List of From Dusk till Dawn characters
There are many characters in the From Dusk till Dawn film series.
From Dusk till Dawn
Character |
Actor |
Description |
Seth Gecko |
George Clooney |
Seth Gecko is the main protagonist and brief antagonist in the 1996 film, From Dusk till Dawn and it's 2001 spin-off video game of the same name. Seth Gecko and his brother Richie are two dangerous criminals on a wild crime spree. Compared to his violent brother, Seth is a more calm, rational individual, always intending to keep his word to release his hostages if they comply with his demands. He was hampered by his brother's more violent nature. After kidnapping a father and his two kids, the Geckos head South to a Mexican bar to hide out in safety. After they face the bar's vampire clientele, they're forced to team up with their hostages in order to make it out alive. In the spin-off video game, Seth has been condemned to death for the Titty Twister murders and is now in the Rising Sun high-security prison, a converted tanker floating off the coast of New Orleans. Seth briefly appears in a photo cameo in the black comedy Curdled. |
Richie Gecko |
Quentin Tarantino |
Richie Gecko is a deranged rapist and murderer who, along with his brother Seth, kidnaps a preacher and his two kids and flees for the safety of a remote nightclub in Mexico. Unluckily for Kate Fuller (daughter of the preacher), she is the prime priority of Richie's intentions. He suffers from schizophrenia. It also appears that he only rapes those he thinks that want to have sex, for example, when he sees Kate Fuller he imagines her asking him "Richie, would you do me a favor and eat my pussy for me... please?" Unfortunately for the Geckos, the nightclub is full of vampires; Richie is murdered by dancer vampire Satánico Pandemonium, who bites him on the neck. Although it is believed he's dead, he comes back as a vampire. Seth is forced to kill him by jamming a pool cue into his chest. Richie briefly appears in a photo cameo in the black comedy Curdled. |
Jacob Fuller |
Harvey Keitel |
Jacob Fuller and his two children, Kate and Scott, have been kidnapped by outlaws Seth and Richie Gecko. The Geckos demand that the family sneak the convicts across the border and into Mexico using Jacob's RV. After doing this, the Geckos force the family to join them at the Titty Twister, where the place turns out to the inhibited by the vampires. Jacob and his family are forced to team up with Seth in order to make it out alive. Jacob is bitten is by "Sex Machine" but continues to help the others to battle the vampires until transforming. He was killed by the Scott with his revolver, after he bit him. |
Kate Fuller |
Juliette Lewis |
Kate is kidnapped, along with her father and brother, by the Gecko brothers. Immediately, Richie is smitten with her, albeit only with lustful intentions. When the vampires reveal themselves, Kate is quick to jump into action and help destroy the monstrosities. Apart from Seth Gecko, Kate is the only person to make it out of the Titty Twister alive. In the end, she is left with the camper (and money Seth gave her) after Seth refuses to let her go with him to El Rey. |
Scott Fuller |
Ernest Liu |
Scott is kidnapped, along with his father and sister, by the Gecko brothers. He was bitten by his father Jacob, who had just transformed into a vampire. Scott managed to kill his undead father, but was then attacked by a group of vampires who proceeded to dismember him. He was killed by his sister Kate in an act of mercy, along with the vampires that were attacking him. |
Esmerelda/ Santanico Pandemonium |
Salma Hayek Ara Celi |
She was portrayed by Salma Hayek in the first film and Ara Celi in the third. Santanico is the vampire princess and main attraction at the Titty Twister. She begins the vampires' feeding frenzy when she kills Richie Gecko in a spur-of-the-moment surge of bloodlust, triggered by his bleeding hand. She kills a second character in the Deleted Scenes section of the DVD. Santanico, in human form, sits on the lap of a dazed and wounded biker (played by Gregory Nicotero of KNB Effects). Holding his gaze for a moment, a second mouth that resembles a monstrous snake erupts from her mouth and bites his head off. She is killed by Seth Gecko, who shoots down a chandelier to impale her. |
Kelly Houge |
Kelly Preston |
Houge is a newscaster who is reporting on the Gecko Brothers rampage early on in the film. Houge appears in the black comedy Curdled. |
Earl McGraw |
Michael Parks |
McGraw is a Texas Ranger who is killed by Richie Gecko in the opening scene of the film. After appearing, he has since made cameos in other films. His son Edgar McGraw appears in From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money. |
From Dusk till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money
Character |
Actor |
Description |
Buck |
Robert Patrick |
Buck is a bank robber who, with a group of friends goes south of the border in order pull off a bank robbery worth $1 million heist. But his group have become vampire and they develop a thirst for blood to match their hunger for the money. Buck is forced, to join arch rival Sheriff Lawson in an action-packed, kill-or-be-killed battle to stop these vampire and save their own lives. Together, they manage to kill the group. The deputy is killed in the battle and Buck escapes with the money and Lawson more or less lets him go. |
Luther |
Duane Whitaker |
Luther, one of the five bank robbers, escapes to Mexico with blueprints for a million-dollar heist. But on his way to the rendezvous point, he gets into an accident and stumbles upon the Titty Twister Bar. This is where he got bitten by the vampire. This little detour sets up the terror that awaits the outlaws and the officers on their trail. He's staked from behind by Buck while trying to get away. |
Jesus |
Raymond Cruz |
Jesus is one of the bank robbers and is the second person to turn into an vampire. |
Edgar McGraw |
James Parks |
He appears briefly in two scenes in From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money. Bo Hopkins references his cold demeanor and distracted nature: "Oh, them Gecko brothers killed his daddy." |
From Dusk till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter
Character |
Actor |
Description |
Johnny Madrid |
Marco Leonardi |
Narrowly escaping death, outlaw Johnny Madrid is on the run from the hangman with the hangman's sensuous daughter Esmeralda by his side. Along with Madrid's gang, Johnny and Esmeralda embark on an adventure filled with colorful and unsavory characters who lead them straight into the fight of their lives. |
Quixtla |
Sonia Braga |
She is the mother of Santanico Pandemonium, the Hangman's former lover and the Vampire Queen of the remote early 1900s Mexican saloon in the movie, which is named "La Tetilla Del Diablo" (The Devil's Nipple), a reference to the name of the 1960s-era establishment in the first Dusk to Dawn film ("the Titty Twister") where Santanico recreates the vampire feast hosted by her mother Quixtla as depicted in the third sequel. |
The Hangman |
Temuera Morrison |
He (as the name suggests) was the hangman in the town shown in the opening scenes of the movie, and father of Esmerelda (who later became Santanico Pandemonium). After Esmerelda leaves town with Johnny Madrid, The Hangman tracks them to the vampire's bar where he becomes caught up in the epic battle for survival. He sides with Johnny Madrid and Ambrose Bierce in the final showdown and fights the vampires. He is bitten and turns into a vampire but manages to remain a fragment of his humanity and impales Quixtla allowing Madrid and Bierce to escape. |
Ambrose Bierce |
Michael Parks |
The only fictional character in the From Dusk Till Dawn series based on a real historical figure, the real Ambrose Bierce (1842-1913) was a widely quoted American journalist, adventurer and socio-political satirist noted for his expert sarcasm, such as the darkly sardonic The Devil's Dictionary (1906). He was also a real-life atheist (mentioned in the film) and may have had "diverse" interests, thus making his choice as the main character for this movie both a clever devil worship (satanism) reference and historically believable: the real Bierce did famously travel to Chihuahua, Mexico in 1913, intending to interview the charismatic revolutionary leader Pancho Villa. Bierce is depicted in the movie as a cynical tough-guy alcoholic who is plagued by nightmares with glimpses of vampires and his own death (the opening scene suggests the real Bierce's alleged execution by Villa, though the truth of his death remain mysterious to this day). When the vampires reveal themselves at the remote saloon, Bierce seems unsurprised (unlike everyone else) and continues drinking his tequila. While the vampires devour everyone else around Bierce, they don't attack him: then we see him look up to the balcony above, where none other than his own doppelganger, watching the chaos unfolding below him, smiles back at Bierce. Bierce and Himself seem to be enjoying a private joke: the implication here is that Bierce is either a powerful old vampire or perhaps even the Devil himself (referencing Bierce's infamous Dictionary). While the vampires continue to feast on the saloon's unfortunate patrons, Bierce joins forces with Johnny Madrid, Esmerelda, her father the Hangman and several other characters: together they try to escape through the establishment's extensive subterranean stone dungeons. After the big finale, only Bierce and Madrid are left alive and they ride off to join Villa in Mexico together. After the final credits have rolled, Bierce appears once last time in a short scene: he's in a bar in the present day, drinking with a random guy and recounting the story we just saw in the movie. The guy doesn't believe him, but Bierce says he can prove it, and proceeds to tear the skeptic's heart out and eat it, revealing that he was a dark power of some kind all along (in this context, probably a vampire). |