Luke Owen review the sixth episode of From Dusk Till Dawn…
If there is one thing From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series has done right, it’s taking short periods of the original movie and stretching them convincingly over 45 minutes. Granted, last week’s episode was a bump in the road in terms of contrivance, but episode six, Place of Dead Roads, doesn’t take a 10 minute portion of the movie and expand – it takes perhaps 3-5 minutes of Robert Rodriguez’s 1996 cult favourite and gets an amazing amount of mileage out of it.
The Gecko Brothers and the Fuller family have finally made it to The Titty Twister bar in Mexico, the battleground for the war that has been promised all season. While Ritchie gets loaded and starts throwing knives with the locals, Seth gets into a brawl with some bikers before meeting with a rival of Carlos who tells him that the haven of El Ray isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Meanwhile, Frederico runs into Carlos and, following some wise words from his memories of Earl, starts fighting for himself. Plus, there are some interesting developments between Ritchie, his visions of Santanico and young Kate, who is starting to show some familiar signs.
Throughout the series run, fans of the original movie have been speculating what the TV version of The Titty Twister would be like. Would Rodriguez and crew go all out like they did with the movie, or would it be a much safer version? To put it politely, The Titty Twister in From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series is much how you would imagine it to be. If they were to make a 12A remake of the original From Dusk Till Dawn, this is what the strip bar would look like. This isn’t a 12A, but it does feel like it’s holding back from the depravity that we fell in love with back in ’96. It has all the hallmarks of that hallowed place of vampires and make-shift shotgun crucifixs, but like a more watered down version of it.
That’s not to say the episode (or indeed the show) is lame and holding back, not at all. In one of the better sequences of the film, Federico takes a play out of Black Widow’s book in The Avengers and fights off two bad guys while tied to a chair which leads to a beautifully bloody conclusion. It’s this kind of over-the-top violence that we can hope will make an appearance once “the war” kicks off in The Titty Twister. While From Dusk Till Dawn will always be remembered for that knee jerk tone change midway through the movie, the reason why it has stayed in the hearts of many is the almost cartoon-like bloodshed. Place to Dead Roads is a good sign that we’ll be getting that in the next few episode.
But just stretching out the timespan of plot points isn’t the only reason the show exists, it’s to make the story feel like one cohesive unit – and this episode is chock full of that. Everything is coming together nicely and new twists are being introduced that really make you stand up and take note. The first episode seemed like such a waste of time and energy, but the show is getting better and better as each episode progresses.
We’re now four episodes from the close of this first season and it has been a blast so far. Each episode brings about its own flavour and the everything about it comes together so well. The acting is great, the script is great and the tone is so enjoyable. It’s a shame that the show hasn’t attracted a larger audience, because From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series has been phenomenal television. Let the war commence!
Also, Jake Busey as Sex Machine is pretty hilarious.
Luke Owen is one of Flickering Myth’s co-editors and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.
Originally published April 16, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
