1996
Starring: George Clooney, Harvey Kietel, Quentin Tarantino, Juliette Lewis, Ernest Liu, Selma Hayek
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Runtime: 108 minutes
Distributor: Miramax
Rating: R

Initially a box office flop, this unashamedly ludicrous B movie homage found some legs on VHS and scored big for several involved. It cemented Robert Rodriguez as a genuine talent, showing his hard-hitting indie debut El Mariachi was no fluke. It also showcased Quentin Tarantrino’s amazing knack for throwaway dialogue made instantly quotable and reaffirmed that he should most definitely stop taking acting roles in his films. Chiefly, it was a breakout performance for George Clooney, giving him a good reputation as a guy that can carry films as well as TV shows about hospitals – a reputation he almost ruined a year later with his awful turn in Batman & Robin, but that is another story.

The film follows bandit brothers on the run, Seth & Richard Gecko (Clooney and Tarantino), who take a family on a road trip hostage as they make a run for the Mexican border in a stolen motor home. After bluffing their way across they arrive at the Titty Twister, a 24-hour dive they can hunker down at for the night and wait for their crime buddies to meet them in the morning. As darkness descends, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary bar as the workers, regulars and almost everyone else transform from bar patrons to bloodthirsty creatures of the night looking for prey.

Definitely one of the best and maybe the most lavishly produced B movies in a long time, this is very silly and it knows it. It also doesn’t care. Essentially this is two different films spliced together with the first half being a dry witted crime caper and it isn’t until the mid point that everything gets a bit daft and it turns into something Dario Argento might have dreamt up and thrown away.

Clooney is effortlessly cool as the hardnosed older brother with a steely intellect and a very short fuse. With excellent support from B movie veterans Tom Savini, Fred Williamson and Cheech Marin, the ridiculous nature of it all is quickly forgiven because it’s just too much good, old-fashioned fun. Exploding zombies, killer vampire dogs and an amazingly phallic, motorized wooden stake machine combined with the boundless energy of the cast and the visceral punch of the director make this one a real guilty pleasure worth biting into and sucking dry.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 13th, 2008 at 11:28 pm and is filed under Feature Films, Horror, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.