Since getting inspired by Joe Bob Briggs’ How Rednecks Saved Hollywood live show, I’ve been trying to cover as many of the movies that he showed — as well as others that fit the genre — on the site. We’ll be continuing with at least another week of Southern fried drive-in films, but I wanted to take a moment, pause and share this Letterboxd list of where we are up until now.

Trust me, we have plenty more of these movies to get to, but if there are any you’d like to see us tackle, speak up! And while you’re at it, see if Joe Bob is coming to your neck of the woods!

I’m beyond excited that this issue is on the way! Get ready for page after page of chum and gore-soaked waters, as the crew of Drive-In Asylum tackles everything from Jaws through Jaws the Revenge and everything else in their wake, including 100% brand new articles from me on those two movies, Cruel Jaws, Monster Shark and Deep Blood! I’ve rewatched them all and am so excited for you to read this issue!

Order now at the Etsy store! All orders ship July 15th!

Drive-In Asylum #16 features an interview with the star of Larry Buchanan’s The Naked Witch and widow of S.F. Brownrigg, Libby Hall! I got to contribute a cool painting to this article.

For my article this issue, I’m covering the batshit crazy French female zombie movie Revenge of the Living Dead Girls, otherwise known as La Revanche des Mortes Vivantes. You’ll be saying, “More brains? Oui oui!”

Plus, filmmaker Dustin Ferguson picks his favorite films and DIA contributors share their take on The Beast Within, The Deep, Effects, Trip With the Teacher, Death Warmed Up, The Asphyx, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter and an overview of the Prom Night series.

As always, Drive-In Asylum is packed with plenty of vintage ads, away from the internet and on real black and white paper. Hell, some of the pages have one color even!  That’s right, 52 pages packed with film knowledge and fun, only $5 at the Drive-In Asylum Etsy store!

I just grabbed this amazing free zine, all about The Exorcist and am beyond flabbergasted by how insanely great it is! I’d be jealous I didn’t get to do anything for it, but it’s too good to be negative.

Here’s where you can get a free copy all for yourself!

“We prefer the lighter approach to our brand of entertainment. We like people feeling good at the end of the film.”

Andy Sidaris was born in Chicago but grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana. This city would become the home for many of his later films.

Before he’d go into film, however, Sidaris was an Emmy award-winning sports television pioneer, directed hundreds of hours worth of football and basketball games, Olympic events, and special programs. He was the first director for ABC’s Wide World of Sports, a position that he held for a quarter of a decade. In his Los Angeles Times obituary, he was credited with “techniques that are standard today, including instant replay, slow-motion replay and split-screen views.”

But what Andy was really known for was the honey shot.

That’s the shot that suddenly finds a gorgeous cheerleader or fan before zooming in on them. The kind of shot that took Pamela Anderson from a model at a BC Lions Canadian Football League game to being seen on the Jumbotron as her first step toward stardom.

In an interview with Los Angeles Magazine, Andy said, “Once you’ve seen one huddle you’ve seen them all. So you either look at the popcorn, the guys, or the ladies. The choice is clear to me.”

Sidaris directed The Racing Scene, a documentary about actor James Garner’s racing team and choreographed the football scene in Robert Altman’s MASH. In addition to sports — he was the directorial force behind ABC’s Monday Night Football, he also directed several TV shows like Gemini Man (1976), Kojak and The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries.

Soon, Andy would discover why he was really put on this Earth: directing b-movies filled with what he called “Bullets, Bombs and Babes (or Boobs).”

1973’s Stacey and 1979’s Seven were the openings salvos in what would soon become an interconnected universe of films — long before Marvel and other movies would form connected films — featuring a rotating cast of the sons of Hollywood royalty like R.J. Moore and Tony Peck alongside a multitude of Playboy Playmates and Penthouse Pets, like Dona Speir, Roberta Vasquez and Julie Strain.

Sidaris’ films were family affairs, with his wife producing and his son directing several of the later films. Many of these films were shot mostly in Shreveport using local actors or those with local ties.

Andy once said, “On the rare occasion that we get criticized, I shrug it off thinking that they simply didn’t get the joke.” I hope that you get that spirit as we cover these movies this week and get that any jokes I make at their expense come from a place of pure love.

I first encountered Malibu Express in the middle of the night as a hormonal teenager and my life was forever changed by Sybil Danning. Just the two words together — or knowing the names of some of the characters — is enough for me to instantly forge a friendship with people.

This week, we’ll be covering every single one of Andy’s films — other than The Racing Scene and MASH — and I hope you’ll join us! You can find plenty of his films on sites like Tubi and Amazon Prime. Or you can grab the Guns, Girls and G-Strings collection from Mill Creek or their two new blu ray releases of Malibu Express and Hard Ticket to Hawaii (Picasso Trigger and Savage Beach are also on the way!).

Plus, we’ll have an interview with Arlene Sidaris on Wednesday and a feature about the ten things I learned from Andy Sidaris films on Friday.

We’ve sadly reached the end of another drive-in weekend. That feeling of pulling away from the Riverside Drive-In is the most palpable sadness that I know, realizing that it’ll be five months plus until I’m back, eating great food, looking through videos, loading my trunk full of beer and staying up way too late.

The least I can do to remember all this is to share our past articles on the films that were shown this weekend.

Full disclosure: We skipped Friday night, due to a combination of work going way too late and no interest at all in watching a Troma film on the drive-in screen. I consider the majority of their output as VHS rental fare — not a bad thing — that is poorly made and places sophomoric comedy over actual storytelling — definitely bad things.

• Basket Case: This will be up on our site May 1.
• The Toxic Avenger: I liked this movie when I was 12. Luckily, I moved on.
• Slithis
• Blood Beach
• 

Night two’s line-up was pretty much perfect, with movies packed with either memories or weirdness. I was excited that Becca got to see Burial Ground for the first time and was pleasantly surprised that she enjoyed it.

• The Fog
• Creepshow
• Mother’s Day
• Burial Ground

As always, the April drive-in show is one of my holiday weekends. And we even got to take Cubby this year!

Now available for pre-order! Issue #15 features interviews with Lori Cardille, Terry Alexander and John Harrison from Day of the Dead! I wrote about Zombie Death House, the only movie John Saxon ever directed and contributed a few paintings, too!

Orders begin shipping 4/30.

On Etsy:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/687348346/drive-in-asylum-issue-15-may-2019-day-of

On eBay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/303134849085

I was inspired by It’s Trash Culture on Twitter to come up with this post, which is similar to the Monster Squad one that we did last year.

My thought was here’s who the Avengers team should be made from:

1. The Fearless Leader (Captain America)
2. The Strong Female (Black Widow)
3. The Armored Hero (Iron Man)
4. The Mythological God (Thor)

Here’s my list:

1. The Fearless Leader – Yor Hunter from the Future, which is ironic, as Reb Brown also played Captain America in the 1970’s made-for-TV Avengers films.
2. The Strong Female -Saint Exmin, Sybil Danning’s Valkyrie character from Battle Beyond the Stars.
3. The Armored Hero – The Mandroid from The Eliminators, who can be a human or a tank.
4. The Mythological God – Mace from Fulci’s Conquest, a bad ass with the mark of Eibon on his forehead, nunchucks made of stone and the ability to be saved by dolphins.

Their Nick Fury?

Derek Flint.

Who are your Avengers?

Mike “McBeardo” McPadden’s writing has long been an influence on my work. His last book, Heavy Metal Movies, is a brick-like tome packed with attitude that I’ve used as a reference since it was released. Now, he’s back with Teen Movie Hell, which I’m declaring the ultimate in any info you’d ever need on movies with half-naked co-eds.

From the genre’s origins in beach movies and American Grafitti to Animal House, Porky’s and beyond, McPadden details it all, along with letting you know exactly how much he loves some films and hates others, particularly John Hughes related endeavors.

Each page is jam-packed full of info and poster art. Yet my favorite moments in the book are when McPadden yields the spotlight at times to those with a dissenting viewpoint. In a time of both nondebate and too much debate, this book makes an effective case for celebrating these movies, which are the next drive-in screen cousins of horror movies in the junky world of pre-internet exploitation.

Your love of this book will probably be directly in proportion to how much you remember these films. For me, someone who had no VCR and would stay up late into the summer night to watch movies like Hamburger the Motion Picture, this is straight furburgerage from heaven! Even if you don’t know any of these movies, I’d give this book my highest recommendation. These movies may seem silly or strange today, but they’re worth celebrating and cataloging with the good humor and smarts that this book employs in spades.

You can order the book now from Bazillion Points.

This week on B&S About Movies, we’ll be delving into several of the films on the Church of Satan Film List, originally published in Magistra Blanche Barton’s The Church of Satan as approved by Magus Anton Szandor LaVey.

There are some films there that may not surprise the non-initiated, such as The Car, Evilspeak and It’s Alive. What may shock some are the films that are on the list, such as Steve Martin’s remake of Pennies from Heaven and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

I spoke to Magus Peter H. Gilmore, High Priest of the Church of Satan since the Satanic Panic of the 1980’s, for some illumination on the film list.

“We don’t have official Church positions on various artforms, since the basis of our philosophy is individualism and thus our members react to such things based on their own personal hierarchy of values. Understanding our basic philosophy, one can decipher why Anton LaVey added the works he selected for his film list, but of course our members would each have personal rosters that they find define aspects of Satanism and human behavior in a perceptive manner.”

I’ll be featuring some of his — and other members’ — comments on the movies we’ll cover over the next few days. I trust you’ll all enter into this week with an open mind, ready to learn some new things about some movies you may have only seen from one headspace.