Drive-In Flick Numero Uno: Tourist Trap

Length: 2:11. Hours In: 0. Time: 9 p.m. Friday

Ohhh, little girl. Drive-In Flick Numero Uno, if you got to see it, featured Chuck Connors as you’ve never seen him before – an overall-wearin, rifle-totin, telekinetic lovesick hillbilly pervert who has trouble with three things: his wife’s death, his murderous “brother” and how to not want to turn nubile young Tanya Robertses into his own personal life-size Barbie doll collection. Along the way, we get a Slauson’s Lost Oasis Western Museum, a booty-shorts bonanza, one of the creepiest getaways on film, and a roomful of hyperventilating mannequins who are either allergic to ragweed and forgot their epi-pens or are now in a state of perpetual sexual frustration. Bein Drive-In people, we’re voting the latter.

Tear in Your Beer Moment: Technical difficulties; the triumphant return of our favorite mutant katydid, Joe Bob Freakin Briggs, after his 17-year absence from our screens but not our hearts.

6 Dead Bodies | No Breasts | One Dead Jeep | Zombie Mannequins | Vicious Attack Dolls | Crockery Smashing | Arm Ripping | Bimbo Dunking | Psychotic Cross-Dressing | Random Telekinesis by a Guy Who Can’t Spell “Telekinesis” | Iron Rod Through the Back | Ball-Peen Hammer Fight | Mannequin Dogpile | Armed-and-Dangerous Animatronics | Designer Scarf Strangling | Excessive Window Crashing | Musical Score by Pino Donaggio | Axe to the Neck | Multiple Bimbos in Hot Pants and Cutoff Shorts | Gratuitous Dr. Pepper Dispensing | Heads Roll | Arms Roll | Legs Roll | Eyeballs Roll | Crowbar Fu | Shotgun Fu | Tomahawk Fu | Creepy Mumbling on the Soundtrack

Rating: 3 ½ Balls. And the Tall Man Goes To: Chuck Connors, Tanya Roberts, Jocelyn Jones, Robin Sherwood, Dawn Jeffory

All artwork by T.J. Denton – @tdenton_1138

First Marathon Mention of a Recurring Joe Bob Theme: Meisner and Strasberg acting techniques (a/k/a things that would’ve just pissed Chuck Connors off)

Not-At-All-Official Last-Drive-In Anniversary Bracket Results:
Lost in Round 1 to Sleepaway Camp

Tangential Phantasm Tie-In: Stars murderous Tall Man who converts perfectly good human beins into otherworldly creatures

Drive-In Flick Numero Two-o:
Sleepaway Camp

Length: 2:02. Hours In: 4:13. Time: 11:11 p.m. Friday

Had Joe Bob’s comeback been but a single film, we’d have died happy Mutants. Sleepaway Camp is the 80s slash-ic with no breasts, a non-stop stream of boys in booty shorts and one very special piece of genitalia if you know what we mean and we think you do. This one has literally has it all: lecherous men in pastel leisure suits, off-label curling-iron use, one kooky aunt, multiple homoerotic themes, and a surprise ending that makes The Sixth Sense look like a well-worn episode of The Brady Bunch.

Episode Two featured the eternally delightful Felissa Rose and her sensitive portrayal of Angela, just the girl we’re looking for. She may be flat as a board and need a screw, but our custom order just came in from T-Shirts Plus and the rainbow letters on our budding teenage chests spell A-N-G-E-L-A. In addition to launching Felissa as The Last Drive-In’s Mangled Dick Expert, it launched introduced her to Darcy. #besties!

Tear in Your Beer Moment: Knowing Joe Bob, Darcy and Felissa would hit the Nasty Javelina out by the lake after we lay passed out in our Friday the 13^th Footie Pajamas

12 Dead Bodies | No Breasts | Head Rolls | Death by Scalding | Attempted Child Rape | Arrow Through the Neck | Knife to the Spine | Bees to the Face The Ol’ Shaving Cream Prank | The Ol’ Butt Face Prank | Multiple Screaming Children | Death by Scalding (yes, a DIT typo) | Excellent Creepy Violins | 2 Fistfights (with Dogpile) | Water Balloon Fight | Gratuitous Homoerotic Bare-Assed Skinny Dipping | Speedboat Fu | Cooking Pot Fu | Curling Iron Fu | Canoe Fu | Watersnake Fu | Male Camp Counselors Wearing Gym Shorts So Tight They Look Like Saran Wrap on a Hot Dog Fu

Rating: 3 ½ Balls. And the Tall Man Goes To: Desiree Gould, Chris Collet, Karen Fields, Mike Kellin, Owen Hughes, Felissa Rose

EPISODE BONUS! Co-Stars Felissa Dated (Or Wanted To): We lost count

First Marathon Mention of a Recurring Joe Bob Theme: Mis-pro-noun-ci-a-tion of the word debut

Not-At-All-Official Last-Drive-In Anniversary Bracket Results: Upset in Round 3 to Re-Animator

Totally Tangential Phantasm Tie-In: You can always count on family…sort of

Drive-In Flick Numero Three-o: Rabid

Length: 2:01. Hours In: 6:14. 1:13 a.m. Saturday

The Carpenter’s Dream theme continued with Rabid, one of the many horror-with-a-porn-connection flicks Joe Bob has gifted us with in the course of our long and seedy mutant careers. This one’s got the Trifecta: David Cronenberg, the fabulous Marilyn “Behind the Green Door” Chambers and one very hungry axilla. Cronenberg likes his horror like he likes his Ontario winters – long, bleak and god-less – and Rabid is no exception. Just don’t call it a zombie flick. One in a long line of imaginary Drive-In sub-genres like Venereal Horror, Rabid is perhaps the one and only example of Armpit Dentata. 

Shot for $530,000 Canadian, Rabid failed to launch Marilyn’s crossover career from hardcore porn but did earn her permanent status in the Drive-In Hall of Fame. 

Tear in Your Beer Moment: Sad romantic porn music as Rose enters the trash compactor

17 Dead Bodies | 8 Breasts | One Dead Santa Claus | Multiple Bloody Armpits | Two Riots, with Hazmat-Suit Rifle-Toting Assassins |
Two Motor Vehicle Crashes, with Explosions and Fire | Excellent Porn Music Soundtrack | Close-Up Skin-Graft Surgery | Vampiric Post-Surgical Behavior | One New Sexual Armpit Orifice | Zombie Truck Driver | Stabbing | Froth-Mouth Green-Goo Psychos | Rabid Psycho on a Subway | Gratuitous Porno Movie Theater Sequence | Head Rolls | Finger Rolls | Construction Worker Drill Fu | Plastic-Surgery Fu |
Hot Tub Fu | Barbecue Chicken Fu | Shotgun Fu

Rating: 4 Balls. And the Tall Man Goes To: Terence G. Ross, Victor Désy, Frank Moore, Howard Ryshpan, Marilyn Chambers

EPISODE BONUS! Watching Rabid earned you three stamps in your Global Smut Passport thanks to Joe Bob’s boundless knowledge of The Maple Syrup Porn of French-speaking Quebec and the medical research porn of Denmark and Sweden. That and your certificate from the now-defunct ITT Technical Institute will get you a job as projectionist at the last Triple-X theater on the New Jersey Turnpike where the beer is always warm and the floors are always sticky. Stay tuned for this summer’s Rabid remake. We’d call it inevitable, but this one’s from the Soska Sisters so let’s give it the respect it deserves.

First Marathon Mention of a Recurring Joe Bob Theme: The French

Not-At-All-Official Last-Drive-In Anniversary Bracket Results: Lost in Round 2 to Basket Case

Totally Tangential Phantasm Tie-In: Had we not had Marilyn Chambers, Lady in Lavender Kathy Lester would’ve made a helluva Rose

Drive-In Flick Numero Four-o: The Prowler

Length: 1:52. Hours In: 8:06. 3:14 a.m. Saturday

Wake up! Just in time for Hour Six and your second case of Lone Star came The Prowler, one of the few boring slasher films ever made and impossible to watch without outside stimulation if you know what we mean and we think you do. Yes the killer wore a creepy WWII gas mask. Yes his pitchfork skills were enviable. Yes there was an unexpected epistolary opening in which yet another homesick soldier got his heart done broke, inevitably leading to murder. And yes — the man, the legend Tom Savini did the absolutely phenomenal effects. Other than that, The Prowler likely marked the first low strains of desperate self-talk we would use to stay awake for the next 97 hours: “I can’t go to bed. It’s Joe Bob!”

Tear in Your Beer Moment: Knowin Joe Bob might cross you off the Good Mutants List if you compose long emails while fiddlin with your phone

10 Dead Bodies | 10 Breasts | Cat & Mouse | Vertical Bayonet Head Slicing | Spooky-Old-House Maze Fleeing | Aquatic Throat Sawing | Aggressive POV Cemetery Camera | Strangulation with Reverse Larynx Spearing | Casket Cracking | Exploding Head | Double Pitchfork Impalement | Massively Annoying Violins and Cellos | Gratuitous World War II Newsreel Footage | Gratuitous Jitterbugging | Gratuitous Roadster | Gratuitous Hair Band | Double-Barreled Sawed-Off Shotgun Fu | Bayonet Fu | Pitchfork Fu

Rating: 2 ½ Silver Balls. And the Tall Man Goes To: Vicky Dawson, Christopher Goutman, Cindy Weintraub, Tom Savini, Darcy’s cosplay

First Marathon Mention of a Recurring Joe Bob Theme: Use of the word Eye-talian; the Big Man’s hatred of cat-and-mouse

Not-At-All-Official Last-Drive-In Anniversary Bracket Results: Lost in Round 1 to Rabid

Totally Tangential Phantasm Tie-In: A big white rambling house with a lot of dead people. That’s the best we can do on this one, folks.

Drive-In Flick Numero Five-o:
Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama

Length: 1:49. Hours In: 9:55. Time: 5:06 a.m. Saturday

We daresay it would take Society to top the head-scratchin, WTF’in kind of drive-in experience that was Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama. And then we remember: It was just the 80s, the decade that gave us Porky’s. You can’t have a better guide to a movie that features a ball headed straight for the gutter and a jive-talking mutant demon who lives in a bowling trophy and likes to turn sorority girls into raving sex-maniac lasagna-faced zombies than Joe Bob. Or a better introduction to three of the Reagan era’s best scream queens: Brinke Stevens, Michelle Bauer and the one and only Linnea Quigley. Sure Babes came out in ’88, the cusp of Bush’s Thousand Points of Light era, but who’s counting?

Tear in Your Beer Moment: This moment officially hijacked by Joe Bob pervin at the thought of which scream queen is Hard, which one is Fast and which one is Dirty…

8 Dead Bodies | 10 Breasts | 1 Slime Demon | One Motor Vehicle Crash | 1 Jive-Talking Midget Monster Who Talks Like Barry White Hosting a Game Show | Half-Nekkid Lesbionic Dual-Spanking Ritual | Extended Shower Scene That’s Necessary To The Plot | Reverse Bitch-Slapping | Projectile Puking | Expendable She-Demon Supporting Actors | Extended Michelle Bauer Nymphomaniac Demonic Writhing | 1 Deadly Taffy Pull | 1 Flaming Pledge Leader | Kung Fu | Bimbo Fu | Punk Girl Fu | Whipped Cream Fu | Giant Handgun Fu | Bowling Ball Fu |
Heads Roll

Rating: 4 Balls. And the Tall Man Goes To: George “Buck” Flower, Darcy’s cosplay

First Marathon Mention of a Recurring Joe Bob Theme: Plot getting in the way of story – or in this case, none at all

Not-At-All-Official Last-Drive-In Anniversary Bracket Results: Lost in Round 2 to Sleepaway Camp

Totally Tangential Phantasm Tie-In: No freakin idea

Drive-In Flick Numero Six-o:
Daughters of Darkness

Length: 2:10. Hours In: 12:05. Time: 6:55 a.m. Saturday

The golden age of lesbian vampire horror lasted from 1970 to 1975, and Daughters of Darkness was a surprising Joe Bob favorite. Dripping with art-house pretention, JBB mic-dropped this high-falutin Flanders flick on an unsuspecting Mutant public in the early morning hours of Saturday the 14^th. Roll that summ’ry Joe Bob: 

Daughter of Darkness is the old familiar story of a beautiful Hungarian countess and her lesbian assistant who arrive at a grand hotel in Ostend in the middle of the night and notice a newlywed couple that look like they could be ghoul meat. But since this is Europe, and since this is an art house film, it all gets worked out through witty conversation and rough sex—well, at least until people start DYING in incredibly grisly ways. 

With a drop-dead-gorgeous international cast featuring Delphine Seyrig and its pill-popping misogynistic director Harry Kümel, Daughters of Darkness marked the beginning and the end of the Flanders horror renaissance. That’s too bad because some of us actually liked it.

Tear in Your Beer Moment: Staying awake after Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama

5 Dead Bodies | 13 Breasts | Multiple Aardvarking | 1 Beach Burial | Erotic Wife Beating | Weird European Music | Attempted Live Burial | 1 Motor Vehicle Crash-And-Burn, with Explosions | Blood Slurpin | Mutilated Beauty | Spooky Makeup Mirror | Bloody Window Specter | Gratuitous Murder Scene, with Rubberneckers | Gratuitous Turquoise Cocktail | Lots of Atmospheric Long Shots Where The Sky Is Orange | Foghorn Fu | Shaving Razor Fu | Belt Fu | Fruit Bowl Fu

Rating: 4 Balls. And the Tall Man Goes To: John Karlen, Danielle Ouimet, Delphine Seyrig

First Marathon Mention of a Recurring Joe Bob Theme: Gluten-hatin, illustrated maps

Second Marathon Mention of a Recurring Joe Bob Theme: Strasberg acting method, maple syrup porn

Not-At-All-Official Last-Drive-In Anniversary Bracket Results: Lost in Round 1 to Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama

Totally Tangential Phantasm Tie-In: Reggie would totally be tuning up his guitar for a chance at these vamps, if you know what we mean (and we think you do).

Next Up: Roll those recaps for flicks Numero Seven-o through Nine-o...