Notes from The Last Drive-In: S2E5
We’re past the halfway point for season two of The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs and I am already feeling sad. Let’s not dwell on what is coming to an end, however. We already have confirmation of a summer special, after all. For now, let’s dive into two movies that cannot be more different.
Tonight’s double feature consisted of William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist III (1990) and Jim Van Bebber’s Deadbeat at Dawn (1988). I was back to live-tweeting the double-feature for the night, so apologies now for any awful puns and jokes you see embedded into this review and recap.
The Exorcist III (1990)
Opening Rant: Toxic masculinity and a poorly thought out razor ad.
The sequel to the sequel to one of the most culturally important horror films of all time had a lot that could have gone wrong. What is amazing is that The Exorcist III is actually damn good despite the awful The Exorcist II: The Heretic. A lot of that is the result of the tenacity of the strange and passionate William Peter Blatty, author of the original Exorcist novel. That’s not to say that The Exorcist III is without flaws, however. The film has a number of issues, but ultimately these problems are not enough to derail what turns out to be a strange follow-up to the alarming possession of Regan MacNeil.
The film is, foremost, a masterclass of acting. The acting here is so good that it sets George C. Scott opposite Brad Dourif and Scott is the one who comes off as subdued compared to Dourif. It is a very “talky” sort of film which seems unusual for a Drive-In feature, but it works. Most of the deaths occur off-screen, but it works. Like last season’s The Changeling, also featuring George C. Scott, The Last Drive-In makes room for something a little more measured and, I dare say, classier in its approach to horror. It is the film’s restraint in the visual excess of horror that allows what it does engage in to mostly succeed. Namely an amazing transition from Jason Miller to Brad Dourif via an editing trick and perhaps one of the finest jumpscares ever committed to film.
Yet, the film also has substantial problems. The murdering off of one key character sacrifices a fascinating homosocial relationship for cheap motivation. A strange dream sequence comes off as a budget Twin Peaks scene and is goofier than insightful. Lastly, a hasty attempt to include an exorcism into a story that didn’t need it ruins the ending to what was an overall creepily effective film.
So while The Exorcist III mostly does what is necessary of a good sequel, specifically for The Exorcist, too many issues mar it. As brilliant as some of Blatty’s choices were as the mind behind the film it is necessary to have a seasoned veteran to bounce off of when it comes to film.
Joe Bob’s assessment of the film is perfectly fine. Three stars is a fair score for the movie. He ultimately had a lot to say about it. There is a trend where the more mixed he is on a film the more in-depth Joe Bob’s analysis and discussion of the film usually come off. It makes sense because things we love sometimes are harder to discuss than things we can be critical of. The Exorcist III is just one of those films where it was a perfect storm of issues narratively and behind the camera while also navigating the legacy of the original film.
While the second feature of the night is definitely more fun and a better Drive-In movie overall, The Exorcist III provides viewers with the sort of material that drives them to watch the redneck horror host in the first place; an honest assessment of the film, both good and bad, with observations about the craft of film itself. It sounds dismissive to just say it is “typical Joe Bob,” but that is a good thing. This is a perfect example of the appeal of The Last Drive-In.
I like The Exorcist III. I think people who claim to like it more than the original are probably being contrarians. It’s not a bad movie and it is probably the best sort of sequel to The Exorcist that a fan can ask for, but the fact remains that it is a deeply flawed film. Ultimately, I couldn’t rate it higher than three and a half Cthulhus.
(3.5 / 5)
Best Line: “This I believe in… I believe in death. I believe in disease. I believe in injustice and inhumanity, torture and anger and hate… I believe in murder. I believe in pain. I believe in cruelty and infidelity. I believe in slime and stink and every crawling, putrid thing… every possible ugliness and corruption, you son of a bitch. I believe… in you.” – Kinderman to what is clearly Pazuzu.
Deadbeat at Dawn (1988)
Opening Rant: Poop coffee.
I think I first saw Deadbeat at Dawn at the end of my junior-high years. I recall it was a shitty VHS bootleg and it came from a kid named Eli who was super into Insane Clown Posse and bootlegged VHS copies of the hentai Dragon Pink and Golden Boy for all of the weird kids at my junior-high which turned out to be a lot of us.
I mention this because this sounds sketchy and grimy and is sort of the perfect way to experience the sketchy and grimy film that is Deadbeat at Dawn. The film is juvenile and punk in a fundamental way of just not giving a shit and indulging in such bizarre anarchistic impulses on and off camera that it becomes this sort of outsider art. I say this with love: Deadbeat at Dawn is an absolutely insane 81 minutes that probably should never have been released.
Deadbeat at Dawn is independent film-making at its most impulsive and punk. Cobbled together over four years by a director (Jim Van Bebber) who also plays the lead, the film was often shot without permits and resulted in a series of Jackass-style moments witnessed by unsuspecting people in the local community. It’s all dumb film students recording dumb, dangerous stuff and eventually managing to pull a movie out of it. Basically what every aspiring film-school student secretly desires to do.
It’s not a good movie but it is also a good movie. Deadbeat at Dawn is not well-written, the performances are amateur, and the story is just kind of non-existent. It features a sequence of the director/lead practicing his nunchucks and screaming in a Dayton, Ohio graveyard dealing with feelings about his budget-Satanist girlfriend. It’s an example of one of those films that know not to take itself too seriously and have fun with itself.
Yet, the film also is a gritty Kung Fu vengeance film, punctuated with moments of true despair with a simultaneously repulsive and sympathetic protagonist with one of the most insane last 20 minutes put to film. So much of this movie shouldn’t work but does. The film is just so grimy and textured. In another universe this would have been paired with Street Trash.
Joe Bob’s assessment of Deadbeat at Dawn is a full four stars punctuated by him saying “I loved it.” The film is pretty much perfect Drive-In fare and an example of something so beloved the conversation around it, while always insightful on the show, is also kind of dialed back. Perhaps this is in awe of the audacity of what Jim Van Bebber achieved. Regardless, several Sam Raimi references, including his own thoughts on the “punk action film” pop up in addition to referencing Joseph Campbell.
Perhaps the best part of all of this, however, is how Joe Bob Briggs highlights Van Bebber’s own philosophy: “Pain is temporary. Film is forever.” Our horror host points out just how crazy and punishing the assembly of this feature was. I know Joe Bob Briggs has written a lot of books, but I don’t know if he’s written one about Deadbeat at Dawn. If not, he should.
What impressed me most about Deadbeat at Dawn is how well it holds up. I’ve seen it maybe twice since junior-high, but goddamn does it still hold up. As a punk music fan, I think one of my livetweet riffs summarize my feelings on this film pretty well.
Deadbeat at Dawn is totally worth four and a half Cthulhus. It’s too audacious not to be.
(4.5 / 5)
Best Line: “I hate people, man. I don’t care. I don’t give a shit. I don’t give a shit about nothin’. Man, all my life people have fucked with me. Don’t you fuck with me, man. I just fuckin’ hate people. I hate people and I don’t care. I just don’t fuckin’ care. I don’t care. I’m the baddest motherfucker you ever saw, man.” – Bone Crusher
HMTL Drive-In Totals
So, here are the official totals, courtesy of Shudder. It was a good night.
As for our totals?
- 4 Helicopters
- $9-million in Reshoots
- 20 Dense Minutes
- 57 Weeks on the NYT’s Best Seller List
- $10,000 Scholarship
- Carp Monologing
- Inexplicable Fabio
- Spontaneous Dourif
- Down n’ Dirty Catholicism
- Awkward Crash Zoom
- Joe Bob Confusing
- Bible Versing
- Actor Slapping
- Hillbilly Joking
- Graveyard Fighting
- Graveyard Nunchucking
- Raimi Referencing
- Campbell Referencing
- Snake Slapping
- Dual Jocking
- But Punching
- South Carolina Joking
- Ouija Fu
- Creepy Confession Fu
- New York The-ate-er Fu
- Biblical Research Fu
- Powerwalk Fu
- Map Fu
- Burp Fu
- Sloppy Bar Pass Fu
- Sommelier Fu
- Car Fu
- Poorly Dubbed Cat Fu
- Darcy Cosplay: The Angel of Death
- Silver Bolo Award: The Horror Movie Podcast
Episode Score
Man, what a good night. These films could not be more different than one another. One is more literary and the other is more punk. It’s a strange combination that results in yet another great episode of The Last Drive-In.
(4 / 5)
And remember, folks…
The Drive-In will never die.
There are a lot of holiday horrors with the phrase Silent Night in their title. So, to help keep things straight, Silent Night Bloody Night is the one that no one should waste their time watching.
The story
Released in 1972, Silent Night Bloody Night is the story of an abandoned house. When it’s inherited by a man named Jeffrey Butler, the town tries to buy it from him. He sends his lawyer, John Carter, to negotiate. What follows is a Christmas-time revenge killing spree in the house that used to be an insane asylum and is now just a gross eyesore. Much like in Halloween, a prodigal son came home and started killing. Unlike in Halloween, viewers can’t bring themselves to care.
What worked
I would like to give credit where it’s due when I can find it. There were some legitimately creepy scenes in this movie. Two of them, to be precise.
The shots of the escaped inmates are well done. The makeup, dull facial expressions, and zombie-like movements were truly unnerving. In what is maybe the only well done scene in the whole movie, an inmate walks into the dining room and slowly drains a glass of wine. He then breaks the glass and uses the broken piece to rip out a doctor’s eye.
I also enjoyed or was at least unnerved by, the phone calls the killer makes from the house. They were great little eerie moments.
What didn’t work
I first need to point out that the production value of this movie is ass. I’m sure I could have shot a better movie on a Tamagotchi.
The whole thing is grainy, dark and dull. Even scenes with bright colors have all the brightness of a mechanics wash rag. And there are parts where the physical film was corrupted, leaving big black splotches.
Maybe I’m being too hard on it. I mean it was released in 1972. It’s not like they had access to advanced filming equipment. Like, for instance, The Godfather or Deliverance.
Oh, wait. Both those films also came out in 1972. And they sure as hell don’t look like this. Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory and Twelve Chairs came out the year before and they look great.
Granted, those films were preserved, digitized, and treated like the works of art they are. Silent Night, Bloody Night was apparently kept near a furnace, in the hopes that it might catch fire and never trouble anyone again.
None of that would matter, though, if the movie was any good. But it’s not. Let’s start with the voiceovers because that’s what the movie starts with.
Voiceovers are great when they add context or interesting commentary. A Christmas Story has voiceovers through the whole thing, and that’s great. This commentary, however, is a cautionary tale against telling not showing. It fails to be interesting or give additional information. It’s just bad.
What bothered me most is that not one shred of joy seems to have gone into this film. Unlike Mercy Christmas, which we talked about last week, nobody is having a good time.
The music is morose rather than eerie. The acting is lazy and half-hearted. Even in the most dramatic scenes, everyone delivers their lines like they’re reading off a list of instructions to build something they don’t care about building. And the effects are just horrific. We don’t see a single blow in any of the fight scenes. We see people wincing in pain, and weapons being raised. And that is it.
I suppose we might say this is to stave off the censors. But my God, that’s not what a Christmas horror movie is for. And it still has an R rating, even though we see neither boobies nor an axe biting into flesh. If you’re going to get stuck with the R rating, earn it.
Overall, Silent Night Bloody Night was devoid of anything joyful. It wasn’t fun to watch, it didn’t leave me with anything to ponder or savor. It was just a bad movie, from start to finish.
(1 / 5)
Christmas time is here! It’s time to listen to the same five songs until your ears bleed, spend time with people you’d fake your own death to avoid the rest of the year and stuff yourself with way too much food. And, it’s time for my favorite holiday tradition, watching horrible Christmas movies to tell you all exactly how god-awful they are. Let’s start with Mercy Christmas, a film about a family with a unique set of holiday traditions. And, a unique holiday menu.
The story
Our main character is named Michael Briskett. He’s a lonely man working a dull job with an abusive boss. But he’s doing his best to have a good Christmas. He even throws a party for everyone at his work.
No one shows up, though, except for the boss’s beautify assistant, Cindy. Together they have some drinks, and eventually, she invites him to her family’s Christmas celebration.
Personally, if a woman that beautiful had asked me out, I’d assume she thought I had money. But poor Michael is so swept up in being included that he jumps on the chance.
When he arrives at the family home of the Robillards, he finds two nasty surprises waiting. The first is that Cindy’s brother is Andy, his horrible boss. The second is that the family intends to eat him and three other people throughout Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day.
After that is, Michael finishes up a work project for Andy. Because it’s not bad enough that he will be eaten, he also has to work over Christmas.
What worked
There are two kinds of bad Christmas movies. The ones that are actually bad, like Gingerdead Man, and the ones that are bad in all the wonderfully right ways that make them a real holiday treat. Mercy Christmas was one of the latter.
First, no one is taking a single second of this seriously. The writers sure didn’t, when they wrote a scene in which Michael and Eddie are tied together by Christmas tree lights to battle the Robillards. The actors didn’t. Half the time you can see them holding back a mighty laugh with all of their might. The stunt coordinators, the costume department, and the effects team were all doing their very best to make this movie as hilarious as possible. Because at every moment, every detail was selected to be funny and festive rather than serious. Cindy wearing a cross to church service. The pineapple on the roast leg. Grandma insisting that they do stockings at her specific time, as though they haven’t got three strangers tied up in the basement. All of this was funny as hell, exactly as it was supposed to be.
Every single person involved with Mercy Christmas was having a fantastic time. As I mentioned, the whole cast felt like they were about to start laughing. There is so much joy in their faces, even when it’s not exactly a joyful scene. But it’s the attention to comical detail that makes it clear that this movie was a labor of love for everybody.
Finally, I adore that the Robillard family acts exactly how we all picture people behaving at a big family Christmas. At least, if the family has money. Everyone’s arguing over food, talking about how they miss their mom, and fussing at each other. But everyone is also doing their little part to make Christmas great for their family after suffering the loss of their beloved mom.
If they weren’t eating people, this could have been a Hallmark Christmas movie.
What didn’t work
All of that being said, there was one thing that bothered me about this movie.
Over and over, we come back to the fact that Mrs. Robillard died. It’s brought up often enough that I thought for sure that it was going to be a bigger plot point. But it isn’t. That just seems to be window dressing for the family.
This felt like failed misdirection. When misdirection is done well, we don’t care about it anymore after the sleight of hand is accomplished. But there is no sleight of hand here. There is no misdirection. We’re just left wondering why the hell the mother was brought up so often if nothing was going to come of it.
All in all, Mercy Christmas was a fun, bloody movie with some incredibly satisfying moments. And while I don’t know if it’ll make it on my list every year, I can see myself coming back for seconds.
(4 / 5)
To a lot of fans, this is the film that killed the franchise. It says a lot that the next installment is yet another retcon. Halloween VI: The Curse of Michael Myers attempts to explain Michael’s unrelenting evil, which lead to mixed opinions from longtime fans. There are two cuts of the film, theatrical vs producer’s. For a lot of people, the latter is the only one worth mentioning. Aiming to be as accurate as possible, I will be talking about the producer’s cut. Let’s begin!
Plot
We start Halloween VI with a six-year time jump from part five. Jamie is now barefoot and recently pregnant, running away from Michael as he wants her baby. While she manages to hide the little one away, Michael finally gets his hunger satiated by killing her. The moment is one of the most brutal ways in the franchise up until that point. Rest in peace, Jamie, you held your ground for as long as you could, the sequels were just too relentless.
The movie then cuts to a whole different scene going on. We have a new family living in the Myers house and their youngest child is hearing voices telling him to kill his loved ones. Tommy Lloyd is watching the family, played by none other than Paul Rudd in his first-ever theatrical role. Tommy still carries trauma from the events all those years ago when Laurie Strode was babysitting him. So when he finds Jamie’s baby, his part in the story becomes even more essential.
Dr Loomis also stars in what was Donald Pleasance’s final role before his passing. He and Tommy try to stop Michael once and for all before the cycle can repeat itself. As it turns out, Michael is a victim of a druid cult which makes him want to kill his family members every Halloween. Thorn, the cult in question, thinks they can control Michael and make him do their bidding. This results in catastrophe and Michael goes berzerk and kills all the cult members. Once again, it’s one of the most gruesome montages for the franchise up until that point.
Tommy and Kara are left to face Michael on their own which they manage to do with some corrosive liquid and good luck. However, nothing stays dead in this franchise as it’s soon revealed Michael somehow escaped and this time Dr Loomis might not be so lucky…
Overall thoughts
I would say for me personally Halloween VI definitely ranks somewhere near the bottom. The whole point of Michael is that there is no rhyme or reason to his killings and this film tries to go against that. I am glad the mistake was rectified by the upcoming installment. There were still some good things about it, such as Paul Rudd’s acting that reveals some raw talent as far as I’m concerned, as well as some direction choices and musical score. However, I also think it absolutely deserves all the criticism that it gets.
(2.5 / 5)
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