Dead-End Drive In

Original post date: 6 June 1987
Rating: ✭✭✰✰

I’ve got to be honest here. I was half-asleep through much of this movie, which was screened at midnight. This isn’t really the movie’s fault, although lack of sleep didn’t seem to be a problem for Evil Dead II or Street Trash. Anyway, this Australian flick takes us back into Mad Max/Road Warrior territory. It is sometime a few years from now and civilization is breaking down pretty badly. The latest big movie is Rambo Takes Russia. A teenager named Crabs (“I thought I had them once, but I didn’t”) takes his girlfriend to the drive-in. But while he is having his way with her, someone rips off the tires from his car. Turns out it was the police. In fact, everybody’s getting their tires ripped off. And the drive-in has a barbed-wire, electrified fence. In other words, the powers that be have turned the drive-in into a concentration camp to better manage the unruly teen population. But Crabs (love that name!) is a rebel. He thinks of nothing but getting out. Fortunately, I managed to wake up for the grand finale, where Crabs breaks out, in one of the best (but too short) car sequences since Road Warrior.

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