To catch everybody up with the goings-on out at the Grapevine trailer, aka Last Drive-In Central, right before the resumption of the regularly scheduled festivities on Shudder, let me first remind everyone that tickets for the third annual Joe Bob’s Jamboree are available for purchase and have been since right after the mid-season break.
It’s almost as if we planned it that way.
So, if you have the means, the will and the way to join us out in Las Vegas in early October, visit the Jamboree website and make the commitment to join your fellow Mutants for the World Drive-In Movie Festival on Oct. 6, the mysterious and memorable live Saturday night event that will be talked about in Mutant lore and that you’ll feel guilty for missing Oct. 7 and then the Sleepaway Camp marathon on Sunday, Oct. 8, before we start spoiling some of the surprises.
Obligatory shameless plug out of the way, here’s the refresher on what all Joe Bob and Darcy got into during Week Five and Five-point-Five as we buttress ourselves for whatever Aquatic Horror Week is going to bring us.
Week 5, Feature Uno: The Mutilator
The big debate that consumed the Mutant Family during the showing of this oft-requested-and-now-finally-seen North Carolina regional slasher came early when JB and Darcy got into a heated debate about not only the superiority of jam over jelly, but whether the flick was shot on the Crystal Coast or the Outer Banks. Darcy, a South Carolinian by trade, said Outer Banks. Joe Bob, reaching into the specific lore of the area when Bluebeard hung out, said Crystal Coast.
A Twitter poll went in favor of Darcy, but if you believe the branding and you Google the f-er, JBB wasn’t wrong, either about where Buddy Cooper’s flick was shot on the Crystal Coast of North Carolina’s Outer Banks. So there.
And speaking of enchanting locales, how about that Mutilator? By 1980s slasher standards, it’s not much we haven’t seen before, plot-wise. Well, except for the whole setting it during Fall Break, which is what, a three-day weekend for college kids that happens two weeks before Halloween? And the hook-through-a-very-sensitive-area-of-a-woman’s-anatomy scene. And that bizarre game of Marco Polo scene. And that part at the end where the bisected guy was still able to add one more notch to the body count. Talk about a show of Dad-ication!
So check out the Drive-in Totals below and if you really want to get into the mood, tune into the grand theme from The Mutilator “Fall Break” while doing so.
Week 5, Feature Two-o: Possession
The second feature before the hiatus was the Andrzej Zulawski Cold War classic Possession, where Isabella Adjani gives what has to be one of the top 10 intense performances of all time as her character uses the power of intense aardvarking to change a tentacle monster into an evil Sam Neill clone.
Idiosyncratic and artful at the same time, there’s immense desolation on display, from the ruined apartment that Adjani’s Anna inhabits, the trashed apartment Neill’s Mark lives in, the crummy way they ignore their son and the whackadoodle folks they hang out with (Heinrich, we’re looking at you).
The fact that it exists in that weird area of being both inspiring from an artistic standpoint yet incredibly depressing to the point that you might never want to watch it again after seeing it makes Possession among the most challenging and unforgettable flicks ever shown on the Last Drive-In. And yeah, it’s about a woman who aardvarks an octopus.
Week 5.5: The Walkin Dead: Dead City premiere special
Finally, as a whistle-wetter before we got back to business proper this week, Joe Bob and Darcy got to get a little simulcast action with AMC+ sparing a couple zombies that were properly stowed in the trailer.
Sure, JB didn’t get to revisit his History of the Zombie rant (there’ll be other chances, perhaps sooner than we think). The format of actually being on a time limit as decreed by the High Sheriffs is something he’s been able to avoid since, oh about 23 years ago. However, he did get to talk about nuclear fusion with Ely Jorne, who thought it’d be better to see if Negin and Maggie could pull a Snake Plissken and escape a zombie-inhabited New York than being Jack Lemmon in the China Syndrome.
Here are the totals for that little morsel of Walkin Deadness (and props to Darcy for letting the zombies go, I hope that doesn’t come back to bite her):
And that gets us to where we are today. Let’s keep our towels handy and get ready for some Aquatic Horror!