From Dusk Till Dawn - S01E01 Pilot (2014)

Review

Two Texas Rangers pull into an out of the way store, "Benny's World of Liquor", with the elder of the duo, Earl, going inside to use the facilities. Seems the Rangers are searching for the Gecko Brothers, a couple of desperados who have just stolen $30 million from a bank. Worse the Bros have managed to dispatch four Texas Rangers, two police officers, and have kidnapped a female bank teller. The lawmen have picked the wrong store as the Geckos are hiding with two female hostages out of sight, recurrent theme on female hostages I guess.

We soon learn that the schizophrenic Richard "Richie" Gecko is a psychopath as he shoots Earl down. Earl's partner, the improbably named Freddie, has the store under siege. A cat and mouse game follows with Seth Gecko trying to call in reinforcements from Carlos, a south of the border gangster who the Bros owe $10 million to. Naturally the Gecko's manage to make it out of the store and onto a highway to hell as flames engulf the building. Unknown to Seth and Richie, Freddie is still alive, having worn a bullet proof vest. The pilot sure has set up the first season, but does the television series do full justice to the four movie franchise Tarantino and Rodriguez kicked off with the movie of the same name?

Naturally I guess the question on everyone's lips is how similar to the movie(s) is the television show. For starters Rodriguez's stated purpose with the television series is to expand on the characters and situations the classic vampire movie presented us with. So right off the bat the first five or so minutes of the movie is elaborated upon for the pilot episode. Perhaps the only real additions to the movie is a feeling that Richie Gecko's state of mind might be the result of supernatural interference, Carlos warns Seth he should listen to Richie as Richie can see things others can't, we also get a Texas Ranger now after revenge, Freddie made a promise to the dying Earl after all, and Carlos himself would appear to be directly linked to the Gecko Bros, might be a vamper, and is certainly going to take a much bigger role in the television series than the movie. Oh and I guess there's going to be a whole snake thing for no apparent purpose. So yeah, the times they are a changing friends and neighbours.

Judging from the pilot episode this series is looking very promising

Director/Writer Robert Rodriguez gets the pilot episode underway with a prologue piece that is probably going to make very little sense to anyone who hasn't seen the movies the episode is based on. A chick is fleeing from a couple of tribesmen through an unnamed jungle. She eventually runs into a Priest of some sort I guess, we get some mythical mumbo jumbo and she is thrown into a pit chock full of snakes. Say what! Yeah not quite sure how this all works, but am assuming this is the site the temple thing seen in the movies will be built on and the chicka thrown to the serpents is going to resurrect as patient zero in the blood sucking infestation. That's purely speculation, a bit spoiler prone I guess, but fingers crossed the scene is elaborated on during the rest of season one.

From there it's pretty much Rodriguez at the helm, which in the swing of things is good news. Love Rodriquez's almost fairytale lighting of the episode, the attention to screen depth, and a constant prowling camera that is apt to hit unusual angles out of the blue to keep us rocking. The Director is filming like this is a feature length production and isn't holding back on any of the eye candy in doing so. The audience are put right in the frame as things go down in a small store in the middle of nowhere U.S.A. I assume the action is in Texas, given the accents, and found it amusing that the Rodriquez highlighted his suit wearing desperados against the almost cowboy gear the two Rangers are wearing, it's a stunning contrast that strangely didn't have me thinking Blues Brothers.

The narrative itself was non-linear, which might offend some peoples' sensibilities. We learn things in constant flashback, which helps pad out the characters and introduce new elements to what we are seeing. We learn that Seth is the controlled member of the Gecko team while Richie is simply a psychopath that constantly gets them into worse situations. Earl is talking through what his time amounts to in his job, and how much time he has left, which he of course gets wrong. And Freddie has a young family; hence our sympathies I expect are going to rest with him. For mine, I was digging Seth, who has to deal with his brother's suddenly flights of fancy, outright lies, and of course an ever rising body count. Cool stuff, but keep watching as Rodriguez is jumping all over the time line.

Horror fans are not going to be disappointed in the episode, besides the fore mentioned chick in a snake pit, which is pretty disturbing for those who are ophidiphobic - fear of snakes yo, Richie is constantly seeing monsters, which disturbingly are morphs of the two girls the Geckos are holding in the store. Now besides a Freudian interpretation, which I'm not discounting, I'm wondering if Carlos' warning might not be far off the mark. Especially liked the snake like eyes Richie experiences when one of the gals looks at him. Anyways plenty of cool plot foreshadow, and for those who haven't seen the movie we're headed toward a vamp nest in the middle of nowhere. Sweet, I dig me some vampire, as long as they aren't glittering in daylight.

Okay moving along here, gorehounds are going to have to settle for some gunshot wounds, nothing else much to mention besides Richie being kicked by our two lady hostages. And I guess I should point out T&A isn't happening, but if we do follow the general path of the movie then it won't be far away. In short this one is an okay watch for young teens, assuming you have no problems with a number of people being shot.

D. J. Cotrona (Seth Gecko) takes on the role George Clooney nailed, and while pretty cool and believable loses in comparison to Clooney. Cotrona isn't able to bring the same weary dealing with Richie thing that Clooney did. For mine Zane Holtz (Richie Gecko) matches Quentin Tarantino in the role of the psychopathic brother. And in a surprise move Don Johnson makes the role of Ranger Earl his own, albeit with very limit screen time. Overall I was more than happy with the new cast, now we only have to cross our fingers the casting agency also gets the Fuller family right.

Got to say this series snuck up on me, had heard of it and was looking forward to it, but in the wash up was rocking out to the first episode. There's been a surge in dark genre television of late and I'm more than impressed Dusk Till Dawn is keeping the production values up, it augers well for the rest of the first season. Perhaps the only problems I had with the episode were the disappearing female hostages, we don't know what happened to the bank teller the Geckos took hostage during the robbery, but the other two simply walked out after giving Richie a good kicking, and the fact that Freddie was wearing body armour - which hadn't been hinted at and smells of the script requiring it. I've still got an afterglow on after watching the pilot episode, worth checking out folks, looks like we might be in for some rock solid vamper action in the course of the ten or so episodes ahead.