I first watched From Dusk till Dawn in the theater when it came out. I liked the first half a lot more than the second. It felt more like a Quentin Tarantino film with its interesting dialogue and stylistic flourishes. The back half was too goopy and gore-filled for my tastes at that moment. It had some fun dialogue, and I certainly wasn’t going to complain about that Salma Hayek dance number, but it seemed like a completely different film than the first half, and I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much.

I do remember immediately after watching it having long conversations with my buddies about the film. We loved that opening scene and those little stylistic flourishes, like how Richie Gecko (Tarantino) imagines Kate (Juliette Lewis) saying something crude to him, or how they do a little X-ray vision of the trunk of the car showing the kidnap victim inside. We all agreed that once the vampires show up, the film takes a dip.

I can’t remember if I watched it anymore during my college years, probably so, but then I took a very long break from it. I watched it again maybe ten years ago, and I didn’t like it at all. I felt the first half felt more like someone trying to write like Tarantino instead of an actual script written by him. It no longer thrilled. And the back half was even worse, just puerile horror that was more interested in goopy explosions than telling a story.

But Ryan Coogler was clearly influenced by this film, and I keep seeing people on the worst social media site basically saying that Sinners was a poor imitation of From Dusk till Dawn, so I wanted to give it another chance.

I think I liked it this go-around more than all the previous viewings. The first half does feel like Tarantino-lite. This was early in his career. He was paid to write this film in 1992 on commission. They say Tarantino took the best parts of this script and put them into Pulp Fiction. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but this is definitely not his best work.

The Gecko Brothers, Richie and Seth (George Clooney) are on the run after a daring escape from the courthouse where Seth was in custody. They’ve killed several people, including two cops, and have a hostage in the trunk of their car.

They stop at a hotel in El Paso, to plot how they are going to cross the (heavily guarded) border and into Mexico, where someone Seth knows will hide them until things cool down.

When Seth steps out to get a better view of what they are up against, Richie rapes and murders the hostage. Seth is a criminal who will not hesitate to kill someone when he deems it necessary, but Richie is a psychopath.

Salvation (or damnation, as we’ll soon find out) comes in the form of a loving family and an RV. Jacob Fuller (Harvey Keitel) is a former Baptist minister who lost his faith when his wife died in a car accident. He’s taking his two kids, Kate and Scott (Ernest Liu) to Mexico as a getaway from their grief.

There are some nicely tense scenes with the Gecko brothers forcing the Fuller family to drive them across the border and not get caught. Then they head to a skeevy biker/trucker bar called the Titty Twister. It is open from Dusk to Dawn and is the seemingly perfect place for them to hide out until the man can come and give the brothers safe passage.

After some minor confrontations and a pretty darn sexy dance, the vampires come. Things get wild and blood-soaked from there. Tom Savini plays a biker named Sex Machine. It doesn’t seem that he did any of the special effects/makeup work, but this is the type of thing he became famous for doing. There are lots of great practical effects. The vampires have grotesque faces, and they turn to slop when staked and sometimes explode.

It can be a bit much.

When this came out, I thought Quentin Tarantino was the bee’s knees. I saw Pulp Fiction in the theater and thought it was amazing. We watched Reservoir Dogs in the dorm room and went nuts. I also very much liked Robert Rodriguez (who directs this film; Tarantino just wrote it.) I thought Desperado was a lot of fun, and El Mariachi was brilliant for a no-budget film from a first-time director.

But I’ve since very much cooled on Tarantino. I think he is a very talented director but kind of an obnoxious human. I always watch his films and often enjoy them, but the days of them being an event for me are over. The days of me having to see them in the theater are long gone. I now think Rodriguez is a hack.

This feels like the best and worst of what a collaboration between Rodriguez and Tarantino could be. There is some clever writing from Tarantino (and I find it hilarious that he wrote his character as a foot-loving, psychopathic pervert), but it’s also sloppy and disjointed. Rodriguez is at his best when he’s able to let go and just have fun with all the vampire carnage. He doesn’t do nearly as well when he’s dealing with Tarantino’s more dialogue-heavy front end. The two are very good friends, and they seem to let each other indulge in some of their worst instincts. For example, Rodriguez once again uses a crotch gun, and Tarantino gets a scene where he literally sucks beer off of Salma Hayek’s toes.

This definitely falls into the category of movie where you just have to let go and enjoy the ride. I definitely did this time around.

I know this barely qualifies as a western. It takes place in modern times and no one wears a cowboy hat or rides a horse. But it is set in the barren landscapes of Texas and Mexico and its characters would certainly fit into the lawless wild west. So I’m counting it.