DVD Review - Drive-In Cult Classics

Are you a fan of the drive-in? I'm not talking about today but from the 1970's when they were still popular. If not then perhaps you are a fan of the movies that were made strictly to play as the lead and co-feature at a drive-in for two or three weeks. The kind of film with a small budget, bad acting, worse directing and editing, ill timed musical scores and weird stories that often went nowhere but enough blood and T&A were thrown into the mix to distract from that. If you are one of those fans or just one who enjoys bad movies in general then I have a DVD set for you.

Drive-In Cult Classics is now available for less then $10 in most places and it features 8 movies on the set. That's not a bad deal even if the movies are less then stellar. I gleefully purchased my copy not long ago as most of the titles are from films I can remember being advertised in my newspaper but couldn't see them at the time. I will briefly review these films in alphabetical order so that if you get them you will know which ones to check out and which ones can be skipped to a later date with no foul if you forget to catch up with them.

What I found most surprising about these movies is the levels of violence and the unsuspecting paths some of these films take. Most sound like sex romps but none of them really are.

Here is a look at the films:

BEST FRIENDS (1975) - This film tells the story of two couples who go off on a cross country vacation in a motor home. One of the men decides to become a rebel and buys a motorcycle along the way and soon he begins to lose his mind some and becomes an outcast within the group. The film's one curiosity is star Richard Hatch from the original Battlestar Galactica as our hero here. The film flirts with the issue of wife swapping but is too timid to follow through as it prefers to dealing with the three people taking on the fourth as he loses his mind leading to a gun battle to end it. The film is rather slow and uninteresting until the last act but then goes over the top.

CINDY AND DONNA (1970) - By far the worst film on the disc is about two half sisters, one of whom is drinking and having sex, while the other secretly watches and learns. The film has no central storyline and is just a series of lewd, cruel and soft core sex scenes. This film leaves no stone unturned as we get rape, lesbianism and even indirect incest (the father sleeps with his non-biological daughter) but is so sexist (the men are all horny a**holes and the women are willing sex objects) that the film is likely to offend many people. The film also ends unexpectedly on a down note which is fitting because by the time it is over you feel depressed anyway.

MALIBU HIGH (1979) - This is the most unusual film on the disc. A high school senior seeing her grades going downhill decides to start seducing her male teachers and blackmailing them into getting good grades. Then she hooks up with her drug dealer who convinces her to become a small time hooker in town. Soon she is making decent money and attracting more sophisticated clients. Soon after that she is approached by a man who invites her to be a top escort which she readily accepts and is soon driving a Mercedes Benz to school (in one of the more amusing moments). But that isn't all. Soon she is asked by her new pimp/provider/lover to kill a man for him. She does so and succeeds and then becomes a top hit woman leading to a violent and ugly ending including a chase with a musical score most will recognize as the theme to People's Court. Want to win a trivia contest? Ask what movie that theme came from. I guarantee victory. This film is a real curiosity because of the low depths it manages to attain. When it's over you just want to shake your head and ask yourself if you really just saw that movie.

PICK UP (1975) - My other candidate for worst film on the disc is this almost incomprehensible mess about two young ladies who take a ride from a guy driving a mobile home in Florida who happens to get lost near the Everglades. From there it seems as if weird things start to happen but this plot-less mess doesn't provide any explanations and is driven purely by unexplained imagery and a totally unsatisfying conclusion. Yes the film has the requisite nudity but even that can't save this awful film.

THE SISTER IN-LAW (1974) - Judging by its title you would suspect this to be a sexy drama about a man who sleeps with his brother's wife and the ramifications of those actions. Well, only partly is this that film. John Savage (pre The Deer Hunter) stars as a young man looking for direction who takes up with his former sister in-law, now divorced from his brother. The brother, meanwhile, is a lowlife screenwriter dabbling in illegal activities who tricks his brother into being involved. Brother then takes up with his brother's new girlfriend while the two are on the road. This is an odd film with a script that goes all over the place and, as usual, leads to a violent ending out of left field. Savage performs earnestly enough and even sings the film's main theme song which was quite nice. One of the better films on the desk - for what that is worth.

THE STEPMOTHER (1972) - This film has the most recognizable group of actors in its cast and is, amazingly enough, the one film in this list that actually received an Academy Award nomination. That's right the film's theme song, "Strange Are The Ways of Love" actually made it into the top five. I don't recall the song being all that memorable but then again the film is so silly and over the top it would be hard to remember the song had it been sung by Alice Cooper or Ozzy Osbourne. The film tells the story of a rich architect (played by Alejandro Rey, best known as Sally Field's love interest on The Flying Nun) who returns home one late night from a business trip to discover a top client is in his house. The client has, we learn later, forced himself on the wife but our hero assumes that from the start and kills the man in his driveway. He takes the body to a remote location and buries the body at the very same time another man has just killed his wife and is burying her body. Can you guess who will get blamed? The architect tries to get back to life as usual including working with his best friend on more building projects. That the best friend is played by Larry Linville (Frank Burns from M*A*S*H) is more then a little distracting for the duration of his role. Meanwhile the architect's wife is feeling lonely since her husband has come home and not touched her but never fear because soon the husband's handsome teenage son will come for a visit and then all hell will really break loose. This is a ridiculously ludicrous film with detectives trying to solve the murder and not seeing through the holes of the main character's story. It's silly but fun and leads to yet another laughable but violent ending.

THE TEACHER (1974) - From the writer/director of The Stepmother comes this lurid tale of a high school student (played by Jay North of TV's Dennis the Menace) who witnesses a man's accidental death and is then pursued by the man's psychotic brother. All the while the student is hot for teacher and one day the teacher seduces him leading to some summer loving. Unfortunately for our young hero the brother pursuing him is also obsessed with the very same teacher making the poor kid's life twice as difficult. Of course the brother (played by the ever menacing Anthony James) would be a little less conspicuous if he didn't wear a yellow parka you can see for miles or drive around in a hearse. You read that right. This was the first film I watched on the DVD so I was a little taken aback by the violence and the ending but it was just too weird seeing Dennis the Menace making love to a teacher.

TRIP WITH THE TEACHER (1975) - The last film on the set is one of the most unpleasant. A field trip for a teacher and her attractive female students goes terribly wrong when their bus breaks down and they are confronted by a couple of brothers on motorcycles who happen to be sadistic and crazy. Luckily there is a third biker who sees what is happening and tries to save the girls. The brothers wreak havoc on the poor young women with one brother leading the way and the other doing so just because. Then the girls try to exact some revenge Charles Bronson style. The film is high energy and not fun to watch but does retains one interest for brief periods until the mood is shaken by something ugly.

The DVD was a huge bestseller and has inspired three more sets as of this writing. I have skipped sets two and four because they offer many horror movies and due to the fact that my nephew and I hit a 24 hour horror marathon every October I find it prudent to avoid horror films at all costs.

I do have a copy of #3 which includes such films as The Babysitter, The Pom Pom Girls and Weekend With the Babysitter. I have watched two films of the eight and will do a write-up in the near future once I have seen them all.

Until then sit back and watch a bad movie, the way they used to make them for the drive-in.