The Drive-In by Joe R Lansdale

Joe R Lansdale’s “The Drive-In” (1988) is a much darker story than I expected. Indeed it’s a much darker story than it is regularly promoted as being, having much more in common with the likes of “Lord of the Flies” than the fun, b-movie-style romp it’s supposed to be. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, as being able to write that style of hopelessness and desolation is certainly a rare talent, but perhaps those who have promoted the book as something else would do well to read beyond the first chapter or so to see exactly how dire the “romp” is.

Sure the references to splatter movies of the past and the setting itself (arguably the world’s biggest drive-in) are “fun”, and of course Lansdale writes with that trademark humor of his and creates characters that are both funny and relatable, but when the actual plot rolls around (and by that I mean more than the self-references in the early going), things get very dark very fast – far darker than most “serious horror” would ever hope to be.

Typically in this sort of thing the monsters (or monster in this case) and ultra-violence are played for laughs, or written in such an over-the-top manner that the reader is somewhat desensitized to the whole thing, that it really does seem like something on the movie screen, this is not the case in “The Drive-In”. The violence is subtle in many cases and very real, the desperation of the characters and the hopelessness of the situation sap any “fun” that Lansdale creates in the early chapters – even the total insanity of his “monster” and some of the extreme situations that arise never seem “fun” or played for entertainment, they’re always very real, very grisly, and – in some cases – even very sad.

Handled by anyone else they might not be. No, I take that back, handled by any writer of the current era, raised on self-references and horror comedy they would not be, handled by someone who knows actual horror and can make you “feel” it they definitely are and Lansdale, as we all know, is one of the finest writers the weird genre has ever known.

The story itself is at once simplistic and off the wall. Hundreds of people descend on a drive-in theatre in Texas for the all-night horror show. During the first reel a comet of some sort passes overhead and traps everyone within the drive-in, creating a flesh eating wall of blackness around the property. That’s the weird angle. From there on in it’s a battle for survival as the crowd slowly loses its collective mind – then the “b-movie gods” show up and create a monster dredged from the deranged and desperate psyches of everyone at the show.

So yeah, written like that it doesn’t seem overly serious but in reality it is. If you look beyond the carnival trappings that Lansdale uses to draw readers in what he’s written isn’t exactly “horror” – at least not in the rattling chains or stalk and slash sense – but rather a story of survival and, deeper than that, a story about the frailty of humanity. Beyond that what he’s written is just plain crazy and no doubt one of the finest modern weird stories we have.

I wouldn’t recommend “The Drive-In” for those looking for something the style of “The Evil Dead” (which is played on loop throughout the entire story) as it just isn’t that light-hearted despite some of the trappings and certainly won’t leave you feeling the way a Raimi movie does. If you want real horror tinged with utter insanity written by a man who truly knows what he’s doing however, and don’t mind feeling a little less faith in the world towards the end of things, I couldn’t recommend this one any more highly.

- Aaron