The only way to watch From Dusk till Dawn today is either a little bit sleepy, a little bit hungover, a tiny bit high, or all three. It was a provocative, pseudo tongue-in-cheek movie in 1996 when it was released on January 18, and 30 years later, it feels like a surreal fever dream. In some ways, you could say From Dusk till Dawn is the most patient B-movie of all time, waiting for nearly an hour to actually reveal its supernatural, bloodthirsty premise. In fact, if you had no idea what From Dusk till Dawn was about, and you just started watching the movie cold, with no context, you might think it was a deranged buddy movie about two criminal brothers, Seth (George Clooney), and Richie (Quentin Tarantino) being horrible, taking hostages after a bank robbery for reasons that barely make sense.
But the thing about From Dusk till Dawn is that, yes, spoiler alert, it eventually reveals itself to be a movie in which an unlikely group of folks battle vampires in a seedy strip club. And, the funny thing is, that specific twist is less interesting than the movie From Dusk till Dawn pretends to be at the outset. Mild spoilers ahead.
