From Dusk Till Dawn: Season One

“So you know about the blood cult? The one that asks its faithful to eat the body and drink the blood of its savior.”–Professor Tanner (Jake Busey)

When you’re an established filmmaker launching your very own television network, it would behoove you to feature one of your more popular properties as the focal point of the promotion. In 2013, Robert Rodriguez unveiled the El Rey network, an entertainment project focused on Latino audiences within the United States. In order to draw attention to the fledgling network, Rodriguez decided to expand the world of From Dusk Till Dawn, his ultra-violent-ultra-cool 1996 directorial effort, into a full-fledged television series.

     
Building off of the basic structure of the feature film, From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series eschews some of the more traditional western tropes of the vampire narrative to develop a distinctly fresh Mesoamerican take on the mythos, complete with an ingenious incorporation of the mythical Hero Twins of the Popol Vuh Maya text who descend into the underworld in order to avenge their dead father.

     
Within the series, the character of Santanico Pandemonium, played here by Eiza González, still embodies the elements of the Lilith myth similar to her cinematic counterpart. Her origin is very similar to that of the first Eve, as she abjures and rebels against her subjugated role as the inspiration for religious blood offerings and flees, only to be pursued and turned into a demon.

     

As I discuss in Such a Dark Thing, Lilith is a Jewish legend that has found its most common telling in the ninth century text Alphabet of Ben Sira. Briefly summarized, Lilith was created by God as the first wife of Adam. As she rightfully viewed herself on equal footing to that of Adam, Lilith refused to take the submissive role in their sexual copulations. This did not sit well with Adam; therefore Lilith fled Eden in order to live independently. Yahweh, however, demanded her return, and sent angels after her to secure her homecoming. She refused, even when threatened with death. The Lilith legend weaves a fascinating tapestry of a woman unashamedly open about her sexuality and the power it brings her, and one who seeks agency in determining when and how that eroticism and influence is expressed. As such, the Lilith narrative has found a foothold in the larger vampire mythos within popular culture.

     
However, within the From Dusk Till Dawn series, there is an added layer that effectively removes any potential Lilith inspired feminist subtext from her arc, as Santanico is also a prisoner of the Nine Lords of the underworld, once again finding herself a victim of subjugation who is forced into her role as queen of the vampires and trapped within the temple that doubles as the Titty Twister bar. In addition, her freedom is entirely dependent on the efforts of the Gecko brothers (played by D.J. Cotrona and Zane Holtz), turning her into nothing more than a damsel in distress who must rely on the patriarchy to grant her any type of agency.

    

Despite uneven reviews, From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series is violent, gory, funny, addictive, and retains the same razor sharp dialogue of Tarantino’s original script while successfully moving beyond the somewhat shallow characterizations of the film to develop a cast of characters that are worth caring about and rooting for. Most fascinating within the series is a subtle undercurrent of subtext that involves radically dissimilar and competing theological frameworks as the blood gods of Christian myth and Maya lore jockey for attention and prestige through the expressed ideologies of the various characters within the narrative.