By Hank Reineke
One
need not enter the fanciful but occasionally dangerous TIME MACHINE of H.G.
Wells to travel to the past. A far more
agreeable option, especially for horror movie fans weaned on the 1960s and
1970s films of such genre legends as Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and Peter
Cushing, is a road trip to George Reis’s DRIVE-IN SUPER MONSTER-RAMA. This year’s MONSTER-RAMA was held, as always,
at the Riverside Drive-In Theatre in Vandergrift, PA, forty miles east of
Pittsburgh, on the Friday and Saturday following Labor Day weekend. This year’s event was the fourth annual
meeting of monster-movie fans and drive-in theatre devotees and, by most
accounts, was the best MONSTER-RAMA yet. Things got started around 8 PM each night, and went well beyond the
witching hour, usually ending somewhere between 4 and 4:30 AM. Each evening four full length feature films were
screened in their original 35mm and the stacked program also offered a
seemingly endless parade of devilishly entertaining vintage trailers, as well
as timeless drive-in concession ads that promoted everything from snack bar
treats (including “Chilly Dilly†pickles) to PIC anti-mosquito coils to a
“Drizzle-Guard†canopy that would enable one to enjoy drive-in films in the
rain. Unfortunately, we could have used
the latter item during Saturday night’s program, but the MONSTER-RAMA, without
question, attracted the steeliest of the hardcore fans. Only a relative few allowed the steady
drizzle to dampen their enthusiasm of the event. If anything, the MONSTER-RAMA offers too much
of a good thing, turning a pleasant night of movie-going into a test of
endurance as one must fight off the cold night air and cyclical bouts of
physical and mental fatigue as the clock hand spins well beyond 3 AM. Personally, I had succumbed to a number of
nostalgic pangs – and a few late-night stifled yawns - throughout the
weekend. As the family and I watched
Friday night’s fourth and closing film THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN through struggling,
sleepy eyes, I was suddenly twelve years old again, remembering (with odd fondness)
all the times I had forced myself to stay awake beyond 3 AM so I could catch
such tantalizingly titled old monster movies as SLAUGHTER OF THE VAMPIRES (1962)
or DR. BLOOD’S COFFIN (1961) on late night television. The DRIVE-IN SUPER MONSTER-RAMA offers, and delivers,
that sort of retro-experience. In
spades.