Intern-tainment Camp - DEAD END DRIVE-IN

It's unnerving when dystopian cautionary tales, especially ones from 30 or more years ago, ring oddly prescient today.  Many are still comfortingly unrealized.  The government isn't repackaging poor people into food (though I avoid McDonald's, just in case), and I doubt anyone is going to turn the most expensive real estate in the country into a prison anytime soon.  But it's really bad when even the outrageous, batshit notions from Down Under can be disturbingly on the nose today.  Case in point, Brian Trenchard-Smith's 1986 gonzo Aussie satire, DEAD END DRIVE-IN.

The Capsule:

In the far flung future of 1995, the world has gone to shit.  Riots, disasters, and economic collapse have caused global unemployment and food shortages.  Ironically, Australia seems to have it better than most places.  Crabs (Ned Manning) is enjoying the good life, relatively speaking.  His brother runs a towing business and is big enough to fight off the other wreckers for the best salvage.   He takes a break from his delivery job to enjoy a movie with his honey, Carmen (Natalie McCurry), at the Star Drive-In, claiming to be unemployed to get the discount.  As things get steamy in the car, the cops steal his tires out from under him.  The management doesn’t seem to care that he’s stuck there, and Crabs slowly realizes that the drive-in is actually a government run internment camp for unemployed teens.  The listless teens, fed a steady supply of movies and junk food, don’t really care that much, but Crabs is determined to escape.  His lack of apathy gets him the attention of the local black market gang and Thompson, the drive-in manager, who just want things to run smoothly.  The cops take an even dimmer view of him, and look to shut Crabs down for good.

DEAD END DRIVE-IN is Brian Trenchard-Smith’s spiritual sequel to TURKEY SHOOT.  It continues his fascination with the semi-pocalyse, where society is circling the drain, but has not completely fallen apart.  Things are a little grungier than MAD MAX without going full-on ROAD WARRIOR.  There is talk of food shortages and revolts, but the biggest problem we see is unemployment.  Aimless youth roam the paper strewn streets looking to cause trouble.  Since this is Australia, everyone is obsessed with cars; which also seems to be the main driver of the economy.  Tow truck crews fight it out gladiator style for the choicest salvage, Carboy gangs swarm over wrecks like vultures.  Nobody, not even the cops, are too concerned with the bleeding occupants.  In this culture, the drive-in makes the perfect bait for the government to trap undesirables.  A roach motel for car freaks.  

Trenchard-Smith pushes the satire here even more than in TURKEY SHOOT.  It is a smaller movie, with fewer locations and no international stars.  There is much less action, little blood, and (sadly) absolutely no werewolves.  No one’s life is in danger once we get to the drive-in (at least until Crabs’ escape attempt), only their freedom.  The lower stakes of the story makes it more realistic and relatable, which in a way is scarier than TURKEY SHOOT’s more overt dystopian theme.  I could absolutely see a version of this scheme crossing some politician’s mind.

The world of The Star Drive-In is both hysterically over the top and a believable result of unmonitored ‘80’s teens.  Fantastic punk/new wave outfits are augmented with car parts, boomboxes, and any other crazy shit they can find around.  They have transformed themselves into the Warriors of the Teenage Wasteland.  There is fog, and fire, and neon lights all around.  Someone has a pet monkey.  Basically, the whole movie is one giant Duran Duran video.  

The punks look dangerous, but it’s mostly just for show.  Everyone has easy access to food, drugs, sex, and movies, so there is not a lot of conflict.  No one had that much to begin with.  The junk of the world is evenly distributed.  The most interesting aspect of this nightmarish future internment camp is that the government really seems to have figured it out.  The inmates could easily overpower the couple of cops on patrol and bust out anytime they wanted, but why bother?  Everything they need is provided.  For most of these losers, life inside is better than life outside.  

The manager of the drive-in, Thompson (Peter Whitford), could be considered the warden character, but he seems like just as much a prisoner as anyone else.  We never see him leave the camp, no one respects him, and he is filled with a resigned sadness that things are never going to be good again.  He sees that Crabs is more ambitious than the other knuckleheads, and tries to win him over with privileges like beer.  Ultimately though, he’s a cog in the machine, an efficient bureaucrat who only cares about doing his job and not bucking the system.  Crabs can’t get a straight answer out of him.  Every explanation is infuriatingly vague, like “that’s just the state of things.”  

Every time Crabs makes progress toward escape, Thompson is there to undo it.  When Crabs finds new wheels, Thompson steals his engine.  In a way, he is a much more insidious villain than the over the top Warden Thatcher from TURKEY SHOOT.  Thompson is only armed with a smile and a beer, reminding Crabs that it’s so much easier to just give up.

What makes it worse is that Crabs is totally alone in his desire to escape.  Everyone thinks he’s crazy for maintaining his car, working out, and having hope.  Even Carmen can’t understand why he doesn’t want to just hang out and have sex all the time.  She puts it on herself, thinking he’s not into her anymore.

All of his resistance only attracts the attention of the local drug pushing big shot Dave and his cronies.  It might be a rough situation for Crabs, except that this is the least intimidating gang in history.   Dave is pretty much the Australian equivalent to Francis Buxton from PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE (Oi, I know you are, but what am I?).  They seem more like schoolyard bullies than a serious threat, especially after Crabs cracks Hazza, Dave's muscle (?), upside the head with a rock.  

The only real danger comes when the drive-in denizens’ kingdom is threatened by outsiders.  The government decides the drive-ins (there are nine of them around the country) are a perfect place to stash all their pesky refugees as well as unemployed hoodlums.  Everyone in the camp is worried about how this will change their idyllic existence of doing nothing all day.  The punks look at the refugees as a strange and threatening group of freaks, despite the fact they are the ones wearing all the spikes, shoulder pads, and light-up braziers.  

As usual, Crabs is the only one to step up and do the right thing.  In this case it is defending a innocent Sikh's right to use the public toilet from Dave's gang of bullies.  After this, though, Dave's gang change from harmless nitwits to something much more sinister.  They form their own White Drive-In Nationalist party.  Dave paints the refugees, mostly wide eyed Asian and Indian families, as a bunch of thieves and rapists.  The drive-in denizens are all too eager to buy into his rhetoric.  Instead of focusing their energy against the government that is illegally detaining them, the punks turn their anger on the easier targets, the people with even less power.  They live in a garbage heap, but they are determined to be at the top of that heap.

We never get to see how bad things will get.  Crabs’ last ditch escape attempt sends the whole place straight to hell.  While Crabs races around the camp trying not to get shot by the cops, the punks desperately attempt to save their sad little kingdom from burning to the ground.  In one impressive stunt, rabs launches his stolen cop car over the electrified fence, straight through the Star Drive-In sign.    

The last we see of him, Crabs is hauling ass down a desolate road, racing towards an uncertain future.  He has no idea what awaits him or if it will be any better than what he just left behind, but for that moment, he is happy as fuck to be free.  For such a depressing future, it’s a good message to end on.  Keep fighting and appreciate any success we can get.

Obviously, the events of this movie will never come to pass.  Drive-ins are obsolete and we all treat our refugees with respect and dignity.  Well, drive-ins are obsolete, at least.  So we don't have to worry about Star Drive-Ins in our near future.  I would be a little leery of the  Star Free High Speed Wi-Fi, though.

C Chaka

 

Embrace Your Limitations: TURKEY SHOOT

These days, studio blockbusters can have budgets larger than small countries, CGI can generate anything under and over the sun, and scripts can be remolded by a dozen screenwriters.  Every whim is within the director’s grasp. The results can still be uninspired.  Sometimes the key to really good filmmaking is not getting what you want.  Sudden roadblocks require creative thinking to get around, and can push a director down interesting new paths he or she might never have ventured otherwise.  Everyone has heard the stories of how Spielberg was forced to hide his malfunctioning shark through most of JAWS.  His workarounds re-wrote the book on suspense and produced an untouchable classic of cinema. Obviously, not everyone faced with the limitations of budget, time, and/or resources is going to turn it around and come up with gold.  A lot of films never overcome those challenges.  But even a failure can produce strange, unexpected fruit, and those oddities can be enough to make a movie stand out.  Take Brian Trenchard-Smith’s 1982 Australian sci-fi bloodbath, TURKEY SHOOT, for instance.  

The Capsule:

In a dystopian future, objectors to the authoritarian rule are labeled “Deviants” and shipped off to Re-Education camps.  Some are true dissidents and revolutionaries like Paul Anders (Steve Railsback).  Others, like law abiding Chris Walters (Olivia Hussey), are rounded up simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Both Anders and Chris find themselves in the brutal Camp 47.  As hellish as the conditions within the camp are, the tyrannical Camp Master Thatcher (Michael Craig) has even worse plans for them.  Thatcher combats overcrowding by staging “turkey shoots” for society’s degenerate elite, with the prisoners as the prey.  Hunted through the jungle by vicious guards, well-armed sociopaths, and even nastier surprises, Anders and Chris will need a miracle to survive.

TURKEY SHOOT is a strange movie, no doubt.  It’s a satire at heart, much like Paul Bartel’s earlier DEATH RACE 2000.  Trenchard-Smith doesn’t go as over the top as that, but he does keep the performances bombastic and the set-ups outrageous.  The first half of this film is essentially a prison movie, with all the sleaze and violence that comes with that genre.  The sleaze is a little more egalitarian in this crazy future world, at least. There is a shower scene, as required by all prison movies, but like STARSHIP TROOPERS, it's co-ed.  Overall, there isn’t much strife between the prisoners.  I wouldn’t call it solidarity, the inmates are too busy keeping their heads down, but they aren’t trying to shank or abuse each other, either.  The worst of the batch, Dodge (John Ley), is merely an opportunistic douchebag.  If it weren’t for the sadistic guards, it would be a pretty progressive prison.  

The guards are a nasty bit of work, having free reign to harass and torture the inmates.  They put the prisoners through elaborate and difficult challenges (their version of “the box” has a huge weight that the prisoner must hold up or be crushed).  It’s kind of like that TV show, Survivor, but with death at stake rather than idols.  One of the worst is Red, a limping, predatory scumbag.  He targets the timid Chris right out of the gate, continuously raising the threat of sexual violence.  Luckily, the movie is more interested in sticking it to the man than wallowing in the sleaze.  When Red makes his move in the shower, Chris turns the tables (and zips the zipper) on her would-be rapist.  The movie is satisfyingly punitive against misogynists; two lascivious bastards get shot in the dick, others get similarly ignoble fates.

The biggest baddies are running the place.  Chief Guard Ritter (Roger Ward, Max’s boss in MAD MAX) is a psychopathic brute with a luxurious moustache and a penchant for beating people to death for no reason.  This is the guy in charge of keeping the other guards in line, which is saying something.  Above Ritter is the ice cold Camp Master Thatcher.  Tasked with “rehabilitating” the Deviants, he espouses the camp’s contradictory motto: Freedom is Obedience, Obedience is Work, Work is Life (the unofficial motto: If you have time to lean, you have time to be hit in the neck with a rifle butt).  Thatcher is a classic control freak.  He deals with even the slightest disobedience with a disproportionally severe reprisal, often with a benevolent smile on his face.  He would have the world believe his actions are for the prisoners own good, encouraging their realignment with Society, but his real interest is breaking wills and bodies beneath his heel.  Thatcher has higher ambitions than just torturing malcontents, though, which is why he has arranged the prisoner hunts for a bunch of wealthy and influential sleazebags.

Once we get to the MOST DANGEROUS GAME portion of the movie, the villains get even more colorful.  The hunters are the type of amoral, decadent bourgeoisie that are easy to despise.  They are all extremely one dimensional, the only character evolution is in the depths of their depravity.  Still, it makes their inevitable comeuppance that much more satisfying.  Secretary Mallory is a slimy, simpering politician who sets his perverted eye on Chris.  He uses Ritter to shield him through the dangers of the hunt, but wants the kill all for himself.  Jennifer is a cunning socialite with a woman-hating streak even wider than the boys.  She’s a weapons designer, but her personal preference is a custom crossbow with explosive bolts.  My favorite baddie is the sadomasochistic big game hunter, Tito.  It’s not Tito himself that is so great, although he does drive around in a cute little bulldozer and has a quick draw bazooka.  The best thing about Tito is Alph, his hunting companion/pet.  Alph is a werewolf in a top hat.    If I wasn’t in love with TURKEY SHOOT yet, Alph sealed the deal.  He is the most insanely left field thing in a movie that starts out way, way in left field to begin with.  And he is played totally straight, at least compared to everything else we’ve seen.  The only explanation given is that Alph is a freak, and Tito found him in a circus.  Don’t question it, just enjoy his back breaking, toe-eating antics.

Compared to the villains, the heroes come off a little bland.  Steve Railsback plays Anders with his typical intensity (I’ll always remember him best as the abductee nutball Duane Berry from The X-Files).  He’s a fine foil for Thatcher, the unbreakable malcontent fighting for a revolution.  He, like the villains, is a little one note, though.  The big surprise is what a badass Olivia Hussey's character becomes.  Chris Walters (possibly the least interesting action movie name ever) goes through most of the film acting like a frightened rabbit, but she still manages to [spoilers] chop off Ritter’s hands to save Anders, blow off Jennifer’s head with her own explosive arrow, and mow down dozens of camp guards during the insurrection.  Anders is thrown a bone by getting to chew up Thatcher into pieces with a  machine gun, but it turns out Chris is the Most Dangerous Deviant around.

The best thing about this movie, werewolves aside, is that we are unceremoniously dumped into a dystopian future already in progress.  Stock footage of public unrest plays over the opening credits, then – pow – we are in the back of a Re-Ed van with the new batch of Deviants. No voice over, no text crawl, no nothing.  Anders and Chris have short backstories, but they don’t really explain anything other than Don’t Fuck With the Man.  Clearly, an authoritarian government is in control, and it doesn’t take any shit.  We don’t know if it is global or regional government or how the world got into the state it’s in.  We don’t even know the year (they say it in the trailer, but not the film).  It’s similar to the original MAD MAX, where the audience is left to fill in the blanks.  Where MAD MAX had a society gradually disintegrating into lawlessness, though, TURKEY SHOOT’s fascist world is fully formed and totally in control.  

The original script did explain things.  The opening of the film was supposed to be all about life in the 1984 (the book, not the year) style society.  The second act was to be the camp, then came the turkey shoot.  Before everything could get going, though, Brian Trenchard-Smith had both the financing and the shooting schedule cut.  He had to drop the opening and expand out the second and third acts.  There is still a bit of cheeky social commentary to be found (the ultra-conservative Camp Master shared the same name as the UK Prime Minister, after all), but Trenchard-Smith had to ramp up the action, sleaze, and gore to make up for the shortfall.  It worked out fine, in my opinion.  We’ve seen oppressive futuristic governments before.  What we haven’t seen is a werewolf in a top hat.  

If ever there was a movie that begged for a sequel, it’s TURKEY SHOOT.  The end of the movie finds Anders and Chris victorious, having liberated the camp and put down all the baddies, but there is a definite feeling of “what now?”  There’s still that soulless, unspecified totalitarian regime to overthrow.  Unfortunately, we’ll never know happened.  TURKEY SHOOT was not a success when initially released to dumbfound audiences, only gaining cult status years later.  The closest it came to a sequel was the 2014 remake, not directed by Trenchard-Smith, and not seen by me.  It looks all grim and serious.  I’m willing to bet there is not a single werewolf in it.  I was momentarily intrigued by the poster, which I thought showed an awesomely miscast Steve Carell, but it turned out to be Dominic Purcell instead. Missed opportunities.

Trenchard-Smith went on to introduce the world to Nicole Kidman (and her original nose) in BMX BANDITS, continue his dystopian satire theme with the brilliant DEAD END DRIVE-IN, and eventually make the schizocinema fave NIGHT OF THE DEMONS 2.    I doubt any of those movies ended up the way he first envisioned them, and it is probably for the better.  Let’s hear it for limitations.

C Chaka

Nun Stronger: NIGHT OF THE DEMONS 2

A little while ago, I reviewed the 2009 remake of NIGHT OF THE DEMONS.  As I stated then, I ordered the blu ray thinking it was the original ‘80’s version.  I was immediately disappointed when I realized what it was.  I almost didn’t watch it because by the look of the case, it was just another cheap, crappy remake that I never knew existed.  But the scrappy little indie won me over with its heart and enthusiasm, so I gave it a pass.  It still pales to the original, I thought.  The thing is, I finally got around to rewatching the original.  Guess what?  It’s terrible.  It has its moments, good make-up effects, and a crazy performance by Linnea Quigley, but it’s so uninspired.  Kids sneak into a spooky abandoned house for a party and they start getting possessed by demons.  They run from one boring room to the next and scream a lot.  That’s about it.  Anyone who’s seen THE EVIL DEAD knows that a basic plot doesn’t have to mean a dull movie, as long as the other elements are strong enough.    NIGHT OF THE DEMONS just wasn’t strong enough.  So yes, the remake is better than the original, in my opinion.  Sorry for doubting you, remake.  You may now hold your head high.  The real surprise, however, is that the 1994 sequel I’ve been ignoring forever turned out to be better than both.

The Capsule:

A group of witless teens sneak out of their strict Catholic school for a little Halloween partying.  Most of them are harmlessly obnoxious, but Shirley has a real nasty streak.  Along with a couple of reprobate friends, she lures her school mates to Hull House, the abandoned funeral parlor rumored to be haunted.  This is especially traumatic for Mouse, because her sister Angela disappeared from Hull House years ago after a Halloween massacre.   Turns out the demonic Angela is still knocking around the old place.  When one of Shirley’s twisted pranks sends everyone running back to the school, Angela tags along.  Soon, kids are getting possessed, heads start flying, and car seats are giving phantom handjobs.  Angela kidnaps Mouse and hauls her back to Hull House to be sacrificed.  Nice girl Bibi, her rock stupid boyfriend Johnny, and demon obsessed nerd Perry, all head off to save her.  Leading the way is righteous ass kicker Sister Gloria.  She’s a rosary whipping, holy water bombing supernun.  But all the holy water in the world might not be enough to stop Angela on the (Second) Night of the Demons.

My biggest problem with the original NIGHT OF THE DEMONS was that I was stuck in a single location with a bunch of annoying characters for almost the whole time.  The good kids were whiny and useless.  The bad kids were obnoxious and also useless.  There was no one to root for.  The sequel is a huge step up.  Most of the characters are still annoying, but the things that happen to them are more entertaining.  One character in particular, though, steals the whole show.

For a School for Troubled Teens, not many teens seem to be that troubled.  Not many of them seem like teens, either, but that’s a separate matter.  Angela’s sister Mouse clearly has issues, and Shirley is a hellion, but everyone else seems like a typical over-privileged suburban kid (in their twenties).  Christine Taylor, as Shirley, is playing a prototype of her mean girl from THE CRAFT.  She can be sneering and catty, but she never takes it too far.  She's just a spoiled brat.  I like that Rick, Shirley’s douchey boyfriend, actually calls her Marcia, and this is a year before she got the part in THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE.  Maybe this is what inspired her to go for it.  


Kurt is a typical bullying jock.  He becomes much more interesting when demonified, playing basketball with his own severed head.  Perry is the occult obsessed nerd.  He even has a copy of the Necronomicon (4^th edition, Penguin Press).  It’s funny, because he’s completely oblivious to why Father Bob disapproves of his hobby.  He doesn’t seem to get that the occult has anything to do with religion.  He’s coming at it like a science experiment.  I would be surprised if he didn’t have a survey prepared for the demons he’s trying to summon.  

Bibi is clearly established as the final girl in this equation.  She hangs out with Terri and Shirley, but disapproves whenever they pick on Mouse.  Unfortunately, she’s the second blandest character in the movie, topped only by her young Michael Biehn looking boyfriend, Johnny.  She spends most of her time moving slowly and looking scared, but she gets one decent scene, at least.  After she escapes from the sexually predatory Z Boy, who was bad enough in human form and worse as a demon, she lobs a holy water filled balloon right into his monster crotch.  She and Johnny also get to go against the sex = death trope.  They get it on in Hull House (Angela isn’t great about dusting but insists on fresh bed linens, apparently), and they are never punished for it.  I guess blandness is punishment enough.

The true hero of the movie is undeniably Sister Gloria (Jennifer Rhodes).  It’s a fantastic subversion of expectations.  Normally in a movie like this, the nun character would be a humorless sadist, going out of her way to degrade and punish.  Sister Gloria seems this way at first.  She’s very strict and prudish.  When she catches Shirley and Kurt fooling around, she bans them and innocent spectators Bibi and Johnny from the Halloween dance.  She seems like perfect demon bait.  Then, bit by bit, you get to see her playful side.  She practices fencing with her knuckle rapping yard stick.  When Shirley tries to embarrass her in class by asking a question about fellatio, Sister Gloria skillfully turns it around and makes Shirley look like the fool.  She’s the one who steps up when the demon shit hits the fan, staring down Angela and forcing her retreat.  After Angela kidnaps Mouse, Sister Gloria is the one who leads the rescue.  There’s a great sequence of her suiting up like she’s an action hero, only with a habit and rosaries instead of a head band and a bandolier of bullets.  She opens a drawer that has a set of yard sticks precisely lined up like swords.  She’s prepared for this kind of shit.

Even though the movie is partially based in a Catholic school, it plays the religion pretty light.  It’s obviously satire, but doesn’t become derogatory or sacrilegious.   I like that Sister Gloria stays true to her character even after becoming a demon ass kicker.  For her, it’s more about saving the kids than it is about destroying evil.  She is a bit corny, using lines like “save room for the Holy Ghost” when keeping the students from getting too intimate (the gag pays off nicely later).  She genuinely cares about the kids, though, and is willing to sacrifice her life if need be.  But she’s also ready with a holy water filled machine gun if opportunity arises.

The demon effects are much more creative than in the original (or remake).  There’s a talking head in the toilet (always welcome).  Demon Shirley’s boobs turn into hands to grab and burn up her lunkhead boyfriend.  Holy water makes them dissolve into green ooze and blood.  In one fantastic scene, the entire floor is covered in sloshy demon guts, flopping limbs, and Father Bob’s torso stuck in the middle.  He’s like a moving GI Joe melted down on a skillet.  They do the silly but appreciated gag where a decapitated body shuffles around spurting blood for several seconds after his head drops.  The most ambitious effects are at the end when Angela transforms into a giant snake monster.  It’s marred a bit in HD because you can see the cables that make it whip around, but it’s still an impressive visual. 

 

My biggest complaint with the NIGHT OF THE DEMONS remake was that they over explain things.  There had to be a reason behind everything, even if the reason made no sense.  The original was the opposite, it didn’t explain much of anything.  Why are there demons running around?  Because it’s Halloween, demons love Halloween.  NIGHT OF THE DEMONS 2 is nicely balanced.  It does explain a few key parts, like how Angela is able to escape the underground stream barrier that kept her in Hull House (it involves a clever, and gross, use of Linnea Quigley’s lipstick from the first film).  Other times, the movie lets you figure it out on your own, like why some demonified people can be purified by holy water while others are destroyed by it.  My explanation may be different from the filmmakers (if they even had one), but that is part of the fun.  A lot of it is left vague.  We know Angela will gain power through sacrifice, but we never know how much power or what she plans to do with it.  My money is on evilness, but who knows.  Maybe she just wants to renovate Hull House into a quaint bed and breakfast.  She clearly enjoys playing hostess.

Incidentally, I wonder how Angela and her demon pals got back into Hull House, since it was still surrounded by the underground stream.  Far be it from me to suggest a low budget horror movie sequel would have plot holes.  It must have been in a deleted scene.  

All of this is brought to us by the wonderful Brian Trenchard-Smith.  Smith was an early Ozpliotation director, unleashing insane Australian films like DEAD END DRIVE-IN, TURKEY SHOOT, and THE MAN FROM HONG KONG.  He was in his prime during the mid ‘70’s to ‘80’s.  By the ‘90’s, he was working mostly in the US and his style of gonzo filmmaking had ebbed.  I either forgot or never knew he did this one before I watched it, so it’s off-kilter and clever approach was a nice surprise.  He went on to do a couple of LEPRECHAN sequels after this, neither of which I have seen.  I should give them a shot sometime.  There might be a bit of mad Aussie magic hidden in them, too.

C Chaka