Dead End Drive-In (1986)'s comments

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Siskoid

Dead End Drive-In is a gorgeous-looking, colorful 80s dystopian film, kind of like Mad Max set among Australian strip malls. The plot is slim, but there's a lot of world-building going on. One of the bad things that can happen to you in this world is getting stranded in the eponymous drive-in, which serves as a kind of concentration camp for the dregs of society (or at least, the youth culture). One kid refuses to stay in there, though everyone else has given up and is doing Lord of the Flies (or perhaps just 1950s high school, I thought of Grease at times), which activates the film's action. Generally, I can do without fire fights, but the car stunts are pretty cool. The director has said the drive-in is a metaphor for 80s junk culture which the characters feel imprisoned in (or not), but that feels remote and abstract. It would be a more universal statement to say all youth feel trapped in the mundane of their specific era and either embrace it or escape it. 35 years later, in our world of stay-at-home streaming, we could say we've imposed the drive-in one ourselves, and of course literally, the world going to hell in a handbasket, fascism, internment camps... this story could have been dreamed up today.

3 years 11 months ago

jlfitz

https://noodlemagazine.com/watch/-41176811_163043503

1 year 6 months ago