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"I RECOGNISE TERROR AS THE FINEST EMOTION AND SO I WILL TRY TO TERRORISE THE READER. BUT IF I CANNOT TERRIFY, I WILL TRY TO HORRIFY, AND IF I CANNOT HORRIFY, I'LL GO FOR THE GROSS-OUT. I'M NOT PROUD." --- STEPHEN KING ::::::::::::: Spoilers for plot points and resolutions can occur within my movie reviews with or without warning. Read at your own risk.

Dead End Drive-In

January 11th 2009 23:02
Dead End Drive-In movie poster
More of a trashy curiosity than anything seriously memorable, Dead End Drive-In (1986), based on a short story by Australian literary icon Peter Carey, and directed by Aussie B-movie veteran Brian Trenchard-Smith, is a panel-beaten phantasy-actioner masquerading as a satire with a garish dress code.

It’s set in the future of the last decade of the 20th Century, and civilisation is crumbling. Rioting and massacre have caused massive upheaval and law and order have taken a turn for the worse. In a similar wasteland social realm to that of Mad Max (1981), it’s every man and woman for themselves in a police state where chaos and disorder are lurching around every corner, food is in short supply
Dead End Drive-In Ned Manning and Natalie McCurry
Ned Manning as Crabs and Natalie McCurry as Carmen
Crabs (Ned Manning), a short man with an authority complex, is keen to impress Carmen (Natalie McCurry). He’s allowed to borrow his brother’s vintage Chevy, and he takes Carmen to the local drive-in, only to find the next morning after enjoying a night of hanky-panky, that thieves have stolen the car’s tyres.
Dead End Drive-In car-boys
Car-boys in cruise'n'lootin' mode
Crabs is not happy Jan. But to add insult to injury, Crabs and Carmen discover they’ve inadvertently become prisoners in a “concentration camp” for the delinquents and marauders. The socially undesirables are locked up until the authorities decide they’re fit enough to be released. But most of these “inmates” are non-plussed, as they get all the junk food, Fosters, and have a genuine place to crash, which is better than the outside world for the most part.
Dead End Drive-In Drive-In
Crabs and Carmen the morning after their drive-in date
Dead End Drive-In Peter Whitford
Peter Whitford as drive-in head honcho Thompson
Crabs is determined to get out, or at the very least get even. Carmen is their by his side, although she finds the situation more tolerable than Crabs, and she isn’t bullied by the car-boys as much either. Plus, she’s made friends with the local chicks who prefer to tease her hair.

Dead-End Drive-In was made on the stench of an oily rag, but it wears its limitations on its lube-stained sleeves. Director Trenchard-Smith keeps the energy revving, despite the movie’s ability to stall on frequent occasions. There’s too much dialogue for a start. More action, less conversation Mr. Trenchard-Smith and screenwriter Peter Smalley, ‘cos that’s where George Miller excelled with Mad Max. Let the social commentary speak, but in hushed tones.
Dead End Drive-In drive-in gang
The drive-in bully boys ...
It’s the future, but everyone is dressed like they’ve stepped out of a Culture Club video. There’s a poster for Rambo 8: Rambo Takes Russia (not too far off …) The movies screening at the drive-in are The Man From Hong Kong and Turkey Shoot (1981), two of Trenchard-Smith’s most well-known exploitation flicks.
Dead End Drive-In chicks
... and a coupla rev-head chicks
The lensing is vivid though, with the use of filters adding colour saturation and enhancing the smog-polluted beauty of the industrial sunsets. The stunt-work is okay too, although more craziness would’ve lifted the movie off the blocks and into overdrive. There’s a wild car jump at movie’s end which is pretty dinky, but overall, I was hangin’ for more apocalyptic mayhem.
Dead End Drive-In big blow-up
It ain't a Brian Trenchard-Smith flick unless something there's a big blow-up
In the excellent Ozploitation documentary Not Quite Hollywood Quentin Tarantino is very enthusiastic about Trenchard-Smith, in particular Dead End Drive-In, which he describes as his favourite Trenchard-Smith movie. Trenchard-Smith is openly chuffed at having such a luminary figure overtly praising his work. It makes perfect sense though, that Tarantino would dig the petrolhead extravagance of Dead End Drive-In, as his own grindhouse flick Death Proof is a homage to numerous hot-roddin’, leather pumpin’, synth-rockin’, fisty-cuffin’ pyrotechnic tits-and-ass indulgences such as Dead End Drive-In.
Dead End Drive-In car jump
Hold onto your hats
Of curious note: when the movie was to be distributed in America by Roger Corman’s company New World Pictures, all the voices were going to be re-dubbed by American actors (just as Mad Max had been), but the dubbing was so poor that it was scrapped and the original soundtrack left intact.

Here's the original U.S. trailer:


Dead End Drive-In DVD is courtesy of Madman Entertainment, many thanks!

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2 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Damo

January 12th 2009 01:22
From the dark ages of wild Australian Movie making.

Man from Hong Kong was a good movie. Turkey Shoot was reputed to be so bad that the critics walked out on its premier. Philip Adams apparently lead the revolt after Linda Stoner got speared in the breast.

This movie I cannot even remember. I never made t to the made cinema. Yet it looks like a blast of pure insanity.

Comment by Bryn

January 13th 2009 00:07
Damo,
I'd never heard of it either until I saw the OZploitation doco, but then most of these B-grade Aussie flicks never made it across the Tasman to NZ. Mad Max was even banned in NZ for many years.

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