Genre: Family/Scary
Synopsis: Set in the 50s, a little boy and a mad scientist must battle the monsters that escape from a haunted drive-in movie theatre.
About: Making the rounds in H-wood (that’s “Hollywood” for those not hip to the lingo). Will it be bought? Will it be forgotten? Your comments could be the deciding factor. Who knows what suits are out there reading this blog, trying to decide if they should pull the trigger. Give’em your opinion folks.
Writer: Nick Creature
I’ll be honest. I don’t really know what to do with It Came From The Drive In. The script is a sort of wacky combination of a 1980s Saturday Morning Cartoon and a 50s B-movie. I say that having seen 2 50s B-movies in my life, both of which occurred during episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Which is why I definitely don’t see myself as the person to tell you whether It Came From the Drive In is any good or not.
Here’s a way more interesting question. What the hell ever happened to Drive-Ins? What a cool fucking concept. You grab a girl, drive to a theater that’s OUTSIDE, and then get it on for 2 hours in your car. I mean seriously. People were really looking out for sex-starved teenagers back then. I had to drive to the top level of a deserted parking lot to get my action back in high school. And listen to B96 belt out some corny R&B jam. What the hell’s up with that?
Anyway, what were we talking about again? Oh yeah, this wild and weird script. Hmmm, okay. I’ll sum it up for you. A 10 year old kid with an over-active imagination is obsessed with monsters and vampires and werewolves (heavily influenced by Whedon I suppose: please see Cabin In the Woods review). Soon after a new drive-in multiplex is constructed outside his hometown, strange creatures start appearing in dark places. But are they really creatures? Or are they just Opie’s (yes, his name is Opie) imagination. Opie teams up with the town scientist/outcast to find out what’s causing these monsters to appear, and form a plan to kick some monster ass and save the town.
Look, the script was energetic. It was well-written. But it’s hard to imagine anyone over the age of 10 demanding to see this movie. In fact, I kept asking myself, “Is this live-action or animated?” I still don’t know.
I fully admit this is one of those things that I probably don’t “get”. I mean, if the script to Harry Potter landed on my doorstep before anyone had heard of Harry Potter, I probably would’ve told you it was the biggest piece of garbled nonsense ever committed to paper. Since that franchise has made a couple billion dollars, I think it’s safe to say monsters and witches and werewolves and gobbledygook isn’t within my realm of understanding. You know what is within my realm though? Smurfs. I really like smurfs. Why haven’t they made a smurf movie yet? They’ve paid Hasbro 50 million dollars for the rights to Monopoly but no one cares when Gargamel is getting his close-up. I mean seriously. Where the fuck is Gargamel?
[ ] trash
[x] barely readable
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned from It Came From The Drive-In: I don’t usually do this but I’m going to talk about formatting for a second. Creature decided to bold his sluglines. It seems like a harmless choice but I’m telling you right now, it slowed me down. Not considerably. But readers don’t like to be slowed down even a little bit. It was just enough to stunt my natural reading rhythm. Wouldn’t recommend it.
