Salma Hayek as “Santanico Pandemonium” in From Dusk Till Dawn

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Providing a “palette cleanser” (literally, for Quentin Tarrantino’s “Ritchie Gecko”) between From Dusk Till Dawn’s two very different first and second acts, the dance performed by Santanico Pandemonium in the Titty Twister bar is perhaps one of the most mesmerizing things ever committed to film.

Doing very little, Salma Hayek’s vampire queen manages to captivate an entire bar full of truckers and bikers, using only a bloody big snake, a feathered headdress and by shaking what her momma gave her.

Aswell as providing a respite from all the criminals fleeing to mexico road movie shenanigans, Pandemonium’s dance sequence provides the chance for us, the audience, to be lured into the “What the fuck! She’s a vampire! Wait a minute! They are all vampires! Shit!” big reveal as the seductive Santanio Pandemonium goes from this

To this!

The now snake-skinned and vamped up Pandemonium then proceeds to chew on Ritchie Gecko, sparking off the film’s out of control horror film second half. It is a great bridging scene, as you are shaken from reality in to the nightmare of the undead along with the previously spellbound patrons of the bar.

Providing more than the obvious on the surface titillation, and managing to out do the master scene stealer Cheech Marin (whose Pussy speech is another stand out), Selma Hayek’s inclusion as Santanico Pandemonium adds to the excellence that is From Dusk Till Dawn, and commands the screen throughout the extremely short amount of time she is in the film.

But I guarantee you this-

That sequence will be one of the main things ANYONE who seen that film will mention, be they male or female, straight or gay, if you ask them – “Have you seen From Dusk Till Dawn?”

And for that, I name Salma Hayek, as Santanico Pandemonium, the Scene Stealer from From Dusk Till Dawn.

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