Drive In Monsterama -September 2025

 

With the possibility of the Riverside Drive-in closing after this season (the studios want a higher percentage of the gate so they can’t make enough to cover costs) and a first night of a great film my brother Joe and I went to the September Drive-In Monsterama in Vandergrift Pennsylvania.

This year’s theme for Joe and I was to take it easy. This was the first year where we didn’t really do anything and as such it was the first year we actually felt rested when it was done. As I’ve said in previous reports, we normally plan to do a lot. We planned nothing and did a couple of things, but mostly just chilled.

As usual we chatted with Mike and Jake both nights before the movies. We didn’t do much beyond that because we just weren’t up to it.

The movies Friday were all devil related, and we had (mostly) a good time

First up was MARK OF THE DEVIL.
Udo Keir, Reggie Nalder and Herbert Lom star in the story of witchfinders causing havoc in a small town during the witch madness. Less a horror film then a catalog of cruelty, as anyone who is accused was pretty much doomed. This leads to people being threatened for sexual favors or ending up burned alive. While I have recently read several articles on the film and the historical accuracy and its portrait of the human condition (including one viewing it through the lens of Trump’s "do what I say or I will arrest you" view of life) the film is a snoozer. Joe slept and I waited for something to happen, but nothing did. Yea it was shocking in a past age when gore and sex was a big deal but today it’s as bad as watching paint dry.

THE SENTINEL is a gem. The story of a young woman who moves into an apartment full of odd people is just a great deal of fun. Based on a popular novel (which has a still unfilmed sequel) this is a spooky film that grabs you and holds your attention. It also features a killer cast of young legends. Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum and Tom Berringer all appear. As do numerous then current legends such as Sylvia Myles and Burgess Meredith. (It also has Beverly D’Angelo in a super sexy role). This has always been a favorite.

THE DEVIL’S RAIN is a mess. Really watching it for the first time in over a decade I realize this plays like a film where they chopped half of it out. It’s not terrible, but too much is unexplained. I still have never seen John Travolta in the film despite his being listed in the opening credits. The best part of the film is Ernest Borgnine as the villain Corbus. Mess or no chunks of this film live in my head rent free.

It was almost 2am when we went home, skipping THE DEVIL TIMES FIVE, because we were beat and had a long ride back to the hotel

On Saturday Joe and I made a mad dash to Ohio to pick up something for my niece. It was a limited-edition record that she had been looking for for months.

The road trip took most of the day so once we got back and dropped the album at the hotel we went to the drive in. We only stayed for two films.

I had not seen the OMEGA MAN in decades and only with heavy commercials. I didn’t like it. Seeing it complete and uncut, I found it to be an okay film. While it’s a simplistic version of the source novel and has a ton of things that don’t work or make sense (chief being how the city looks after “years” of abandonment) the film isn’t bad on its own terms. I realize how influencial the film was as I saw things in that were stolen by later films. I liked it enough that at some point I’ll watch it again and do a longer write up.

The second, and final film for us, was the 1978 INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. A stacked cast (Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Veronica Cartwright, Jeff Goldblum, Leonard Nimoy) deal with and alien invasion of pods from space. This is a genuinely creepy film that I always enjoyed. Interestingly though watching it for the first time in about a decade I realized that the film has a lot of logic issues, particularly about the time frame of events, that I never noticed (how fast are these events happening?).  I know some of the things I don’t like about the film (Nimoy’s character is deus ex machina and not a real person) are there because the film is trying to be more than a scary film, but seeing this time out they wounded the film. It’s still a great film, but I realize I need to revisit it and other versions of the story.

And with that we headed home. He didn’t want to see SCUM OF THE EARTH so we didn’t stay for EATEN ALIVE, which we did want to see.

Hopefully the drive in will survive and there will be an April show.