Given this is a sequel, it already is fighting an uphill battle, and in the shadows of the original "From Dusk Till Dawn" movie, it does have some pretty big shoes to fill out. And while "From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money" is entertaining enough in itself, it is just nowhere near the first movie.The storyline is about a group of bank robbers heading to Mexico for a huge heist, but Things turn awry when vampires interfere with some otherwise well-laid plans.Story-wise "From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money" just wasn't particularly impressive or original for that matter. And everything just reeks of someone trying to squeeze a buck or two out of the fame of the original movie.The cast list was nowhere as impressive as in the first movie, aside from a handful of people. Danny Trejo popped up for a small role, and he was sadly the most memorable of all in the movie. And Bruce "Hail to the King, Baby!" Campbell had a small cameo appearance.Very unlike the first movie, you don't really care about the characters in this sequel.A mediocre attempt of cashing in on a previous hit movie is what this movie turned out to be.

So judging by the films cover you could be fooled into thinking this film was set in the 'Twitty Twister' and that Danny Trejo was a large part of the story. Alas this couldn't be further from the truth, this isn't necessarily a bad thing of course but they are clearly trying to hook your attention.The plots follows a group of criminals who are planning a bank heist. The group are to meet in a seedy motel somewhere in Mexico but through various circumstances are attacked and turned into vampires one by one. During the heist the main protagonist discovers his mates are vamps and must fend them off along with the police force which turn up. In the end the film merely becomes a vampire vs police escapade with the lone surviving criminal teaming up with the Texas Ranger that was on his tail.This second splatter fest starts off really slow and quite dull if you ask me, we merely follow Robert Patrick as he recruits the old gang for the heist. The group itself are a mixed bag and you can see they have tried to create that iconic team of hardass oddballs we've seen many times before. You've got a fat guy with a ponytail and goatee (the homosexual sadistic porn shop owner from 'Pulp Fiction'), an aging cowboy, a young innocent looking guy (Woody Harrelson's brother) and the stereotypical tough guy played by Raymond Cruz who kinda feels like a male version of 'Vasquez' from 'Aliens'.Once things get going on the road trip it still takes its time and feels slow. There is a pointless cameo for the 'Titty Twister' merely so they can shove in Danny Trejo with an aimless subplot and so the crooks can start getting bitten. I still have absolutely no clue how Trejo's character is suppose to have survived the first film after being reduced to mush. This also tends to bring up the continuity issue of where are all the other characters from the first film? If Trejo's 'Razor Eddie' is still alive then surely all the other main vampires and fallen bikers are still alive and well too (or undead and well). Plus the vampire bar is clearly a bad small set and doesn't really look like the original films set. This was a real let down for the film seeing as the bar is the main money shot of the franchise, where it all happens so to speak.The film really picks up when all the cops turn up to stop the bank heist and the undead crooks all go berserk. The whole story takes a U- turn and goes from dark vampire splatter horror to an over the top action bonanza with the four baddie vamps gunning down hordes of policemen and S.W.A.T. teams amidst exploding police cars. Remember when Arnie takes down all the cops and cop cars with his minigun in 'T2'? well this is pretty much identical to that accept there is lots of blood and body parts flying around. I can't lie, I really did enjoy this part of the movie as it really changes the pace of the film upping it drastically. The action isn't the best choreographed action you've seen but it does the job and its pretty neat watching these invincible vampires leaping around and taking down various armed police.Like much of the film the effects are all hands-on real time effects using fake blood, prosthetics, heavy makeup, puppets etc...and like the original film it works giving a much grittier 80's feel to the proceedings. There is a touch of CGI for the melting vamp shots which is a bit hokey looking but again like the original film it doesn't detract from the nicely handled gore.I did like this film once things started to actually get going with the vampires, but boy does it take time for that. Much of the run time is a bit dull in all honesty...until the excellent shoot out with the cops. It is a bit frustrating at times too as some shots are badly edited, the sets are pokey, location work is visually unexciting and overall it does look very cheap and cheerful. I can overlook that but geez! here and there it really looks poor. There is a small Bruce Campbell cameo at the start which really feels like its there just to gain more interest with horror fans as again it pointless. Basically most of this film is very average but the violent finale makes up for most of it. The final bit of dialog between Patrick's criminal character and Hopkins' Texas Ranger was hinting to set up a vampire hunting team possibly for the third film, I thought...guess not.Cute bit of info, the character of 'Deputy Edgar McGraw' in this film is the son of 'Sheriff Earl McGraw' from the original film. In the original film Sheriff McGraw is played by Michael Parks who is the real life father of James Parks who plays Deputy McGraw in this sequel. 6.5/10

This was suppose to be a sequel to "From dusk till dawn". First of all, let me make one thing clear - the story of the film had absolutely nothing to do with the original FDTD, with possible exception of the presence of Danny Trejo (who, as far as I recall, doesn't have a name in either of the films other than in the role list, and therefor could have been a whole different character), and a bar called "Titty twister" (which doesn't even look like the original Titty Twister, and hence it might as well have been another bar).The story has nothing to do with the original (it doesn't continue where the first one ends, for example), non of the original cast (except from Danny Trejo) appears. In Sweden, it was promoted as a direct sequel: according to the back of the DVD cover, they ended up at Titty Twister to wait for the Gecko Brothers (who doesn't even appear). It is not nearly as well made as the first one. The "special effects" are crappy, the cinematography has little to no resemblance to the first one. The lines are suppose to be cool, probably trying to aim for something like the language in the first movie (that really were cheeky as hell). If you want to watch a sequel to "From dusk till dawn", skip this and jump to the third one at once. "Hangmans daughter" brings back at least some of the original feeling (playing with western movies the same way as the first one played with action/crime movies, for example).If you however choose to watch this, please do not watch this as a sequel to "From dusk till dawn", but more of it's own movie. That was the only way I actually managed to endure through the entire film, by thinking of it as a totally different film.

Scott 'I Wish I Was Sam Raimi' Spiegel ruins what might have been an otherwise serviceable sequel with his obsession for trying to achieve the most idiotic camera angle conceivable. Behind fridges, under beds, on a fan, in a keyhole, within the coils of a telephone cord—almost* nowhere is safe from Spiegel's roaming lens. Without these extremely irritating shots the film would be bearable—it has pretty good effects from KNB, a reasonable cast, and enough gore and nudity to satisfy fans of the first film. But trying to watch with the camera disappearing into every nook and cranny is like having teeth pulled for an hour and a half.For the record, here are just some of the gimmicky camera angles/POV shots that I managed to note down while watching: lift button cam, security camera cam, bull cam, cool box cam, press-up cam (shot tracks the motion of the press-ups!), dog water-bowl cam, car hood cam, keyboard cam, fender cam, hat cam, broken mirror-ball cam, glass cam, blood cam, bat cam, fang cam (several times), shotgun cam, sex cam, shower cam, hand cam, severed neck cam, plan cam, combination lock cam (shot rotates as the dial is turned), sack cam, metal pole cam, skull cam, rib cam. There were others, I am sure, but you get the idea...*Ironically, the place I WOULD most like Spiegel to shove his camera is one of the few places he doesn't opt for. Seriously, would an ass-cam shot be any worse than the dog-bowl shot?3.5 out of 10, generously rounded up to 4 for IMDb.