When embarking on fashioning a sequel, there’s usually two paths you can go down – either do something completely new or honor the original as much as you can without outright copying what came before. To choose the incorrect path can prove to be disastrous, especially when following up such a distinctive rock and roll freak out as Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn. However, Dimension in all their “infinite wisdom” (note the sarcasm) decided to spread the odds and make two sequels back to back with one being – you guessed it – completely different and the other being a glorified remake. The first attempt, subtitled Texas Blood Money, was the different one and saw a gang of criminals attempt a daring heist while some of their number rapidly changed into bloodsuckers after sustaining some highly suspicious bites. Frankly, it sucked and as a result, the prospect of a third movie – P.J. Pesce’s The Hangman’s Daughter – was hardly enticing despite already being in the can.
However, sometimes a low expectation can yield high results and while part 3 is simply a period retread of the first film, it adds just enough new blood to keep things fun.
The year is 1913 and booze drenched American author Ambrose Bierce is travelling through mexico in the hope that he can join Pancho Villa’s revolutionary army. As he asks around town for a lift, dangerous outlaw Johnny Madrid is about to hang for his numerous crimes at the hands of the thuggish executioner Mauricio, but after an audacious and chaotic escape, he abconds with the hangman’s beautiful daughter, Esmeralda.
While Mauricio rounds up a posse to run them down, Johnny and his willing hostage rejoin with his gang and ate joined by young, impressionable, wannabe outlaw Catherine Reese who eagerly tells them about an old man wandering around town saying that he has something valuable for Pancho Villa. Obviously, that old dude was Bierce and before you can say “cinematic payoff”, Johnny and the boys seek out and rob his stagecoach, along with newlywed, preacher couple, John and Mary Newlie only to find that the “valuables” the sozzled writer was banging on about was more of the metaphor variety.
At this point, the players all go their separate ways, but eventually all (including Mauricio) arrive up at an inn/brothel named the La Tetilla Del Diablo (the Devil’s Nipple) only to find that the run down whore house has a rather disturbing secret – it’s staffed entirely by fucking vampires. While the initial attack wipes out most of the unsuspecting clientele, those who are left alive all have various beefs with one another – but most worrying of all, Esmeralda seems to have a secret link to this place and its unholy residence, one that only Mauricio and the vampire high priestess Quixtla are privy to…
So to immediately address the hulking, fanged, elephant in the room, The Hangman’s Daughter isn’t really much more than an inferior reworking of the original From Dusk Till Dawn only with a dusty, Western, face lift. However, while the basic changes may be slight, they’re also enough to make this tequila-soaked retread actually way more fun than you would think. Whereas the first half of Rodriguez’s film was a Tarantino scripted crime film that saw the charismatic Gecko Brothers try to sneak across the Mexican border by taking a preacher and his family hostage, the prequel gives as a similar array of disparate characters all inadvertently bound together by fate and a bad choice in choosing drinking establishments. The main thread involves Marco Leonardi’s swaggering outlaw as his escape from the Hallows sees him thrust into the arms of Ara Celi’s Santanico Pandemonium-to-be, Esmeralda and their relationship – while as thinly sketched as a drawing of a piece of string – amusingly takes the form of a western-set, Mexican telenovella with all big, yearning stares and pouting, wanting mouths. Also adding to the feeling of a bodice-ripping romance novel is Esmeralda’s abusive, executioner father, played with typically thuggish elan by Temuera Morrison and the whole thing is hilariously melodramatic. Adding to the ensemble is Orlando Jones’ washed up salesman, Rebecca Gayheart and Lennie Loftin’s religious couple and Jordana Spiro’s aspiring, female outlaw, but by far the best is the late, great, Michael Parks who plays real life author, Ambrose Bierce (who did actually vanish while searching for Pancho Villa) with drunken glee. Slurring his lines and peering at people through a continuous haze of inebriation, he barks out some cracking lines like “My singular critique of the Good Book is that its covers are too far apart.” and “When Gabriel blows his horn, I shall be playing the Tina.” and he turns out to be the best thing in the movie by a considerable margin.
Of course, all the tempestuous romances and endless grudges get rudely swept off the bar like bottles during a bloodthirsty vampire brawl and while The Hangman’s Daughter doesn’t really have the budget to keep up with the epic rumpled in the first film (or even its remake in the 2014 TV series), there’s still enough random, crazy shit going on to marginally sate our thirst for fucked-up, supernatural pub fights. One vamp has his head torn off only for a human faced cobra to inexplicably rise from the stump, while a turned Rebecca Gayheart tries to ensnare victims with monstrous intestinal eels that erupt from her stomach. It doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense and it renders the already messy plot almost completely moot (numerous characters die before their arcs have a chance to have much of a point), but the nudity and grue flies about the place enough to be far more entertaining than the second movie
However, those looking for a satisfying origin story for Salma Hayek’s unforgettable snake wearing, toe sucked succubus, will only be partially appeased at best. Ara Celi, while certainly pretty, just doesn’t come close to having the commanding presence (or gyrating hips) of Hayek’s most infamous role and her transformation into a shark-mawed dhampir (creature spawned of the mattress pounding union of a human and vampire) only raises more questions than it answers.
However, it’s sleazy, it’s bloody, it’s a fucking ridiculous in a goofy, self aware way and Danny bloodly Trejo is in it – what the hell more would you want from a cheapjack, Dusk Till Dawn sequel?
Much like the La Tetilla Del Diablo itself, The Hangman’s Daughter is cheap and nasty, but you’re guaranteed a decent show nevertheless…
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