anyone who knows me well enough has heard me talk about the drive-in, the movies i've seen in them and the memories i .......remember from them. it sorta occured to me recently that my very first memory in life maybe from the drive-in. my parents and especially dear mother were out and out feinds for loading me into the car and driving out to whatever drive-in was at the time showing the most depraved piece of gore drenched, sex ridden filth imaginable. Bless their hearts! As i said the things i recall as my earliest memories were scenes from a picture called The Night Andy Came Home. Perfect drive-in title eh? I have in my adult years built a stout dvd collection, mostly horror and exploitation, and at one time tracked this actual title down and re-watched it. A charming tale of a young man shot dead in Vietnam only to return to his grief stricken family as a pale member of the living dead who has to choke neighborhood pets to death and inject murdered victims blood interveinously to keep from decaying. Re-released into drive-ins in 1977, that would of made its lasting impression on my yet unwrinkled thinker at an age of 2 years!!! Mom, Dad.....what were you thinking???? I was 2 and you have me propped up in the front seat of my fathers whatever muscle-car looking at zombie war veterans killing pets and squirting oodles of red out of syringes and running people down in flaming cars!??! Love you guys!
many years and many drive-in weekends followed. john carpenters The Thing, a couple of the Jaws sequels and the re-release of the original, a great underrated horror film called Curtains, Amityvilles, Dressed to Kills, My Bloody Valentine, April Fool's Day, the Beast Within, the Car, Fulci and Argento films, multiple movies where an elderly Charles Bronson went around shooting holes in any street punk that happened to wrong him or just be outside that evening. Dawns and Days of the Deads, the Changeling, and a number of the Friday the 13ths. These became a yearly staple since a new Friday the 13th came out what seemed like every summer. I'd see the one sheet in the newspapers movie section and know what was in my weekend forecast...Jason hacking up horny teens, oh yeah! I have a couple particular "Friday the 13th at the drive in memories". One involving my mother playing a such a totally cruel and near pants shitting scary stunt on my young mind that i'm not even sure i want to re-tell it here. In part because a lot of close friends have heard it but also because if the wrong person read it child endangerment and or abuse charges may be filed and i've long gotten over the ire i once had about it. But this other memory, also involving Ma and being much less dramatic i'll share. 1980, im 5 years, Friday the 13th, the original is on the screen in all its glory. I'm sitting in the front seat livid with fear but for whatever reason more frightened to look away from the screen. My brother Richie is in the back and my mom sitting in the drivers seat next to me. In her wisdom mom thought tonites "drive-in treat" would be one dozen donuts, you see we'd always smuggle a food item in for dinner, sometimes pizza or sandwiches, tonite it was donuts, once again model parenting. I can remember that both my brother and i shyed away from any donuts with that creamy or jelly center intead favouring any other one with pink or white or brown frosting. That sorta puts mom at this point as to have eaten about four jelly donuts and then "it " happens. Now fans of the Friday series will know the exact scene im talking about when i say Kevin Bacon gets it good. If you dont know then ill give you the details Kevin Bacon is dispatched by a broad-point arrow coming through a mattress,the back of his neck and slowly puncturing his throat in a blood gushing, truly gag inducing moment. Gag is just what my mom did, she also rolled down the window and deposited every jelly donut she'd eaten in a tidy pile next to the car. The movies impact had vanished and my brother errupted in belly laffs and when i finally understood what had just happened i did too. Perhaps that trick my mother pulled on me at a later time was a bit of sweet revenge on her part although it was a pretty harsh bit.
so there were more trips and more titles, more pranks and more memories until one by one, the drive-ins vanished. the last one in our area shut down in 1984 and the last movies i can remember seeing there was a double bill of Gremlins and the Goonies. not a bad note to go out on. in the past few years though the Delsea drive-in in Vineland has re-opened to quite a bit of success and while its good to have one back for nostalgia sake its just not the same. the Delsea is now, GASP, "family oriented". Joe Bob Briggs always used to say "the drive-in will never die" and to that Cris George Trout responds "not fully" because gone are the teen slasher, nature runs amok, blood soaked, everyman revenge pictures that the drive-ins of our day were built on. now the early showing is usually whatever tripe Pixar has going followed by whatever PG-13 rubbish is tops at the box office that week. still though its nice to be back there a few nites out of the summer especially with friends, old and new, who have never been to a drive-in. now who's got a car?!
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