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| Skyline Drive-In, Waynesboro VA - Photo by Tony at driveins.org |
I'm only glad to be older than dirt when I'm a
horror fan who's older than dirt. I've been fortunate enough to experience some great horror mileposts, some "end of an era" type opportunities that some of my younger contemporaries missed out on. I've been lucky.
I'm grateful that my indoctrination into the world of grown-up horror movies coincided almost perfectly with the slasher movie boom of the late 70's and early 80's. I was afforded the opportunity to see the likes of
My Bloody Valentine (1981),
Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), and
Halloween II (1981) all on the big screen during their original theatrical releases. These were the salad days of the gratuitous tit shot and the practical special effect.
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| The Bowman Body - Cobweb Theater |
I'm grateful that I could look forward to seeing some hoary old black and white horror movie hosted by
the Bowman Body every Saturday night, first on
Shock Theater (The Big 8!) and later on
Cobweb Theater broadcast from Charlottesville. The picture to the right is a screen capture of the Bowman Body reading a fan letter on the air from a much younger and less jaded movie fan. You can see the clip in its entirety
here. Even as a youngster I was a genre critic.
Most of all, though, I'm grateful that I experienced the last hurrah of the drive-in horror movie. Nothing beats seeing Lucio Fulci's
Zombie (1979) on a gigantic outdoor screen with a cup of french fries in one hand and the badly dubbed soundtrack blaring through a speaker mounted to the window.
My mother and I would spend each Saturday doing yard work for my Great Aunt Sydney so I could earn some drive-in money for Saturday night. The theater in question was usually the
Skyline Drive-In (Shenandoah's Showplace) in Waynesboro, VA. There'd always be a line at the ticket booth because Saturday night was usually "carload" night - one admission price for as many people as you could fit in your car. It was an entertainment value that couldn't be beat, especially if it happened to be a dusk til dawn show.
I had the good fortune to see
Motel Hell (1980),
Fear No Evil (1981),
The Gates Of Hell (1980), and
The Creeper (1977) on the
Skyline's mammoth screen. I saw The
Toolbox Murders (1978),
The Driller Killer (1979), and
Wolfen (1981), too. I saw them all out under the stars on humid summer nights, the way God intended.
At some point I'd always have to visit the bathroom or the snack bar, usually after I was sufficiently spooked by the evening's entertainment to make the trek from the car to the snack bar a terrifying dash through the darkness and open air. The bathroom, in particular, was the stuff of nightmares, lit by the jaundice glow of the yellow bug lights punctuated occasionally by the purple flash of the bug zapper. The bathroom had a screen door and a trough to pee in -
very utilitarian.
Inside the snack bar, though, was the drive-in holy grail. For as long as I visited the
Skyline, there was always a poster for
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) on the wall beneath a sign that read "Coming Soon". It was a tease.
TCM never played the
Skyline during these years. I know. I waited for it. And waited, and waited . . .
Undoubtedly, the poster had been there since
TCM had played the
Skyline years earlier. I ultimately did see
TCM on the big screen years later at a midnight screening - I can be grateful for that, at least - but nothing could've beaten seeing the epitome of the drive-in horror movie at the
Skyline.
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| The Route 340 Drive-In marquee, covered by speedway signs - Photo by drive-ins.org |
I would occasionally find myself at the
Route 340 Drive-In, as well - also in Waynesboro - and that was an even sketchier state of affairs. The
Route 340 shared land with Eastside Speedway, so on most Saturdays you couldn't hear the movies until after the drag racing was done for the night. The
Route 340 also generally played raunchier titles.
My most vivid memory of the
Route 340 was the night my mother and I stumbled upon
I Spit On Your Grave (1978) playing there. Spitting on graves - it's a horror movie, right?
My mother was mortified that she'd taken her nine year old son to see a movie with a protracted and graphic rape scene that comprised nearly a third of the movie's run time. She couldn't really make me leave the room, either. I ended up standing by the snack bar for most of the rape, thereby at least sparing my mother the uncomfortable silence and unfathomable shame. I still can't bring myself to watch
I Spit On Your Grave in mixed company.
There's one final drive-in that deserves an honorable mention here -
Roth's Drive-In in Harrisonburg, VA. We visited the
Roth less frequently because it was farther away, but it distinguishes itself as being the venue in which I first saw both
Halloween (1978) and
Friday The 13th (1980). A fellow in the bathroom assured me when I saw
Friday The 13th that the version
he'd seen the preceding week was gorier. I'm not even going to conjecture as to why he felt the need to share that info with a ten year old standing at the pee trough.
This post came about because of an exchange with Jonny Dead at
Blood Sucking Geek. Jonny, who's younger than me (who isn't?), was envious of the fact that I'd seen
The Driller Killer at a drive-in. For those who didn't, I highly recommend
Jonny Dead's Trash Box Volume 1, wherein Jonny pairs
The Driller Killer with
Naked Massacre (1976) in a lovingly rendered ode to the drive-in / grindhouse experience. All of the drive-ins mentioned here are long gone, but the drive-in aesthetic lives on.
Posted By Brandon Early
