Watching B-movies so you don’t have to!
Did I ever mention that my dad owned a dozen video stores when I was growing up? Well if I did I lied, he only had 9. So having spent most of my childhood in those stores I have all of these images of movie boxes in my head. One of those boxes is for the 1985 teen comedy Mischief. It just seemed like a very funny, light-hearted coming of age story… oh who am I kidding, I just figured I’d get to see some boobs!! Well I never got a chance to see that movie until I found it on cable one night.
Last time I went to a drive in movie I saw “Congo”, which is probably one of the unintentionally worst movies I’ve seen to date. My biggest fear was that we’d get locked in the drive in and be forced to watch Congo over and over and over again. While Crabs and his girlfriend Carmen didn’t get stuck watching Congo, they got something almost as bad… They just got locked in for life.
I’m of course talking about Crabs and Carmen from Dead-End Drive In, Brian Trenchard-Smith’s film from 1986. The film is set in 1995 aka “The Near Future” where a series of events has sent the world into panic mode, where food reserves, medical care and energy are all in short supply. Crabs (played by Ned Manning) is a young fellow who is training to get bulkier so that he can help his brother Frank, a tow truck driver, out on the “tracks”. It seems that people are getting in car crashes constantly, so while being a tow truck driver is a busy and profitable job, it’s also a dangerous one. Several drivers compete for salvage rights to the vehicles involved in the wrecks, and violence often breaks out between the drivers, the police, and the scavengers known as “cowboys”. The cowboys are roving bands of thugs that do their best to resemble Mad Max style road warriors. They steal the parts off of cars for profit and otherwise cause general mayhem.
One night, Crabs takes his best girl Carmen (Natalie McCurry) out to the drive in movie theater in his brother’s ‘56 chevy for a night of fooling around. When they get to the theater, they see two rates, “adult” and “unemployed” - adult admission is $10, while unemployed is $3.50. Crabs decides that in order to save a little money, he’ll go for the unemployed rate, and slips into the theater and finds a place to park. While he and Carmen are fogging up the windows, one side of their car drops down, and Crabs finds out that someone took two of his wheels off of the car. After chasing down the thieves for a bit, he realizes that the thieves are in fact police officers, who take off after stealing his wheels. Crabs makes a complaint to the theater manager and finds out that the drive in is like a concentration camp for all the unemployed and undesirables and that they’re stuck there until the government decides what they’re going to do with them. Crabs isn’t having it, so he decides to escape, but can he?
While I did enjoy this movie, there really wasn’t much to it. It seems like it’s more a vehicle for the cast to run around in their favorite road warrior attire. It’s hard to really classify the film as being an action movie, or a sci-fi movie as well. While it’s in a sci-fi type environment, with the “in the near future” setting, there isn’t any other real sci-fi elements. On that same thought, there are only about 3 action scenes totaling about 15 minutes of the entire film. There also aren’t really any special effects to speak of, and the stunt scenes that do take place are done really well. The music is consistently 80’s-tastic and actually isn’t half bad.
Dead-End Drive In does have a few socio-political themes, amongst them are unemployment, governmental fascism and some not so subtle racism. I didn’t have a problem with the racism factor per se, but since they introduced it, I would have liked it to have more than just a casual mention in the film. It revolves around the busing in of some Asian citizens, and the primarily white populace holding a meeting to talk about how they were going to “clean up” the camp and keep the Asians under control. The whole meeting and mention of the divide only happens in about the last 20 minutes of the film, and takes place parallel to one of the major action scenes.
While the trailer (which you can check out below) mentions that “In the 70’s there was “A Clockwork Orange” and in the 80’s there was “Mad Max” and “The Road Warrior” and Dead-End Drive In carries on the tradition of startling visions of the apocalypse and beyond… this film just really doesn’t live up to any of those films. It never brings a “apocalyptic” view and it really doesn’t push any boundaries, it just is. It stands on it’s own as being fun and entertaining, but unfortunately it’s boringly average.
Check below the break for the trailer to DEAD-END DRIVE IN!
Take one part Slither, and one part Night of the Living Dead, mix them together, and you get Fred Dekker’s 1986 horror/comedy “Night of the Creeps“. This one has a few recognizable actors, Jason Lively hot off of his performance in National Lampoon’s European Vacation, Tom Atkins (Maniac Cop, Halloween III), Allan Kayser (Mama’s Family!) and a short appearance by character actor David Paymer.
The movie starts out 25 years in the past with an alien ship that launches a capsule with a lethal slug towards Earth. The slug eventually breaks out of it’s capsule and burrows itself into a human host’s brain, where it gestates. Fast forward to 1986 where Chris and J.C. are two nerdy college kids that are just trying to get laid. Chris sees the girl of his dreams and is convinced that if he joins a frat, she’ll be impressed enough to go after him. The frat requires Chris and J.C. perform a prank - dumping a cadaver on a rival fraternity’s front steps. They come across the frozen body of the human host from 25 years previous and accidentally release him from cryogenic stasis, and into the world. That’s when the grizzled detective, Ray Cameron comes in, and things start to get interesting.
This one starts out as a typical 80’s teen sex comedy, but once the zombies start showing up, you know this is something special. The campy stereotypical detective fits perfectly in this movie, because while it doesn’t have any real laugh out loud moments, it never takes itself seriously. It moves pretty seamlessly from a teen comedy to a horror movie without going over the top, and that’s saying quite a bit, as most movies in this genre aren’t able to pull that off. Don’t forget, this is an 80’s teen movie, so some gratuitous T&A are thrown in for good measure.
I loved Slither, and they must have gotten some inspiration for the slug idea at least a little from Night of the Creeps. The special effects aren’t the best I’ve seen, but I’m a fan of exploding heads, and this one is is full of them at the end… And that’s where my only complaint comes in. The dense zombie action doesn’t happen until the very end, and by the time it starts, there’s not much time left in the movie for it to really bloom. Alas, it was the 80’s and these types of movies didn’t go on for very long, so it does it’s job in the allotted time. If the movie was extended only 10 - 15 more minutes, this could have really been a masterpiece.
This one has been showing on Showtime recently, so if you’re up at 4am and have nothing else to do and can’t fall asleep, or you have a DVR, give it a watch, it’s a pretty good one.
Check below the break for more head splodin’ action and some pics from Night of the Creeps
Continue reading ‘Night of the Creeps’
I was privledged enough to come across a copy of the 1986 Roger Corman produced “Chopping Mall” aka Killbots, starring Tony O’Dell (Head of the Class, The Karate Kid, The Puppy Saves the Circus) and Kelli Maroney (Night of the Comet).
Chopping Mall starts off cleverly, with a street tough breaking into a jewelry store window, and stealing the merchandise. He’s thwarted by a rolling robot that chases him through the mall and eventually incapacitates him with a taser type weapon. It’s all a lead in for a commercial touting the robot security system that the mall has just purchased. The mall buys 3 of these robots, which are armed to the teeth with lasers, tasers, welding torches, and twice as much shit as a batman utility belt.
Meanwhile, some employees in a furniture store are planning a party that night while the manager is out of town. Tony O’Dell plays the nerdy goody two shoes role who is the voice of reason that warns the other two guys that there could be trouble if they have a party where actual girls are invited.
During the night of the security system’s big debut, a freak electrical storm hits the area and lightning hits the mall, shorting out the robot’s AI, giving them total self awareness, as lightning hitting electrical systems usually do. One time during a thunderstorm, my power went out. When it came back on, the microwave started chasing my cat around, and the tube on the vaccuum cleaner became attached to my penis… It was crazy.
Needless to say, the robots go crazy and start indescrimantently killing workers inside the mall. One of the teens leaves the store to buy cigarettes from a vending machine, and he gets cut up. His girlfriend then goes looking for him, finds the mess, and gets chased through the mall, eventually ending with a close up shot of her head getting blown to bits by a laser. It’s done great and it’s one of those “Holy Shit!” moments.
The rest of the movie is filled with 80’s cliches, like stocking up on weapons from a sporting goods store. I wish I could find a sporting goods store in today’s world where they stocked M-16’s and ammo, like you could back in the 80’s. It’s also very reminiscent of “Dawn of the Dead” with the store hopping and running away from deranged monsters.
This is movie that I’d have to highly recommend. It’s pretty readily available, I found it on Amazon and it’s easy to find new online. If you’re a fan of sci-fi type horror, this would probably be right up your alley, and if you’re a fan of the 80’s cheesy teen horror genre (and if you’re reading this site, hopefully you have some interest in that type of movie), this one is a must see. This thing is pure genius.
See below the break for some screens and one of the best head explosions I’ve seen in a while. If you look closely, you can even see some teeth that got left behind after the splatter.
Recent Comments