From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money

It goes the genre-blending of the original one better: it melds the heist movie, the vampire movie, and the good-ole-boy movie. The co-writer Duane Whitaker, who has made a number of witty and flavorfully scripted independent movies, is probably responsible for the Texas atmosphere, and the idiosyncracy of the gang of redneck layabouts who make up the cast. Despite the stripped-down special effects, you might feel grateful to the movie for being the first B picture in eons to feature actual characters. Robert Patrick is superb as the hero--who, in the fashion of the first film, seems convincingly about to be revealed as a hotheaded sociopath, then veers in a very different direction. Muse Watson as the safecracker C.W. and Bo Svenson, now ripened in late middle aged, is marvellous as the skeptical sheriff--he could play doubles with L.Q. Jones. The movie isn't much, but it has actors, characters and dialogue--three things that are by now extinct on the direct-to-video shelf.