FROM DUSK TILL DAWN: The Series [Premiere Episode Review]: Bites & Pieces.

In the name of the Padre (Guy Padre that is), the Monsignor, and the whole holy host of GHG, it’s time to raise the dead and a little hell along the way. Premiering tonight on The El Rey network, Robert Rodriguez’ home for all things grindhouse, is the series inspired by his hit 1996 collaboration with Quentin Tarantino, From Dusk Till Dawn.

Things kick off with a voiceover that lets us know that the Vampire element will be present and accounted for throughout this series. Things immediately get a little hentai with a beautiful girl running through the woods, a pit of venomous reptiles, some Mayans, and one long snake in particular that has a fondness for said young girl’s mouth. Yeah, this ain’t your Daddy’s FDTD. Well, actually it is. It’s just fucked up in different ways than the movie. Next we jump into homage territory as things begin to look slightly familiar to fans of the Clooney flick.

The story of the brothers Gecko, Seth (D.J. Cotrona) and Richie (Zane Holtz) gets a little more fleshed out. The robbery they are on the run from plays out via flashbacks. Richie also seems to have precognitive or psychic abilities. I’m not sure which, but he is seeing and hearing things, vampire-y things, so something is going on.

The show works as a kind of Buffy meets Supernatural with bad, bad men as our leads coated in a sheen of sepia tone.

Don Johnson’s Ranger Earl McGraw is introspective, like some cowboy philosopher aware of the mistakes of his past and determined to set his partner “Frederico” on the right path. Like most cowboy philosophers however, you just know his days are numbered from the get-go. He isn’t the only prophet presented to us, as prophesy in general seems to play a big part in this series. We see it a bit here through conversations with loved ones or in hallucinatory one-on-ones with a sexy Mexican Vampiress.

I left my damn car keys at Sapphire’s again, didn’t I?

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