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.
It
has to be said that the Riverside Drive-In is a great venue for this sort of
event as the theater itself is a throwback to another time. A large grassy knoll sandwiched between the Kiskiminetas
River and a cliff of rock that separate the grounds from rural Route 66, the
Riverside Drive-In’s snack-bar, restroom facilities and projection room occupy
a single, squat cinderblock building. The snack bar offered a huge menu of belly-busting, very affordable
treats and, though cramped for space, the staff somehow made room for a local
vendor, Creepy Classics, to offer for sale a veritable goldmine of rare horror
movie DVDs, posters, magazines, T-shirts, and books.
Each
night the evening would begin on a patriotic note with everyone outside their
cars standing for the National anthem before the projectionist rolled out the
first wave of retro-trailers. The trailers,
alone, were well worth the already nominal cost of admission. Though I chose not to take notes, I vaguely
recalled such titles as Frankie and Annette’s BEACH PARTY (1963), Toho’s
FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD (1965), Hammer’s FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN (1967),
FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED (1969), FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL (1974),
and TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA (1970), Naschy’s FRANKENSTEIN’S BLOODY TERROR
(1968), Jerry Warren’s FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND (1981, which features a doddering
John Carradine as the good doctor), the biker films CHROME AND HOT LEATHER
(1971) and ANGELS FROM HELL (1968), the Filipino VAMPIRE PEOPLE (1964), and the
Filipino/Al Adamson co-production BRAIN OF BLOOD (1972), the eerie Christopher
Lee film THE BLOOD DEMON (1967), Ray Milland’s X (aka THE MAN WITH X-RAY EYES)
(1963), THE ABOMINDABLE DR. PHIBES (1971), COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE (1970), THE FLESH AND BLOOD SHOW (1972), WHOEVER SLEW
AUNTIE ROO? (1971), CONQUEST OF THE
PLANET OF THE APES (1972), THE SHUTTERED ROOM (1967), the cult classic CHILDREN
SHOULDN’T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS (1973), and such regional exploitation drive-in
fare as DRIVE-IN (1976) and GAS PUMP GIRLS (1979). These trailers were, of course, only a small
sampling of those screened this weekend. There were, literally, dozens upon dozens of vintage trailers screened, in
addition to the Three Stooges shorts ANTS IN THE PANTRY (1936) and the WWII era
(and politically incorrect) THE YOKE’S ON ME (1944). There were also vintage cartoons screened
that featured Walter Lantz’s Beary Family and, more fittingly for the event, the
notorious MR. MAGOO MEETS FRANKENSTEIN (1960).
The
feature-film programming was inspired. Friday night began with two rarely screened minor classics from the
vaults of American-International. First
up was Roger Corman’s THE COMEDY OF TERRORS (1963) featuring Vincent Price,
Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, and Basil Rathbone (“Favorite Creeps Together
Again!†screamed the original promo ballyhoo). Price plays Waldo Trumbull, a funeral parlor owner who chooses to boost
business by going out into the night and providing his own customers. Price would return, with Christopher Lee this
time, in the evening’s second feature THE OBLONG BOX (1969), an Edgar Allan Poe
inspired offering, stylishly produced and directed by Gordon Hessler. Next up was a near-pristine print of THE
WITCHMAKER (1969), a mostly forgotten film that pits a coven of Louisiana bayou
Satanists against a team of paranormal scientists, led by actor Alvy Moore, the
befuddled “Hank Kimball†of TV’s GREEN ACRES. The A.I.P late-gamer THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN (1977) was the most
“modern†of the films screened during the weekend, the title character a gooey,
sloppy mess courtesy of (then) young Special Effects wizard Rick Baker. Saturday night featured two Hammer Horror
classics starring the great Peter Cushing as Baron Victor Von Frankenstein,
everyone’s favorite mad doctor, in an occasionally splicey FRANKENSTEIN CREATED
WOMAN (1967) and a beautiful uncut British print of FRANKENSTEIN AND THE
MONSTER FROM HELL (1974). The often
under-rated British witchcraft classic THE BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW (1971)
followed around one fifteen A.M., with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee,
fittingly, closing out the MONSTER-RAMA with the creepy Amicus omnibus DR.
TERROR’S HOUSE OF HORRORS (1965). The
latter two features were welcome additions to the program as these films,
sadly, are rarely screened theatrically and have yet to see release on a Region
1 DVD.