Rish Outfield's reviews
I don't get all the hissing and scratching. This was a pretty cool movie. Now, it wasn't a classic. It wasn't one of those flicks you watch on an annual basis or name your child after, but hey, for a direct-to-video sequel, it was great.
The plot was fairly simple: five Texas criminals head down to Mexico to rob a bank. Unfortunately, before they all rendezvous, one of them runs afoul of the creatures that inhabit the Titty Twister bar. The outlaws still go on to do the bank job, but now have to deal with vampirism as well as the police.
The story was good, the pacing was good. I felt the vampires fit a bit more in this one than the other two. The flick had a huge body count, but the deaths were usually fun and clever. Early on, I was thinking, "Jesús H. Cristo, this has the most innovative cinematography I've EVER seen!" Director of Photography Philip Lee played with every camera trick and angle imaginable, like a bunch of film students with a million dollars on their hands. After a while though, it got distracting. As did its predecessor, it features the makeup of KNB Studios. During some of the sequences, I thought they might be the best CGI vampire effects I had seen. The computer-generated bats actually looked like bats, if you can believe it. Said bat attacks went on too long, though. The dialogue isn't quite what From Dusk Till Dawn was, but that was Tarantino. Still, there were some funny lines here too. It was good stuff, not straight to video quality. The only cheap thing is the cast, filled with mostly unknowns, and couple of familiar faces including Danny Trejo (as the immortal bartender), Muse Watson (that fisherman guy from I Know What You Did Last Summer), and ice-cube-eyed Robert Patrick (from Terminator 2 and "The X-Files"). Also nice was an attractive Mexican in a sex and subsequent shower scene. Bruce Campbell and Tiffany Amber Thiessen appear in the movie within the movie, but in such a throwaway part, it was almost sad (kind of like when Anthony Edwards appears for thirty seconds in Revenge of the Nerds 2: Nerds In Paradise). I don't know really what more to say, I enjoyed Texas Blood Money, and found it superior to the more highly-praised sequel The Hangman's Daughter. True, the crazy camerawork tended to go a bit overboard, but some of those shots were absolutely amazing. I think that was the biggest style choice that set this apart from any other video horror flick. Also, the special effects, makeup and action sequences, though not breathtaking, were respectable, and hey, they didn't have to put that much work into it.
Best Scare: The vampires, usually burly and growling like grizzly bears, have a neat tendency to pop into frame a lot.
I'd Recommend It To: Fans of the first film.
Note: I checked out other reviews for this thing, and these idiots were using phrases like "A zero out of ten" and "worst movie I ever seen." Don't believe them. Just like the imagination-free pukes that can't stand Halloween 3 because Michael Myers wasn't in it, these dimestore Roger Eberts can't see past the George Clooney-sized hole in this film's storyline. Hey, you sisters try writing a screenplay, dollars-to-donuts it won't measure up to Texas Blood Money's.