Trivia for
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
* The dialogue between Kate and Seth while awaiting the final vampire attack ("use 'em on the first couple of these parasites that try to bite you") is virtually word for word from Assault on Precinct 13 (1976). Scott Fuller is wearing a T-shirt with 'Precinct 13' on it.
* Cameo: [Lawrence Bender] the film's executive producer is sitting at the first booth at the diner where we first see Jacob, Kate and Scott.
* The name of the street that Jakob Fuller has to drive down to get to the Titty Twister is called Deguayo. That is also the name of the "cut throat song" played by the villians to John Wayne in Rio Bravo (1959).
* This is one of several movies directed by Robert Rodriguez that feature the tattooed tough guy, Danny Trejo. He was also in 'Desperado (1995)' and 'Spy Kids (2001)' . In all three movies, his character had a "knife" name: Navajas in Desperado (Navajas is Spanish for "knives", which his character used as throwing weapons), Razor Charlie in From Dusk Till Dawn, and Isador "Machete" Cortez in Spy Kids.
* The line "I've got six little friends and they can all run faster than you can" is a reference to That Darn Cat! (1965), in which Neville Brand says the same thing to a kidnapping victim.
* The exchange involving Kate's line, "What's in Mexico?" and Richie's response "Mexicans" is from Wild Bunch, The (1969).
* The band playing in the "Titty Twister" is Tito & Tarantula, featuring Robert Rodriguez
* The introduction Razor Charlie gives Santanico Pandemonium ("The mistress of the macabre, the epitome of evil, the most sinister woman to crawl on the face of the Earth.") is taken directly from the intro used for 1970s Los Angeles TV Horror Host "Seymour", played by the late Larry Vincent (and predecessor to "Elvira").
* The "Fuller" family are named after writer-director Samuel Fuller, one of the primary influences on Quentin Tarantino's (and everybody's) style of "pulp" cinema.
* The name of the movie is taken from the signs found on drive-ins. These signs indicate the length of the shows, which ran "from dusk till dawn". The movie is full of references to midnight movies and films which were often intended for teenagers to watch late at night from their cars.
* In the original script, Quentin Tarantino made all the Fullers and the Geckos survive the ordeal, but changed it because he felt it'd be more exciting with victims.
* Some of the growling noises of the vampire dog that Sex Machine turns into were provided by Robert Rodriguez's baby son who was just learning to talk
* The famous line "No thanks, I've already had a wife" was improvised by George Clooney.
* The characters of Sex Machine and Frost were originally written with the other way around: Sex Machine was to be the muscular, scarred, leather-wearing biker while Frost was to be a more slender (yet deadly) individual.
* The film was banned in Ireland until the year 2000
* There was a special makeup effect in which one of the stripper-vampires has a large mouth instead of a normal stomach. In the particular scene, she shoves a bar attendant's head in the large mouth, and bites it off. The effect was so graphic that writer/actor Quentin Tarantino didn't even want to see it. The scene can be accessed in the outtakes section on the special edition DVD.
* Tim Roth and Steve Buscemi were approached to play Pete Bottoms but neither could fit it into their schedules.
* 'Erik Estrada' was lined up to play Carlos the gangster that Cheech Marin plays at the end.
* Originally, Santanico Pandemonium was called Blonde Death. Tarantino decided to go for a latin/mexican star, so he used Salma Hayek after seeing her in Desperado (1995). The name Santanico Pandemonium came from the title of a gory Mexican horror movie which Tarantino had seen on the shelves of the video store he worked in.
* Rodriguez and Tarantino met in 1992 at the Toronto Film Festival. Rodriguez was promoting EL MARIACHI and Tarantino was promoting RESERVOIR DOGS. Elizabeth Avellen, Rodriguez's wife comments that, "it was like watching two guys who had, like, known each other since kindergarden. They like the same kind of movies."
* During the time when Tarantino was writing PULP FICTION and Rodriguez was writing DESPERADO, the two of them were talking and Rodriguez was talking about DESPERADO. Tarantino mentioned the script he had written for KNB and that it was set in Mexico. Rodriguez asked if he could read it and the next day came to Tarantino very excited about directing it. Tarantino asked Rodriguez if he would indeed direct it if Tarantino rewrote it and Rodriguez said that if Tarantino rewrote it he would direct it.
* The screenplay for From Dusk Till Dawn was writen by Tarantino (from a story by Robert Kurtzman) in 1990. The idea was to produce a script that would showcase the talents of Kurtzman's make-up and effects company KURTZMAN, NICOTERO & BERGER EFX GROUP, INC. KNB paid Tarantino only fifteen hundred dollars for the job, his first paid writing gig, which was just enough so that he would be able to quit his video store job and write the script full time. As part of the deal, KNB also agreed to provide the make-up effects for Tarantino's directorial debut - RESERVOIR DOGS. In addition to being responsible for the infamous "ear scene" in that film, they also produced the make-up effects for Tarantino's second film, PULP FICTION.
* Seth Gecko's fire tattoo that George Clooney sports in the film had to be removed with gasoline and a blow dryer at the end of each day.
* The Gecko Brothers' destination, El Ray, has a history in movies. It is also a mythical location in Jim Thompson's book THE GETAWAY, which has been twice adapted as a feature film. In that story there are two lovers who are also fleeing capture, and their destination is El Ray. As Tarantino puts it, "When there's nowhere else to go, you go to El Ray."
* From Dusk Till Dawn features two actors already familure with it's B picture sensibilities. Tom Savini (Sex Machine) is an special effects maestro and the director of the NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD remake and Fred Williamson (Frost) is a former football player and hero of numerous blaxploitation films.
* Tarantino planted references to some of his other films in From Dusk Till Dawn . Among them; When Seth returns to the hotel with hamburgers and beer, the hamburgers are from Big Kahuna Burger, the Hawaiian fast food joint that is the topic of some discussion in PULP FICTION. Also, on the dash board of the Gecko Brothers' car is a pack of Red Apple cigarettes, a reference to both TRUE ROMANCE and PULP FICTION.
* For From Dusk Till Dawn, KNB reused some of the effects they had done for previous films, including body parts from DR. GIGGLES and well as Marvin's head from PULP FICTION, which rests on the bar in the Titty Twister.
* Executive Producer Lawrence Bender as well as Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero, and Howard Berger of KNB all appear in the film as patrons of the Titty Twister.
* Before working together on From Dusk Till Dawn, George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino had already established a working relationship when Tarantino directed the second year season finale of ER, the top rated television series that Clooney co-stars in. The episode was titled "Motherhood."
* It was From Dusk Till Dawn that got George Clooney the job as Batman in BATMAN AND ROBIN, the fourth installment of the mega-popular Batman franchise. As BATMAN AND ROBIN director Joel Schumacher puts it, "I was totally unaware of George and never watched too much TV, so I didn't know about ER. Then, when the ads for From Dusk Till Dawn started coming out, I started looking at his face. I sat there and saw something compelling about that one-sheet and began drawing the Batman cowl on him." It seems that Robert Rodriguez has achieved one of the goals that he set while filming From Dusk Till Dawn; that of making George Clooney a movie star.
* In order to create a brotherly rapport between them, Quentin Tarantino asked George Clooney to hang out with him over the summer before From Dusk Till Dawn was shot. They spent their time barhoping, talking shop at Tarantino's house, and they even attended the MTV Movie Awards together.
* George Clooney was not Tarantino's original choice for the role of Seth Gecko. He was considering Robert Blake (LOST HIGHWAY), but Rodriguez convinced him otherwise after he became fascinated by Clooney's brooding persona on the late-night disscussion group POLITICALLY INCORRECT.
* The idea of the Titty Twister being a converted Azteck temple came from Robert Rodriguez's Mexican heritage. "There were actual vampire goddess statues and things during the Aztec times," Rodriguez explains. "What this particular cluture did was they would sacrifice to keep the sun alive and honor the vampire goddess. In pictures of statues of her, she has the hearts of 13 men around her neck and she has a skull head. They would seduce people with snakes and then tear them apart and get the blood because the blood kept the sun alive. So the idea is that this den of vampires in an old Aztec temple has, over the years, been turned into a sleazy bar in Mexico to continue to attract victims. All of the dancing girls are actually dancing a ritual dance before they go and kill everybody."
* During a low point in Clooney's carrer, Tarantino contacted him about reading for a part in RESERVOIR DOGS, but Clooney's heart just wasn't in it. "You really blew that one," he was later told by Tarantino.
* When the Titty Twister's bartender, Razor Charlie (Danny Trejo) is killed on one of the pool tables, his eye balls roll into two of the corner pockets as he burns up. The sound designers used a pool ball sound effect to underscore the joke.
* During the filming of From Dusk Till Dawn, Clooney's schedual was very crunched, he spent most of the week shooting Dusk and was only available for one day a week on the set of ER. During that time he didn't even have the opportunity to change out of costume for an appearance on THE TONIGHT SHOW. He attended in Seth Gecko's black suit and boots, complete with tattoo. He was told by the host, Jay Leno, that he looked very "cool" and "hip."
* The pelvis gun that Sex Machine sports in the film is a prop from Rodriguez's previous film, DESPERADO.
* Chongo Beer, which is also from DESPERADO, is one of the beers available at the Titty Twister.
* The crew of From Dusk Till Dawn had to add weekends into the shooting schedule because George Clooney had to be back on the set of his television series, ER, at least one day a week to begin filming the season's new episodes. It was a confusing time for Clooney; "I'd want to give a kid a lollipop and say, 'Put this in your mouth, you little f*ck,'" he says. "And then on the movie set, I'd shoot people and want to fix'em."
* For the designs of the various vampire prosthetics, KNB used Robert Rodriguez's own cartoon sketches. Rodriguez was responsible for the vampire with the mouth in her stomach, which they dubbed "the stomach mouth vamp-bitch," and also for the vampire version of Quentin Tarantino's character, Ritchie, which he calls "the Mr. Hyde version of Quentin." Sometimes, however, Rodriguez's designs proved to be too gruesome for even him once KNB brought them to life. As Greg Nicotero of KNB puts it, "Robert walked on the set and said "Oh, it's horrible, it's disgusting" and we said "Oh, it's the one you designed' and he's like 'Oh, you gues are way sicker than me."
* A unique part of From Dusk Till Dawn's marketing campaign were two flavors of soda created by a soda company called The Skeleteens. The drink was bottled and designed to reflect the feel of the film and so it came in two versions; Red, to represent human blood, and Green, to represent the vampire's blood. Unfortunately the soda is no longer in production.
* In order to avoid possible censor problems, Tarantino decided to make the vampire's blood green instead of red. "I wanted the vampires to be able to bleed freely and flow through rivers of blood," he said. "I made their blood green so there's no mistake who's getting killed here. You can kill as many vampires as you want. They don't exist!"
* Michael Parks, who plays Earl McGraw, is one of Quentin Tarantino's favorite actors and was actually the second person cast in From Dusk Till Dawn. Tarantino himself was the first person.
* Brenda Hillhouse, who plays the Gecko Brother's hostage Gloria Hill, was Quentin Tarantino's acting coach.
* Juliette Lewis was interested in working with Tarantino and when she got a look at his From Dusk Till Dawn script she called him up and asked if he would be interested in her playing the part of Kate. Once they came to an agreement, Tarantino rewrote and expanded the part of Kate, feeling that he should not waste such a talented actress on such a small part.
* When Seth is pinned to the ground under Santanico Pandemonium and the vampire queen reverts to her true form, fangs and all, it is not actually Salma Hayek under all that makeup anymore, but rather her stand-in.
* Michael Parks also plays the role of Texas Ranger Earl McGraw in another Tarantino film: Kill Bill vol. 1. His some James returns to his role of McGraw's son from Texas Blood Money in the film as well.
From: Internet Movie Database and Mark Stewart's From Dusk Till Dawn Page