Robert Rodriguez is bit of an anomaly when it comes to his craft. For his first feature he made a foreign action movie about a folk singer who gets mistaken for a local hitman; he also made it for $7,000 and blew everyone away. He went on to make other cult classic films like Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn, Sin City, Planet Terror and even dipped his toe in family friendly fare like the Spy Kids franchise and has made big strides on making great films on a low budget.
A few years ago, Rodriguez started his own television network, the El Rey Channel. Showing older Kung Fu movies, Grindhouse horror movies and even a few great movies like Pulp Fiction and some of Rodriguez’ own films.
One of the better things that has come out of the network is their original programming. Rodriguez started out with Lucha Underground, which we at this website love, and also a TV series adaptation of From Dusk Till Dawn.
Richie and Seth Gecko in El Rey’s From Dusk Till Dawn.
Now, From Dusk Till Dawn didn’t really beg for it to become a television series. The first film ended just fine – Seth Gecko finally getting to El Rey after surviving a night of ugly ass vampires along with the family he and his brother took hostage. With the success of CW’s Supernatural, a show about two brothers who take on demons and the devil, the Gecko brothers were ripe for their own little adventures as well (also battling demons and vampires and all kinds of crazy shit).
The first season consists of covering the events of the movie. Where the movie was basically a magazine, the show is more like a novel. New characters added and a lot of the characters’ motives are revealed on the show. Ever wonder why the Harvey Keitel and his family we’re going on the road trip? You find out here. Also, some of the characters’ fates from the movie change on the show. The show is also littered with a lot of Rodriguez’s style, slow-mo walks toward the camera, inventive gunplay and there’s even a season where each episode is a different genre. For example, one episode is a western and another is horror movie inside of a hospital.
Madison Davenport as Kate Fuller.
The show is perfectly cast. DJ Cotrona especially as Seth Gecko. He turns into more of a badass as the series goes on and Zane Holtz as Richie plays it just as creepy as Tarantino did in the movie. The Fuller family also acquit themselves nicely, especially Madison Davenport who is more believable as sweet apple pie type of Christian girl than Juliette Lewis. New additions to the show from the movie are also very welcome like Wilmer Valderama who sheds the Fez image as good/bad guy as Carlos and Jesse Garcia as the Texas Ranger hot on the Gecko’s trail.
The show felt like it was slept-on when it aired because El Rey wasn’t on every provider but thank God for Netflix – you can now stream all three seasons of the show. So, come on guys, check it out. Sam and Dean Winchester aren’t the only cool demon killing brothers out there.
Catch Mando on Twitter at @manbat33 when he’s not co-hosting the @TalentedSlacker podcast!