Another formative film experience

A lot of people don't remember that From Dusk Til Dawn was banned in Ireland for 7 years back in the late 90's. A George Clooney film banned. Ridiculous ain't it. Of course it was because of cause célèbre Quentin Tarantino but the official reason given was it's "irresponsible and totally gratuitous" violence coming in the wake of the Dunblane school massacre in Scotland. What vampires have to do with a school shooting is anyone's guess but sure...

Banning a movie made it irresistible of course and in 1997 when I was in first year of college in Waterford a pub called the Old Stand decided to have a film night and show it to draw in the crowds. It was a great idea and a big change from listening to The Prodigy in a melting nightclub but instead of letting the news of it travel through the student grapevine they decided to advertise it in the local newspaper with the tagline "THE MOVIE THEY TRIED TO BAN." Guess what happened next? An Garda Siochana made a quiet visit to the pub and warned them in no uncertain terms that they'd be breaking the law if they showed the film. Breaking the law. A film Irish people could watch on Sky Movies quite legally but play a VHS in a pub and there could be court appearances and fines......

We were all disappointed until little posters started popping up all around the college the following week. It wasn't hard to work them out. A picture of Bela Lugosi's Count Dracula on one half of the poster and the mexican stand off from Reservoir Dogs on the other with a big + symbol in the middle. There was a date and a venue, the Waterford Institute of Technology auditorium. Below is a reasonable facsimile of the image.

Goddamn that was a wild night. Half the crowd stumbling in from the college bar and the rest there to worship at the altar of Tarantino. You'd laugh at him now but back then post Pulp Fiction the man was wildly popular. Add in Clooney at the height of his ER fame and the fact the the film was banned and you had a recipe for a successful screening. The whooping at Salma Hayek as Santanico Pandemonium, the shocked laughter at Cheech Marin's pussy speech and at everything Fred Williamson, Danny Trejo and Tom Savini got up to and the absolute carnage occuring onscreen. Buffy The Vampire Slayer was on season 2 at the time as well and that attracted even more vampire fans but these ones were used to family friendly, BBC2 at 6pm vampires. Not the tearing and ripping and disemboweling ones we had here. I remember sitting there lapping it all up, grinning like a fool. Even then friends I had to convince to come enjoyed it. It's always nice to recommend a film to someone and they enjoy it.

The film hasn't aged well at all. Parts of it are very guilty of the worst of QT's excesses despite the fact that Robert Rodriguez directed it and other parts ( the "mongoloid conversation") will make you want to die. But it gave me a hell of a night and a great memory so I'll always have a soft spot for it.