Recap / Film Reroll: From Dusk till Dawn

A new vampire queen has risen!^note Picture by Quirderph

We play From Dusk Till Dawn! Jon flips a table! Joz gets stunned! Tim laughs on mic! Pitr orders tacos! Scott punches Cheech Marin!

Episodes 39-40 of Film Reroll. Based on the 1996 movie.

Having managed to escape from captivity, kidnap a widower — Jacob Fuller — and his two children — Kate and Scott — and cross the Mexican border undetected, the Gecko brothers decide to stay at the Titty Twister — a sleazy stripclub/bar — before meeting up with their contact. However, the bar turns out to be run by a flock of bloodsucking vampires. Now, the Geckos and the Fullers must team up and use all their abilites to survive. Will they slay these ladies of the night? Or will they end up as the evening specials?

This campaign was originally intended to be a Bonus Scene at the end of the third Rogue One episode, (similar to Doctor Who: Day of the Moon,) but it got so long that it was released as a separate campaign. This makes it the second campaign to be released in the middle of another campaign, after Alien.

During its release, it had - with its six participants - the largest cast out of any Film Reroll campaign.

Starring Jon Miller as Seth Gecko, Jocelyn "Joz" Vammer as Richard "Richie" Gecko, Scott Aiello as Jacob Fuller, Kara Strait^note  credited as “Pitr Strait” as Katherine "Kate" Fuller, Timothy E. "Tim" Nolan (First Full Appearance) as Scott Fuller and Paulo Quiros as the Dungeon Master.

Followed by Jurassic Park.

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Tropes:

• Actor Allusion: In-Universe. At one point, Paulo refers to Razor Charlie, the vampiric bartender, as "Machete."
• Adapted Out: In the film, an larger swarm of vampires appear after the ones in the bar have been slain. They may have been cut to avoid Ending Fatigue, and to give the protagonists a chance to survive.^note However, it can be argued that the larger swarm only showed up in the movie because Santánico died early on in the fight; because Katherine declared herself queen after Santánico turned her, and because Katherine fled after Santánico died, the larger swarm didn't need to show up. A queen was still alive...
• All Part of the Show: "Katarina" tries convincing her brother that the whole Bar Brawl is just a play. He doesn't fall for it.
• And Show It to You: "Katarina" rips Richie’s heart out. The humans also get in on this, as once they figure out the vampires are Made of Plasticine they realize they can punch straight in and rip out the beasts' hearts. Frost makes his grand entrance into the plot by tearing out two hearts at once and calling for his friend Claude to "Shishkebab!"
• Ascended Extra:
  • Downplayed, but the campaign focuses more on the Fuller family and less on the Gecko brothers than the movie did.
  • On a meta-level, Timothy Nolan. He has had cameos on the show before, and done a lot of work behind the scenes, but this is the first time he appears as an actual player.
• Badass Bystander: The NPCs also participate in the fight, and some of them actually manage to kill a few vampires.
• Bittersweet Ending: Seth, Scott and Frost survive, but the two former have both lost a family member, and Kate is still out there...
• Blatant Lies: Paulo would like to let you all know that Frost's buddy Claude is 100% from the original movie.
• Bottle Episode: The whole campaign is set in and around the Titty Twister bar. Subverted in that it has a large cast of players and an even larger cast of NPCs.
• Call-Back:
  • One of Santánico's robed associates has exactly the same voice as Saw Gerrera. This is, of course, lampshaded.
  • After proclaiming herself queen, Kara wonders if there are any sheep nearby she could ride around on.
• Cast of Snowflakes: DM Paulo Quiros gave all of the bar patrons their own names and stats, resulting in a map filled to the brim with tokens. This was to allow the group to play as whichever characters would survive the massacre.
• Convenient Replacement Character:
  • When Jacob dies, Scott Aiello starts playing as Shell-Shocked Veteran Frost instead.
  • Later, when Richie dies, Joz takes on the part of Frost's buddy Claude, an Original Character who — despite the players' insistence otherwise — was created specifically for this campaign. He gets the honor of becoming both the one to take down Santánico with a knife through her heart, and the one who eventually runs after Kate with the intent of hunting her down. The players speculate that he might be an descendant of Van Helsing.
• Crosscast Role: Joz Vammer as Richie and Claude.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • Sex Machine. Sure, he died in the movie too, but here it happens early on, before he's been properly introduced.
  • Kate — one of the few to survive the events of the film — is bitten by Santánico and turned into "Katarina Pandemonium," a "super vampire" with Fireball Eyeballs.
• Determinator: Both Jacob and Scott Fuller, both of which keep fighting for several rounds after receiving life-threatening injuries. The former manages to crush a vampire's heart under the weight of his own, dying body, while the latter — despite all odds — actually manages to survive the campaign.
• Didn't See That Coming: After choosing to become a vampire, Kara openly asks if she’s the first person to use Luck to pick a Crit Fail result.
• Dies Differently In The Adaptation:
  • Richie lives far longer than his movie counterpart, but is eventually killed by a vampirised Kate, who rips his heart out.
  • In the film, Santánico Pandemonium was one of the first vampires to die. Here, she's one of the last.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Scott Fuller, being a teenage boy in a topless bar, is utterly stunned by what he sees. His sister Katherine, on the other hand, is — as their late mother would have put it — "gobsmacked."
• Dodge the Bullet: Subverted. Paulo mentions that Santánico dodges Seth's bullets, but later clarifies that it's the more realistic "diving out of the way before the gun fires" type of dodging.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Inverted and discussed. Joz feels that Richie isn't given much flak In-Universe for being a registered sex offender, and wonders how other grindhouse movies would portray a woman with a similar past. (Though the other players point out that he mostly hangs out with the kind of shady criminals who wouldn't care about such things, including his brother, who's only mad at him because his behavior increases the risk of them getting caught. Then there's the fact that the Fullers — and the hostage he and his brother briefly kidnapped in the film — are clearly creeped out by him, that he seems to have some kind of mental deficiency, and that he's given a very brutal death scene.)
• Dying as Yourself: Right before Santánico dies, she returns to being the woman she once was, and says a few words in a language nobody in the bar understands. ^note  While her backstory was never revealed in the film, this fits better with the one given in the Tv-show — where she's lived for over a millennium — than the one from the prequel — where she was born in the nineteenth century.
• Failed a Spot Check: Kate keeps ignoring and Hand Waving the increasingly obvious signs that she's turning into a vampire until it's too late. This is likely part of Santánico's brainwashing.
• Falling Chandelier of Doom: Seth shoots down one after Frost points it out to him. It manages to kill most of the vampires, who have gathered in the middle of the room.
• Hope Spot: After getting bit and manage to get loose, Jacob Fuller tells Scott that they're dealing with vampires, and tells him to make a cross. Just as Tim begins to do so, Paulo tells Scott that he needs to make an IQ roll to actually know that's the case^note It takes the characters a while in the movie to realize that's the case, so the same would need to apply here.. And upon being told there's no vampire references in the Bible, Jacob instead says they're dealing with an evil force that needs to be dealt with via a symbol of the Lord. And because of Tim's own bad intelligence roll, instead of making a cross, Scott Fuller instead attempts to banish one of the vampires by lobbing dirt in its face.
• Hyde Plays Jekyll: Kate pretends that she's turned back to normal after the death of Santánico, allowing her to fake a Freak Out and literary leave the scene.
• Hypothetical Casting: invoked When discussing who would play Claude in the movie, the group lands on Jean-Claude Van Damme as the choice.
• I Am Not Leonard Nimoy: Initially, Paulo Quiros simply calls Santánico Pandemonium "Salma Hayek." Granted, that is much easier to remember...
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Inverted: At one point during Part 2, insulted that Kara had indirectly told him to shut up, Scott tells her to drink more.
  Scott: Did you say- did you just silence me, did you have the balls... to SILENCE ME?! Have another beer, okay, because...
  Kara: It's true, I'm amazing...
• In Medias Res: As this was meant to be a Bonus Scene focused around a supernatural Bar Brawl, (technically it still is, just a very lengthy one,) the campaign starts with our protagonists arriving at the Titty Twister.
• Insane Troll Logic: Because of a bad intelligence roll in order to do a religious ritual, Scott Fuller concludes that (because he still thinks the vampires are actually demonic human-like creatures) because the Bible says humans start from dust, and to dust they shall return, what he needs to do... is lob a handful of dust into a vampire's face in order to banish it back to Hell.
  Jacob Fuller: Boy! You'se dumb as you is ugly!
• Kick the Dog: With the battle effectively over, barring a couple remaining vampires, Seth is more than willing to leave the bar with Frost... even though Scott Fuller is still being chased by one.^note Frost insists on staying and "cleaning up", however.
  Frost: Yo, Seth. What're we doin', we gonna take out the rest of these vampires, or are we gonna give chase?
  Seth: What "the rest of these vampires"?
  Frost: There's two vampires left.
  Seth: Ehhh, Scott's got that one-
  Scott Fuller: I don't got that one! Someone help me!
  Seth: (tosses his gun) Frost? You're a gentleman. Let's get the Hell out of here and find a real bar.
  Scott Fuller: Wait!
• Loophole Abuse: When Jacob Fuller tells his son they're dealing with vampires, Paulo (due to the fact that Scott was mildly meta-gaming) tells him to make an intelligence roll to know for sure that's what they're dealing with. Scott decides to try and use religious knowledge... only for Paulo to point out the Bible doesn't have anything about vampires.
  Scott: I wanna use "Theology"...
  Paulo: Yea- sure... Roll "Theology"...
  Scott: I wanna all-out "Theology"!
  Kara: None of th-
  Paulo: (bluntly) No, you can't. You can't all-out-
  Kara: None of this is usable.
• Nasty Party: Much like in the film, the Titty Twister bar is a trap set by vampires to lure in unsuspecting prey. Kara and Tim had not seen said movie, and were genuinely surprised by this reveal.
• Not What It Looks Like: Due to how Joz justified Richie not attacking Katherine, despite her clearly being turned into a vampire, Jon spends a good portion of the game accusing Joz of either intentionally throwing the game, or sandbagging. Once she switches to Frost's buddy Claude, and manages to get some shit done, he takes back his accusations.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted, sort of. The character Scott Fuller has the same first name as Scott Aiello, who plays his father here. Meanwhile, his sister Katherine is played by Kara Strait, who was also married to a woman with that name at the time.
• Papa Wolf: Here, it is not Seth Gecko but rather Jacob Fuller who punches the man outside the bar who flirted with his teenage daughter.
• Point of Divergence:
  • The path Katherine Fuller takes that results in her becoming a vampire queen starts with her needing to find a bathroom to go pee.
    • Not only that, but once the Fullers run into Santánico back behind the main stage, Jacob Fuller winds up failing a Detect Lies roll to see if she's legit, which prompts Tim to ask Kara to roll Detect Lies for Katherine. And because it was a Crit Fail, Kara concludes that Katherine had decided she had encountered the reincarnation of her dead mother.
    • And then, there's the Point of No Return: Right as Katherine is nearing the end of the vampirification procress, Paulo has Kara roll Will to try and resist falling to the Dark Side. A failed roll prompts her to use Luck... and one of the rolls being another Crit Fail causes her to decide to give in^note and, because it was a Crit Fail, that causes Paulo to decide to make Katherine a Queen Vampire.
  • Joz failing a Fright Check right when the Bar Brawl starts to kick off, and the vampires start making themselves known, has two negative side effects: Not only does it cause Richie to lock up in shock for several rounds^note effectively taking him out for the remainder of Part 1, and a portion of Part 2, but it causes him to miss the fact that Katherine got turned. This ultimately costs him his life.
• Pronoun Trouble: Paulo refers to several of the female dancers as "he," perhaps simply because he's not used to using female Mooks. It's eventually decided that there is one single male dancer, who was simply never caught on camera in the original film.
• Rage Breaking Point: When Seth manages to shoot down the chandelier and kill most of the vampires, Kara begins throwing things across the room.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When Jacob Fuller hears that there is no bathroom at the Titty Twister and that the patrons go outside to do their business, he's had enough of the bar and decide to take his children and leave through the back door. It doesn't... quite turn out the way he imagined it would.
• Sequel Hook: Kate has fled deeper into the temple, with plans of taking it over and raising her own army. Meanwhile, the newly minted vampire hunter Claude chases after her, intent on finishing the job.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Fuller family want to get this business over with so they can go and watch The Avengers. (No, not the superhero movie which hadn't been released yet, the one with Uma Thurman. No, not Kill Bill...)
  • Kara mentions the George Lucas Altered Version of Return of the Jedi, feeling that while the jazz number in Jabba's palace maybe wasn't the worst change done to a Star Wars movie, it was by far the weirdest.
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • Unlike his movie counterpart, Frost survives the entire story and goes on to join Seth's gang.
  • Scott also manages to survive the campaign, despite spending most of it with grevious injuries. It is mentioned that he had to be taken to a hospital afterwards, though.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: Santánico Pandemonium barely blinks when Katherine's Crit Fail leads her to conclude that Santánico is her dead mother returned, eagerly leaning into the delusion and using it to seduce Katherine into being a willing convert for vampirism.
• Unfortunate Names: Kara feels that both the Gecko brothers and Santánico Pandemonium are victims of this trope.
• Vampire Monarch: Santánico is referred to as a vampire queen. "Katarina" also grants herself this title, though it's unclear if any of the other vampires actually accept her rule.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: After Richie finally comes out of a prolonged period of frightened shock due to a failed Fright Check^note which took Joz out of the game for the back half of Part 1, and a decent portion of Part 2, he comes face to face with a newly vampired Katherine Fuller... but, much to Jon's disgust, Joz couldn't think of any justifiable reason for Richie to attack her.^note Richie missed all of what was happening with Katherine due to the failed Fright Check, he has a desire to protect her, and because of his mental instability, he isn't capable of trusting what he sees most times; so, being attacked by an evil-looking Katherine Fuller wouldn't register in his head. As Joz explains her thought process, Jon winds up effectively giving up on the game, and at one point asks if Seth can kill himself.

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