From Dusk Till Dawn: Revisiting Rodriguez's revenants 15 years on

The mayhem actually starts before we catch up with the Gecko brothers. That Richie (Quentin Tarantino) busted Seth (George Clooney) out of jail, that the pair robbed a bank, took a hostage and left a sizable body count in their wake is, rather remarkably, all back story, preceding the opening scenes depicting the infiltration of a roadside liquor retailer that results in more pointless carnage, including the roasting alive of the proprietor (very nicely played by a young John Hawkes). Richie is shot through the hand during the firefight; the bullet leaves a hole the size of a carrot stick—some sort of perverse stigmata for this sadist, serial rapist and compulsive murderer—which he bandages with duct tape. To think, all Richie wanted was a road map.


Richie and Seth eventually manage to get south of the border by smuggling themselves in an RV driven by a pastor and widower (Harvey Keitel) weathering a crisis of faith by taking a road trip with his kids (one of whom is Juliette Lewis, who’s casting in this sort of thing was pretty much de rigueur back in 1996). The whole gang winds up in a biker bar called the Titty Twister (though I prefer the name given in the DVD’s Spanish subtitles: “Fiesta de tetas”) where Selma Hayek performs a dance in a bikini with a big snake that’s almost stupefying in its hotness and everyone turns out to be Aztec vampires, a breed of revenant that’s unusually easy to dismember and impale. It takes an hour to get to the vampire stuff, but from then on, rest assured, it’s a solid 40 minutes of bang-bang, crunch, tear, stab, shred, splatter.

The movie was directed with much enthusiasm and little flair by Robert Rodriguez, but its script came courtesy of the young Tarantino, who seems to have been galvanized by the genre fusion and the opportunity to toss elements of everything from Peckinpah to Graham Greene into the blender. There’s not a lot of the sort of verbal fireworks we find in top-grade Tarantino, the ostensible portrait of Mexico could just as easily be one of West Texas, and some of the special effects are kind of lame and superfluous, but the superb cast and relentless cartoony action sequences ensure that the movie’s entertainment value remains reasonably high.

Cronos: moving parts

An aging seller of antiques is bitten by a strange device, begins to thirst for blood, and is rendered immortal, yet the word “vampiro” is never uttered in Cronos (1993), allowing our experience of the film to expand far beyond the limits of genre or myth. This is a film where the balance of explicit and occult knowledge is kept carefully calibrated at all times. We know only what’s essential, even if what’s essential sometimes includes the seemingly trivial. Every character, even the most minor, is endowed with distinct attributes, eccentricities and preoccupations, most all of them concerning the imperfections of the flesh, while at the film’s centre lies an insectile machine inexplicably compelled to merge with flesh, blood and bone, luring all those who make contact with it into fathomless addiction.

When I first saw Cronos I was delighted to discover a horror film that seemed to share the labyrinthine thematic network of David Cronenberg’s corporeal cinema, so rich as it is in cerebral metaphor and arresting, guttural imagery. Yet Guillermo Del Toro, Cronos’ writer and director, would prove to possesses his own unique imaginative universe, one which embraces the fabulous and the supernatural in ways antithetical to Cronenberg’s materialist sensibility. Cronos was but the first giant step in a prolific career that would quickly, and rather deftly shift between the commercial and the personal. Nevertheless, even after The Devil’s Backbone (01) and Pan’s Labyrinth (06), Cronos remains my favourite Del Toro film. It’s not as lush nor as honed as the later work, but it has a shaggy perfection all its own, and that special air of an exuberant, exacting young artist trying everything for the first time. Del Toro has said that the worst thing a filmmaker can have is everything he or she needs, and maybe there’s something about Cronos that generates some extra electricity out of sheer hunger and determination. The film is now available on DVD and Blu-ray from Criterion.

So Jesús Gris (the great Federico Luppi, giving a marathon performance) unknowingly falls victim to the 400 year-old device. It comes to him by accident, latching onto first his hand and then his heart, its golden claws inserting themselves into his skin. Thenceforth desirous of human blood, Gris is haunted by need, and like any junky he endures humiliating scenes to fulfill this need, such as licking some stranger’s nosebleed off the marble floor of a public washroom. Gris is hunted by one Ángel de la Guardia (Ron Perlman, so funny and precise in his bits of behaviour), the nephew of a dying industrialist (Buñuel regular Claudio Brook) who knows of the device’s powers and wants it for himself. But Ángel would just as soon never find the device; he’s waited too long already for his uncle to die and leave him the generous inheritance which will finally allow him to get that nose job he’s dreamt of for so long.

Death and vanity loom over everything in Cronos, and the film brims with ghoulish humour. It also features moments of touching connection between Gris and his eight year-old granddaughter Aurora (Tamara Shanath). Aurora speaks little and rarely drives the action, yet she might be the film’s real heroine, hiding the device in her teddy bear—just like little Pearl hides the money in The Night of the Hunter (55)—and gradually learning to let go of her grandparent as a child’s first brush with death. That sense of loss and wonder is what lingers in the film’s final moments, and most especially its closing dedication to Del Toro’s grandmother, their relationship having inspired the one shared by Gris and Aurora. It’s a satisfying, somber resolution to a captivating journey through morbid pursuits, one that in all its errant Catholicism, its peculiar relationship to the United States, its wily suspicions about its colonialist past, and its inventive violence, could perhaps have only come from Mexico.

"To disappear into something greater than you...": a conversation with Willem Dafoe

It’s 2019. The citizenry of our unnamed setting are pale, listless, and seem perpetually hung-over, garbed in Prada undertaker. You can smoke again on subway platforms, where you can also grab a coffee that’s 20% blood. A devastating pandemic has rendered nearly everyone a vampire. The non-vampire population, whose fluids are essential to vampire survival, is rapidly dwindling. Social commentary abounds in Daybreakers: sustainability, the erosion of civil rights, drug addiction, and health care are all carefully woven as key metaphors into what’s otherwise a pretty familiar narrative that fuses horror movie tropes with science-fiction’s grandiose scope and goofy expository dialogue.

Daybreakers (2009)

Our hero, a vampire hematologist played by Ethan Hawke, is captured by renegade humans, led by the charismatic Lionel, who’ve devised a cure for the vampire disease. Dressed in baseball jacket, T-shirt and jeans, comfortably scarred and ready to kick undead ass, Lionel’s entrance literally breathes life into Daybreakers. It should come as no surprise that Lionel, who greatly helps to ensure this sophomore effort from the brothers Michael and Peter Spierig becomes something pretty fun, is played by Willem Dafoe. Both a character actor and an occasional leading man, Dafoe has one of the most interesting faces in movies, though those familiar with his extensive background in theatre, his long-time association with New York’s Wooster Group especially, or those who’ve seen his more flamboyantly physical performances in films like The Last Temptation of Christ, Wild at Heart, Body of Evidence, Shadow of the Vampire or Antichrist, know that Dafoe also inhabits one of the movies’ most extraordinary bodies, which at the age of 54 still seems capable of just about anything.

I had the great honour, and pleasure, of speaking with Dafoe about his work on Daybreakers and much more. An inspiring, unusually articulate and thoughtful yet utterly unpretentious actor, he was delightfully engaged and generous, making the most of the short time we had.

Shadow of the Vampire (00)

JB: What drew you to Daybreakers?

Willem Dafoe: It seemed like it would be fun. I was in the mood to do something like it. It’s always a combination of things that make you want to do something. I was very struck by the Spierigs. I saw their first film, Undead, and while I wouldn’t call it a masterpiece it certainly had some stuff in it. It was very inventive. I admired how they made it, practically self-financing it, doing all the effects in-house, by themselves. While the results aren’t always of the highest level technically, sometimes that homemade feeling has an immediacy I can really appreciate.

JB: Resourcefulness seems an especially attractive quality in your choice of collaborators.

WD: That’s true. A script or a character is not enough. Those are things you can only anticipate—I have more faith in people. I like being around people that are excited and passionate about what they do, and who are very clear about how I collaborate with them. With a horror movie, traditionally at least, the performances aren’t that important. You scratch your head and say you could get anybody to do this. But they way the Spierigs talked about the material was very specific and they wanted me to have some input, so it seemed like a creative proposal.

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (04)

JB: Your character, Lionel “Elvis” Cormac, has gone from being human to vampire and back again, he’s survived being roasted alive—nothing seems to get him too worked up. He’s about as cool as they come. Is it more fun to play these cocky, confident characters, or do you prefer playing someone more vulnerable, like Klaus Daimler from The Life Aquatic, for example?

WD: Klaus is pretty cocky in his own way; it’s just he caves in every once in a while. Basically, with Lionel, I liked the idea of this blue-collar custom car modification guy who’s working with a scientist and a woman to save the human race. That’s pretty good!

The Last Temptation of Christ (88)

JB: I’ve been watching your work since I was a kid, and I’ve been trying to decide which performances or collaborations have kept me the most engaged, and I find myself coming back to your work with Paul Schrader. If we count The Last Temptation of Christ you’ve worked with on six projects now. Would you describe your experiences with him as unique?

WD: Each one is very specific. You’re right that he’s the guy that I’ve worked with probably more than anyone else outside of the theatre. He always proposes something interesting to do. I like his writing. His approach is very pragmatic. He deals with very hot things in a very composed, clear way. That’s an interesting aesthetic.

JB: Do you have a sense as what it is he especially likes about you?

WD: I don’t. And I never pressed him on it. As I say, each time I’ve functioned differently. Three of the things that I did with him were quite small, because we’re friends and he knows I like to support his work and to be around him. With Affliction, I knew Russell Banks very well, the novelist. I liked the story very much. I liked the cast. That one I didn’t do so much for Paul but because of the whole project. With Adam Resurrected, he really needed me to do that to help get it financed. The Walker was just a quick thing, and I thought it was interesting. The more expansive ones, Light Sleeper and Auto-Focus, those were just flat-out good roles.

Light Sleeper (92), Auto-Focus (02), Adam Resurrected (08)

JB: I always felt like Light Sleeper was a sort of turning point in your career.

WD: It was important to me because it was a role that was very thinly veiled. I could have been that guy if my life was different.

JB: There seemed to be less of a mask.

WD: Yes, less of a mask. I enjoy working with a mask, but that was very sincere. As far as it being a turning point, it’s hard to say. It had its admirers, but it wasn’t widely seen.

Wild at Heart (90)

JB: I imagine Schrader as very clear. Do you find you’re able to respond to direction that’s more abstract? I recall another interview you did where you said that while working on Wild at Heart David Lynch once asked that a scene go from “a maroon to a deep brown.”

WD: [Laughs] I figure that’s the most interesting part of my job. Every time I do something, I adapt to the dominant way of working. I almost don’t have a preference. I know I have certain tendencies, but I like to fight those tendencies. The truth is every time you approach something you reinvent your process. I think of myself less as an actor sometimes than as a person who makes things. In order to do that I usually attach myself to a director with a very strong vision of what they want.

JB: You recently had the opportunity to work with Werner Herzog. He’s habitually worked with actors who are either infamously eccentric, such as Klaus Kinski, or who aren’t really actors at all, such as Bruno S. or the stars of his many documentaries. Was he an effective communicator?

WD: He was very clear. My role was very clear. It’s not that I don’t try to make it a full character, but the role I played in My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is very much a device. It’s a case where I have to have a certain clarity, a certain tone, to enter the world and serve the story. Maybe it wasn’t the sexiest collaboration in the world, but he’s a very bright guy and he’s great to be around. I had a good time working with him and I hope to do it again in a more expansive way, where there’s more stakes emotionally for me.

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? (09)

JB: I wonder how he directed you in that peculiar scene where you and Michael Peña are sort of hovering very still outside of suspected killer Brad McCullum’s house for a long while. I guess with your particular theatrical background your task in that scene can seem more straightforward than it might for other actors.

WD: I don’t ask. I try to be receptive. You’re right that because of my theatre background I’m a little more flexible. If you remember, there was that beautiful song playing, that spiritual. [Singing] “I was born to preach the gospel…” Remember? Now, that song is beautiful, and where he places it in the story is beautiful, so as an actor I can invest myself in the pretending, in the situation of being a cop out there, but at the same time there’s another part of me that’s listening to the song and taking in how beautiful it is. It’s a magical cinema moment that I can absolutely get behind.

Idiot Savant (09)

JB: You recently closed a show in New York with Richard Foreman. How was that?

WD: I worked with him 25 years ago. I’ve known him for years. He’s always been one of my favourite theatre-makers. He’s one of the great granddaddies of the American avant-garde as far as I’m concerned. Many people I know, including Elizabeth LeCompte, who I worked with for so many years at the Wooster Group, were influenced so much by his work. He says Idiot Savant will be his last show. Some people don’t quite believe him, but I sort of do. I felt honored that he chose me—the show very much hung on my character. He’s got a very rigid way. He’s very clear about what he likes and doesn’t like. But I found that it was one of the most satisfying collaborations I’ve ever had.

JB: Different as they are, do you find that your theatre and film work feed one another?

WD: Always.

JB: Are you aware of learning tricks of the trade, so to speak?

WD: I don’t think those are necessarily what you learn. You learn a character thing, a personal philosophy of how you activate yourself. This thing I said about receptivity, that’s something I learned doing theatre. There’s a physicality that I’m reminded of when doing theatre that’s typically missing in film, where sometimes it seems that everything conspires against you using your body. Film is so influenced by television that the close-up has kind of polluted film language. There’s a tendency to act from the shoulders up. But to answer your question, I know nothing! [Laughs] All I know is that I feel stronger, more confident, very turned-on when I’m working in the theatre, and that helps my work in film.

Platoon (86)

JB: As you said, some of your strengths an actor are receptivity and flexibility, but have you ever had to fight for a choice you believe correct?

WD: Nope. It’s funny. When I’m approaching a scene I have certain things that I anticipate—those are usually the things you should let go. The stuff that you cling to or that you’re proud of sometimes is the stuff you should wriggle free of. Obviously I make choices, but I make them instinctively. When I don’t feel comfortable, or when I’m limited, I’m very vocal, very clear. I try to find out why I feel stuck. But I don’t think of conveying something. It’s more a feeling, a sense of being in a world, having the story work on you. When I fight for things I’m usually fighting for a feeling that I’m on the right track.

JB: Is it hard to watch yourself in movies?

WD: I go through phases. Sometimes I can’t stand it. Sometimes I sort of enjoy it. Generally I try not to dwell on things. When watching your work, if you like what you see it doesn’t necessarily help you, and if you don’t like what you see it doesn’t necessarily help you. There’s a part of you that wants to know how it turned out in a very practical way, but as far as learning lessons or studying it, I can’t do that. I’m too close to it. It’s a record. It prompts associations, and that’s all I can think about. The experience of making the movie, for me, is always stronger than the movie itself.

To Live and Die in L.A. (85)

JB: What about watching something you did say, 20 years ago?

WD: That’s even worse, because I’m thinking things like, my god, you look like such a little kid! Suddenly I have an onslaught of memories of my life that don’t even include the movie. It becomes the family album, a meditation, a stirring of memory that can be disturbing, can be pleasurable.

JB: I know Jim Jarmusch never watches his movies, not even when he’s asked to do audio commentaries.

WD: That makes sense. But if I’m at a film festival, let’s say, and something’s playing, I don’t close my eyes. On the other hand I don’t say, hey, I’ve got a little time on my hands—let’s take a look at Streets of Fire! Let’s see how that one holds up!

JB: Your work has been so diverse, but I wonder if you get a lot of scripts that seem to be trying to cater to a Willem Dafoe type, whatever that may be?

WD: I’ve been doing this long enough that hopefully there are different Willem Dafoe types for different people. I feel like as I get older the range of what gets offered to me is, oddly enough, broader. I shouldn’t brag, but even as movies are shrinking I feel like there’s actually more for me to do.

Inside Man (06)

JB: Do you think you’ll be doing this for the rest of your life?

WD: I do. You know, I’m an idiot! I love performing. I love the state it puts me in. It allows for this experience of working on something with people where you don’t know quite what it is. It parallels life. It’s a wonderful game, and the playing of it is a wonderful way to disappear into something greater than you. We all seek that in our different ways, but I’ve very much found it in this strange trade.

Young lust, blood lust, trust: Let the Right One In

It’s 1982, and in some anonymous Stockholm housing complex 12-year-old Oskar stands knife in hand before the window in his ginch, rehearsing revenge, or, more accurately, assuming the role of his oppressor. His reflection in the glass is doubled, rendering him ghostly in our first glimpse of him. Oskar is ash-blonde, elfin, soft-spoken, inward, and mercilessly bullied at school by a bunch of boys who look like girls. His parents are divorced. He’s an only child and seems virtually alone in the world. But on this night he sees a strange car pull up. A middle-aged man and a little girl are moving in to the apartment next door. The man immediately sets about covering up their windows with cardboard. For Oskar, who keeps a private scrapbook of news clippings on murder and death, the weirdness and secrecy that surrounds his new neighbours appeals instantly. Soon, this curiosity will turn into heartsickness. Oskar is going to fall in love for the first time.


Preadolescent romance isn’t something typically located in the comfort zone of most movies, but Let the Right One In isn’t most movies. Oskar and Eli will connect the same way a lot of kids connect, through a sense of mutual alienation. Yet Eli’s particular sense of exclusion is more acute, and more permanent. When Oskar asks how old she is she tells him 12… though she’s been 12 for a long time. When he tells her he likes her, she asks him if he’d like her even if she weren’t a girl. He’s puzzled, but that’s just part of love’s delirium. It takes Oskar a while to accept what we’ve by now figured out. Eli is a vampire. This creates complications. But it also places Eli, who recognizes the genuine fascination with blood in Oskar’s murderous fantasies, in the role of his protector.

Let the Right One In, directed by Tomas Alfredson and freely adapted by John Ajvide Lindqvist from his own novel, is something special. It offers a highly original spin on the weary corpse that is the vampire film, yet rather than clutter itself with irony or obvious metaphors, it completely respects the rules of vampire mythology, something evidenced in the title itself. It is hushed, it’s pace methodical. It dazzles even while it draws you in like a hot bath. The sense of isolation felt by Oskar and Eli, so perfectly embodied with childish awkwardness by Kåre Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson, is heightened by the use of very shallow depth of field—it’s rare that more than a single character is in focus at any time. The pervasive snow and night conjure an atmosphere of crisp wintry dreamscape in which colours stand out, vivid and handsome. Close-ups or medium shots are starkly contrasted by static wide shots in scenes of violence, so that the violence plays out before our eyes as though on a stage.

This stylization is woven into the look and sound and story itself. Eli’s guardian –perhaps slave?—gases a teenager in the woods—a more awkward form of abduction is hard to imagine. When he strings up his victim from the ankles are prepares to drain his blood it’s hard not to notice how the woods are lit up like a football field. But Let the Right One In never tries to pass itself off as gritty realism. Many of the special effects are lovingly old school. There’s perverse pleasure in the spectacle of a woman rolling down a flight of stairs covered in rabid cats. It’s the child of Val Lewton, IKEA and Sally Mann,  and it's all somehow closer to fairytale, albeit a nightmarish one riddled with ambiguities surrounding death, child autonomy, sexuality and gender—something dealt with explicitly in the novel but wisely only hinted at in this far more subjective treatment. Screw Twilight.