From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

One time I convinced a friend of mine to sit down and watch From Dusk Till Dawn with me and they had no idea what the movie was about. For the first 30 or so minutes, they were enjoying the dark story of two criminals kidnapping a family and stealing their RV to make their escape to Mexico. And then, after stopping at a large strip club/bar, vampires showed up and my friend was shocked, but also extremely excited.

Sadly, if you are reading this now you can’t have this experience. But Dusk’s shift from a story about criminals on the run to a tale of survival as a small group of people fight back endless waves of demonic vampires still works even if you know what’s coming. It’s like two movies stitched together and it somehow works. A big reason the “twist” succeeds is that the group we meet in the first half is well-defined and we get to really know who they are, so as they start to get picked off in the second half we care a lot more. What could have been a so-so vampire movie is elevated by the first half and some incredible gore. — ZZ