Wednesday, December 11, 2019

From Dusk Till Dawn: A Screenplay by Quentin Tarantino

(pb; 1995: screenplay)

From the back cover

“You’d better hope you don’t cross paths with the infamous Gecko brothers─Richie and Seth. They’re fond of banks─robbing them, that is. They’re tough. Cool. Notorious. In From Dusk Till Dawn, we follow them as they tear a path through the heartland of America on their way to the borner. It is there, near El Paso, that they will meet up with their Mexican partners-in-crime to divvy up the loot they’ve acquired.

“Along the way, though, an innocent family will enter their lives─an ex-Baptist preacher, his teenage son, and sexy daughter. We watch as Richie and Seth enlist the family’s help in getting them safely across the border in the family’s Winnebago. When they arrive at their dreamed-about world south of the border, they are met with a terrifying twist.”


Review

Cutting to the pointthere is not a lot to say about this fast-moving, character-intense heist/vampire screenplay and film, aside from: if you are a fan of Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, or just like the 1996 film that resulted from this screenplay, chances are you’ll enjoy reading it. If you’re not, you probably won’t. Tarantino keeps the writing lean ‘n’ mean, with no lag in action, sleaziness and sketched-out character development, creating a screenplay/film that is a modern milestone in the vampire flick genre, one that brings to mind the trashy, Americanized thrills of a 1960s/1970s Hammer film. Worth reading and owning, this, if you appreciate Tarantino and Rodriguez’s work, or the film in general.

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