From Dusk till Dawn is my personal favorite Robert Rodriguez movie, so you can probably imagine my initial hesitation about a television retelling of the film.
The series premiered on March 11th, 2014, on Rodriguez’s own channel: El Rey. The series has gotten mixed reactions from audiences and critics alike, and I can see why.
The problem I have with the series is not the overall quality of the show itself, nor how it retells the story with new details. For me, it’s just head-scratching. What exactly is the point of telling the story all over again?
The series has a total of ten episodes in its first season. Each episode is roughly 45 mins long. So basically, it takes the show almost 500 minutes to tell the very same story that you can watch already for a fraction of the time.
Rodriguez has been quoted as saying that the original From Dusk till Dawn is “one of the most frequently asked about projects in his ever-lengthening filmography”. Which makes sense when you consider the cult following the film has grown over the years. But if he wanted to give the fans some more bang for their buck, then why would he just remake the same film but on a smaller scale?
I don’t want to sound like a purist fanboy saying “I hate this! The old one is better!” but in this case, I think it applies. If you’re going to make a television remake of an iconic cult film, it’s inevitably going to be compared to its older brother.
So in that case, I’d say if you’ve never heard of From Dusk till Dawn, check out the original film, it’s on Netflix right now. However, if you’re a big fan of the film (Like myself) I recommend that you skip the series. Unless you like your vampire horror/comedy to have bad acting, embarrassingly disjointed dialogue, and a complete lack of black comedy.
From Dusk till Dawn Season One is available on Blu-ray from eOne Entertainment. For those looking forward to this release, the set comes with a plethora of bonus content.
- Audio Commentaries
- Full Length Trailer
- Best Kills Video
- On Set: Episode 1 Day 1
- On Set: The Making of From Dusk till Dawn
- Behind the Scenes: On Set: Brought to you by General Motors
- Behind the Scenes: On Set: Brought to you by Dos Equis
- Character Bio Featurettes
- General Motors Commercial featuring Seth Gecko
- Dos Equis Commercial featuring Carlos Madrigal
- Big Kahuna Commercial
- What’s in the Briefcase Spot
- SXSW Featurettte
- Q&A from the Premiere at Alamo Drafthouse with Robert Rodriguez and Cast
Picture Quality: 4.5/5
Audio Quality: 5/5
