Robert Patrick and Bo Hopkins.
Supporting Cast:
Maria Checa, with cameos by Bruce Campbell and Tiffani-Amber Thiessen.
Available for rental at Blockbuster.
Introductory Cameo: Two attorneys [Bruce Campbell and Tiffani-Amber Thiessen] debate their own "blood-sucking" ethics in defending their "guilty as sin" client. The literal bloodsuckers, a horde of vampire bats, make quick work of the merely virtual ones.
Synopsis: A Texas hoodlum down on his luck [Robert Patrick] joins a gang intent on knocking over a bank just over the Mexican border. An astute Texas Ranger [Bo Hopkins] keeps tabs on our hoodlum. On the way to the gang rendezvous, a lone gang member has an unfortunate encounter with a couple of vampires [one, the barkeep from the first FDTD] and gets "converted." Our new vampire needs money "just like the rest of us" so proceeds to the rendezvous, posing as his former self.
Another of the gang members get the hots for a "little senorita" [Maria Checa]. After the more vigorous than erotic "activities," our senorita needs a shower about the time our new vampire "needs a drink." Entering through a window in bat form, our vampire plays Anthony Perkins with teeth to our senoria's Janet Leigh. Water trickles, blood flows, screams emanate, and limbs thrash. Not quite sated, our vampire sets his sights on our senor. In the course of the resulting struggle, our little senorita, now a most horrific vampiress though with a body to, er, die for, gets finished by the expediant of decapitation, but not before our senor "joins" our vampire in his duplicity.
The gang proceeds to the bank heist. As opportunity permits, two more gang members are converted, leaving our hoodlum as the sole human. Before our greedy vampires can get away, they are confronted by our Texas Ranger supported by a veritable army of Mexican police. The battle is joined, a regular firefight and feeding frenzy ensue. The bloodletting is prolonged by a solar eclipse at dawn. The last two humans alive, our Ranger and hoodlum join forces, make very liberal use of makeshift crosses, and turn the tide of battle against the vampires. The "good" guys prevail, surprise, surprise.
Comments: Maria Checa does add a nice curve to the Psycho-esque shower slasher scene, though the erotic aspect is mostly PG in presentation. The director seems to have a very limited, but effective, bag of tricks. Odd camera angles abound. We get to see the world through a vampire's mouth, the eyesockets of a skull, and the ribcage of a skeleton. The visual perspective of inanimate objects, such as a rotating fan or an item on the ground, is used almost to excess. Images and shadows reflected off of mirrors, sunglasses, monitors, and walls are the norm. The director hid potential technical flaws and low points with wild camera gyrations and off-screen action. The special effects of explosions and liquifying vampire bodies were competently done.
Give this "guy flick" a look. I was well-entertained for its short 88-minute duration in a primitive sort of way.
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1999/05/02