You don't want to mess with no Aztec vampires

I knocked out another Saturn Award winner for Best Horror Movie yesterday, and this time it was 1995 winner, “From Dusk till Dawn.” I’d seen the theatrical release of this movie years ago, but it had been a while since I’d seen the film in its entirety.

Directed by Robert Rodriquez, this movie starred a number of big name actors, including George Clooney, Harvey Keitel, Quentin Tarantino (who also wrote the script), Juliette Lewis, Cheech Marin and Salma Hayek.

If you’ve never seen this gory vampire movie before, here’s the plot in a nutshell. The Gecko brothers (played by Clooney and Tarantino) rob a bank and kill what sounds like a dump truck full of people in the process. They’ve arranged to escape to Mexico, where they have to meet a gangster and pay a percentage of their robbery take for his protection. They’ve agreed to meet this gangster at dawn at a strip club with the absurd name of “The Titty Twister.” Unbeknownst to the Gecko brothers and their gangster friends, this bar is actually a front used by vampires to lure truckers and bikers in for the kill.

There’s something about this movie that makes it cool, but I have to say that it ranks low on my list of favorite Saturn Award winners because of all the profanity, gore and violence. I’m a “less is more” kind of guy, and this movie is just way over the top in those areas. This movie is definitely not suitable for anyone too young to join the Army.

Before I wrap this thing up, I do want to add that this movie contains one of my all-time favorite horror movie scenes. At the very end of the movie, only Clooney’s character (Seth Gecko) and Juliette Lewis’ character (Kate) have survived the night in the strip club and they both share a moment alone in the sunny parking lot before the end of the movie. Kate offers to go with Seth to the town of El Rey, but Seth turns her down. He gives her some money to help her get back to the States and then they go their separate ways. As they leave, the camera draws back to show that the strip club was actually the very top of a partially buried Aztec or Mayan temple and that there are scores of discarded big rigs and other vehicles scattered down the backside of the temple.

From here, it’s on to the 1996 winner, the iconic horror movie, “Scream.” After “Scream,” I have 13 more movies to go to finish the list. From there, I’ll either tackle the Saturn Award winners for Best Science Fiction Movie or for Best Fantasy Movie. Which do you guys think I should watch first? Let me know in the comments section below.