Movie review – “Dead End Drive In” (1986) **1/2

In recent years the reputation of this Brian Trenchard-Smith actioner has improved, due in part to it featuring in Not Quite Hollywood. I remember reading about it at the time and being really excited about the film because of its central idea, and it came from Trenchard Smith, but it came and went in the cinemas very quickly and when I saw it on video I was disappointed.

Looking at it years on, I would still call the movie a half success. For a story set in the “near future” it feels very 1986, and quite main stream 1986 – the colourful fashions and hair cuts, pop music on the soundtrack (Machinations, Kids in the Kitchen), some of the most unthreatening juvenile delinquents in recent history (how’s this for a line up… Wilbur Wilde, Dave Gibson, Murray Fahey, Brett Climo). So this kind of makes the movie feel jokey and unscary when there was so much more potential in the story.

It’s a good concept – teenagers being lured into drive ins, given coupons, junk movies and junk food, going along with it like sheep. It feels as though something darker needs to be going on, i.e. the kids will be killed or become slaves, or something. (The cops – led by the unthreatening Gary Who – are corrupt and thuggish but not really evil.) Instead the last act has some Asians turn up and everyone getting racist. I get the point but not that much is done with it except having the baddies say racist things (the Asians are represented not by teenagers, like the whites, but by families and a kindly Indian man) – a great opportunity is wasted here.

It does look great – the set is impressive. Ned Manning isn’t a bad hero – he’s not terribly charismatic or compelling but he’s likeable, and has an engaging character (the one person in the place determined not to eat junk food and to get out of there); Natalie McCurry, a late 80s crush, is believable as his dopey girlfriend. There’s not a lot of action – only at the end, really – but it moves along fast, and is quite tense and thought provoking. I think if it had been scarier and darker in the last third (with a greater sense of threat) this would have been a classic.

Oh, and despite Trenchard-Smith’s deserved fame as an action director the final stunt isn’t very well handled – too much cutting, and you never get a really good look where you see how amazing the stunt was.