John Lyttle on film

Sometimes a movie is all incidentals. Sometimes it has to be. From Dusk to Dawn (below right), for instance, bills itself as a vampire flick, but has absolutely nothing to add to cinema's vampire lore, while its plot - or plots - are shamelessly borrowed from Cape Fear and The Evil Dead, the latter stitched to the former in a manner Baron Frankenstein might consider crude.

Still, it's hard to care. There are too many treats, jokes, stunts and gross FX along the way.

Here's Quentin Tarantino sprouting fangs (weirdly enough, they suit him) and being held in place to be staked alive: very pre-video-nasty flap.

There's Mexico's top female star, Salma Hayek, wearing not very much at all, doing a hooch dance (with a big snake, right) to rival Grace Jones a'creepin' and a'crawlin' in Vamp: she's the perfect performer to be top of the bill at a place called the Twisted Titty (she's also the perfect performer to tell George Clooney "Welcome to slavery").

And speaking of twisted, how many flicks offer the punter a guitar made from a human torso? Or a bullet-spitting codpiece?

Or allows Fred Williamson to deliver the most absurd Vietnam vet speech yet to grace the screen?

Or gives you a shot of Juliette Lewis's feet so up close and personal that you can count the hairs on her toes?

Frankly, how can the recently reactivated Kubrick compete? It's the mood of the moment: big, tired junky genre pics played fast and furious and funny, transforming audiences' low expectations into a shared joke. From Dusk Till Dawn drains its own blood - which might be its contribution to cinema's vampire lore, after all.