From Dusk 'Til Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter
P. J. Pesce
Initial release: October 31st, 1999 (USA)
Sometimes you just want something stupid. The original From Dusk 'Til Dawn wasn't exactly sharp kino, but it was entertaining enough, especially after the midpoint. I never saw the sequel, but the third one, From Dusk ’Til Dawn 3: The Hangman’s Daughter, is just a masterpiece of brilliant stupidity. Even better, we get Danny Trejo, and we don't have Quentin Tarantino going "nice feet" to the female lead.
Set sometime around 1913, the story opens with Ambrose Bierce (yeah, the Owl Creek Bridge guy who mysteriously disappeared during the Mexican Revolution) working his way through Mexico. The town he stopped at is having an execution today, and as he prepares to hop a stagecoach for the next town, the condemned bandit escapes. The hangman is a cruel man with a temper who’s not above beating his own daughter in public; as the bandit escapes, taking the daughter with him, the hangman and a bunch of soldiers chase after him. Ultimately Bierce, the religious couple he’s with, the hangman and his troops, and the bandits all wind up one way or another at an isolated brothel in the middle of nowhere just as it starts to get dark. Sound familiar?
I'm not going to lie to you. This movie is dumb as shit. It is mindblowingly ridiculous. You will not be intellectually enriched by this film. But I absolutely cannot say it’s a bad film, because, in spite of occasional workmanlike directing by P.J. Pesce (who made the MTV cartoon The Adventures of Chico and Guapo), it’s just too ludicrous to hate.
Robert Rodriguez didn’t direct this one, but he did write it, and it’s got his zany sense of humor and love for rip-roaring brawls all over it. This is a goofy grindhouse outing like only Rodriguez could do, culminating in an honest-to-god tango dance number in black and white. In a way this prequel is very much a historical mirror of the original film. While both films have a grim, even unpleasant first half, as night falls and the situation turns dire the tone is flipped on its head and it’s just wonderfully stupid. Even the closing shots are similar.
For a direct-to-video movie starring a mostly B-lister cast (including Orlando Jones of all people) there’s a lot to recommend it for. It’s got vampires, gore, and Danny Trejo — in other words it’s exactly what you’d expect from a From Dusk ‘Til Dawn movie.
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