...not really...but as a doctorate student, I figure I have to start sooner rather than later. With the qualifying and dissertation processes hanging like a lead balloon over my glorious head of curls, I need to start flexing my writing muscles...and how! And I begin not with an update of personal goings-on or detailed musings on upcoming projects and their context in a global art community, but with nothing more important than a review of the Aussie horror classic: "Dead-End Drive In"
Here we have a film made at the height of the Australian genre pics which includes such cult classic greats as "The Cars that Ate Paris," and "Razorback". Not to mention that the Aussies took to the car flick like no other, usually combining post-apocalyptic scenarios with cars that can and will be used for evil/redemption. This is a film I wanted to love so hard, and actually, when I saw it initially years ago I sooo loved it! I've even since recommended it to fellow horror/cult nerds. BUT, upon a long-overdue re-visitation, the film collapsed for me like a sad, saggy souffle. Where did it go so horribly wrong?! It has many of the film tricks that I love: fast cars that can kill kill KILL, amazing style, bad-asses in a bad-ass world wreaking bad-ass vigilante justice on all lame-asses!
Again, I ask, why didn't I like this movie as much as I remember? It can't merely be chalked up to astronomically high expectations brought on by my already developed love of the Australian genre pic (Mad Max included), or my hope that I'd see nothing
but a slew of gratuitous car chases. Or maybe it can? The Aussies know how to dress a film in a way that rival the likes of Walter Hill (The Warriors, Streets of Fire). Seriously, this flick looks effin' awesome. The makeup and costuming are among the best I've ever seen! Hordes of extras decked in their best punk hooligan-ery including elaborate makeup...all seeming to match their equally-stylized autos of torture. But, apparently, style is hardly enough to make it a good movie. It's also not nearly sufficient to make it a good cult movie!
The plot is one that is pretty promising: corrupt government, mass rebellion and anarchy provided by the youth, a drive-in movie theatre used as a prison, bad guys, and apparently only one good guy. I can forgive a bad script from time to time, so long as *some* element of the film is gratuitous, whether it be violence, sex, or both. There were maybe about 3 fight scenes, each painfully slower than the last: Swing, miss, jab jab, wait, SOCK! TKO! Honestly, it's nothing more than I learned how to do in my silly little stage combat classes in high school. But, the point of doing anything in a movie is that you can take it above and beyond what can be done on a stage, right? Realism my ass, make it awesome! READ: More blood!!!
Okay, so the fisticuffs were lacking...maybe that's forgivable if the car scenes are mega bitchin, right? I mean, it's a movie about souped-up cars and car enthusiasts, after all. Swing and a miss. (again) At the outset, we get a mini chase that involves some houligans hunting down our hero. Then they scatter like cockroaches at the first sight of the fuzz. Whaaaaat?
The lovebirds finally make it onto the grounds of the drive-in, where, as you'd expect there are nothing but ominous looking cars and their equally sketchy owners, obviously there will be some chases, right? Screw that. For some reason, the filmmakers thought it best to save all that messy car blowings-up and destruction until the very very end. I'll admit the chase at the end is pretty great, considering what appears to have been a lack of budget for effects. (Totally forgivable since, as I mentioned before, all the extras and cars themselves look f'in amazing.) But, really, the last chase is totally great. Truly great. Just wish it had come sooner and more often.
Side plot note: there's racism. Hella racism for no apparent reason, and at the very end of the film. A group of Asian prisoners gets dropped at the prison, and now the whites are pissed. They won't stand for that! They could rape the white women, after all! THE WHITE WOMEN! (eye roll, sigh)
As I learned recently in the documentary about legendary cult filmmaker, Don Dohler, no great horror film would be complete without the 3 B's: Blood, Boobs and Beasts! The boobs came and went early, the blood hardly came at all and the beasts, if you can call them that, were merely Mad Maxian punk bastards (albeit, quite convincing menaces to society). And for my non-spoiler spoiler alert: the whites get spared. The hero gets spared. The girlfriend decides to stay because, well, she sucks. *heavy sigh* I'm a sad, disappointed nerd, left unsatisfied by what could have been a truly great film (and up until a few months ago, it was). It's not even campy enough to make it remotely watchable. It takes itself super seriously and then just plain doesn't deliver. See it if you want, whatever, I don't care.
Here we have a film made at the height of the Australian genre pics which includes such cult classic greats as "The Cars that Ate Paris," and "Razorback". Not to mention that the Aussies took to the car flick like no other, usually combining post-apocalyptic scenarios with cars that can and will be used for evil/redemption. This is a film I wanted to love so hard, and actually, when I saw it initially years ago I sooo loved it! I've even since recommended it to fellow horror/cult nerds. BUT, upon a long-overdue re-visitation, the film collapsed for me like a sad, saggy souffle. Where did it go so horribly wrong?! It has many of the film tricks that I love: fast cars that can kill kill KILL, amazing style, bad-asses in a bad-ass world wreaking bad-ass vigilante justice on all lame-asses!
Again, I ask, why didn't I like this movie as much as I remember? It can't merely be chalked up to astronomically high expectations brought on by my already developed love of the Australian genre pic (Mad Max included), or my hope that I'd see nothing
but a slew of gratuitous car chases. Or maybe it can? The Aussies know how to dress a film in a way that rival the likes of Walter Hill (The Warriors, Streets of Fire). Seriously, this flick looks effin' awesome. The makeup and costuming are among the best I've ever seen! Hordes of extras decked in their best punk hooligan-ery including elaborate makeup...all seeming to match their equally-stylized autos of torture. But, apparently, style is hardly enough to make it a good movie. It's also not nearly sufficient to make it a good cult movie!
The plot is one that is pretty promising: corrupt government, mass rebellion and anarchy provided by the youth, a drive-in movie theatre used as a prison, bad guys, and apparently only one good guy. I can forgive a bad script from time to time, so long as *some* element of the film is gratuitous, whether it be violence, sex, or both. There were maybe about 3 fight scenes, each painfully slower than the last: Swing, miss, jab jab, wait, SOCK! TKO! Honestly, it's nothing more than I learned how to do in my silly little stage combat classes in high school. But, the point of doing anything in a movie is that you can take it above and beyond what can be done on a stage, right? Realism my ass, make it awesome! READ: More blood!!!
Okay, so the fisticuffs were lacking...maybe that's forgivable if the car scenes are mega bitchin, right? I mean, it's a movie about souped-up cars and car enthusiasts, after all. Swing and a miss. (again) At the outset, we get a mini chase that involves some houligans hunting down our hero. Then they scatter like cockroaches at the first sight of the fuzz. Whaaaaat?
The lovebirds finally make it onto the grounds of the drive-in, where, as you'd expect there are nothing but ominous looking cars and their equally sketchy owners, obviously there will be some chases, right? Screw that. For some reason, the filmmakers thought it best to save all that messy car blowings-up and destruction until the very very end. I'll admit the chase at the end is pretty great, considering what appears to have been a lack of budget for effects. (Totally forgivable since, as I mentioned before, all the extras and cars themselves look f'in amazing.) But, really, the last chase is totally great. Truly great. Just wish it had come sooner and more often.
Side plot note: there's racism. Hella racism for no apparent reason, and at the very end of the film. A group of Asian prisoners gets dropped at the prison, and now the whites are pissed. They won't stand for that! They could rape the white women, after all! THE WHITE WOMEN! (eye roll, sigh)
As I learned recently in the documentary about legendary cult filmmaker, Don Dohler, no great horror film would be complete without the 3 B's: Blood, Boobs and Beasts! The boobs came and went early, the blood hardly came at all and the beasts, if you can call them that, were merely Mad Maxian punk bastards (albeit, quite convincing menaces to society). And for my non-spoiler spoiler alert: the whites get spared. The hero gets spared. The girlfriend decides to stay because, well, she sucks. *heavy sigh* I'm a sad, disappointed nerd, left unsatisfied by what could have been a truly great film (and up until a few months ago, it was). It's not even campy enough to make it remotely watchable. It takes itself super seriously and then just plain doesn't deliver. See it if you want, whatever, I don't care.
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