September Drive-In Super Monster-Rama is back at The Riverside Drive-In Theatre, September 19 and 20, 2025. Two big nights with four feature films each night include:

• Friday, September 19: Mark of the Devil, The Sentinel, The Devil’s Rain and Devil Times Five
• September 20: The Omega Man, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the Grindhouse Releasing 4K restoration drive-in premiere of S.F. Brownrigg’s Scum of the Earth and Eaten Alive

Admission is $15 per person each night (children 12 and under – accompanied by an adult guardian – are admitted free). Overnight camping is available (breakfast included) for an additional $20 a person per night. Advance online tickets (highly recommended) for both movies and camping here: https://www.riversidedrivein.com/shop/

Charlton Heston is such a complex person. He’s the patron saint of apocalyptic movies, appearing in Planet of the Apes, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green and this movie. He was also in so many religious movies, including The Ten Commandments as Moses, as well as Ben-Hur and The Greatest Story Ever Told.

He could march with Martin Luther King. Jr. in 1963, while being the President of the NRA from 1998 to 2003, saying that the government could only take away his guns if they took them from his cold, dead hands. He was a liberal from 1955 to 1961 and endorsed liberal candidates until 1972. However, he also served as President of the Screen Actors’ Guild from 1965 to 1971, a position that clashed with the liberal views of Ed Asner. After the death of the Kennedys, he worked to push gun control laws. But by 1972, he rejected the liberalism of George McGovern and supported Nixon. But at one stage in his life, the Democratic Party asked him to run for the Senate against George Murphy.

By the 1980s, he would say,  “I didn’t change. The Democratic Party changed.” He also had a huge speech, “Fighting the Cultural War,” in which he said. “The Constitution was handed down to guide us by a bunch of wise old dead white guys who invented our country! Now, some flinch when I say that. Why! It’s true … they were white guys! So were most of the guys who died in Lincoln’s name opposing slavery in the 1860s. So why should I be ashamed of white guys? Why is “Hispanic Pride” or “Black Pride” a good thing, while “White Pride” conjures shaven heads and white hoods? Why was the Million Man March on Washington celebrated by many as a sign of progress, while the Promise Keepers March on Washington was greeted with suspicion and ridicule? I’ll tell you why: Cultural warfare!”

He was complicated. Unlike many today, he was non-binary and not in sexuality. In the way he saw things, but by the end, he could also be frustrating.

Speaking of the end…

The Omega Man is the second movie — after The Last Man On Earth — based on Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend. Unlike the book, humanity has died off because of biological warfare, not a plague. U.S. Army Col. Robert Neville, M.D. (Heston) is one of the few survivors, figuring out a vaccine to the plague, which turns humans into vampire-like monsters. The Family, as they are called, is led by former anchorman Jonathan Matthias (Anthony Zerbe) and is at war with Neville.

Neville soon learns that others, like Lisa (Rosalind Cash) and Dutch (Paul Koslo), have survived. He’s able to give Lisa’s brother, Richie (Eric Laneuville), the vaccine, and the young man wants to save the lives of The Family, too. Instead, they kill him, which leads to a mutually exclusive battle of destruction, made even more horrible for the hero because Lisa, the woman he loves, has fallen victim to the plague and sells him out.

Director Boris Sagal died while filming another end-of-the-world movie, the TV miniseries World War 3, walking into the blades of a helicopter by accident. This was written by the husband-and-wife writing team of John and Joyce H. Corrington.

This has one of the first interracial kisses in cinema (but not the first). Rosalind Cash said to Heston, “It’s a spooky feeling to screw Moses.” He discussed this on Whoopi Goldberg’s TV show, and she was finishing the interview by saying that she wished that society could get past interracial relationships being an issue. He agreed and then gave her a huge kiss.

You know who wasn’t happy about this film? Or really didn’t care? Richard Matheson, who said, “The Omega Man was so removed from my book that it didn’t even bother me.” He said of The Last Man On Earth, “I was disappointed in The Last Man on Earth, even though they more or less followed my story. I think Vincent Price, whom I love in every one of his pictures that I wrote, was miscast. I also felt the direction was kind of poor.” Before the Will Smith remake, I Am Legend, started filming, he said, “I don’t know why Hollywood is fascinated by my book when they never care to film it as I wrote it.”

Supposedly, the scene in which Heston’s character watches Woodstock inspired Joel Hodgson to create Mystery Science Theater 3000. I want to think that that is true.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Blondes Have More Guns was on USA Up All Night on February 15, 1997.

Yes, a Troma Naked Gun. Such is the dichotomy of my life: I love USA Up All Night and hate Troma, despite most USA Up All Night movies coming from Troma. I love parties, but I hate gatherings.

Detective Harry Bates, his partner Dick Smoker and his dog, who is a man in a suit, get screwed up with two half-sisters, Montana Beaver-Shotz (Elizabeth Key) and Dakota Beaver (Gloria Lusak).

The only film of director George Merriweather, who wrote this with Dan Goodman (the composer of Evil Come Evil Go and the cinematographer of Brother and Sister — in which a man discovers his half-sister is Rene Bond and you know what happens after that — as well as Bob Chinn’s Panama Red — a PG rated movie with Rene Bond and John Holmes in it — and Return Fire) and Mary Guthrie, this was way better than expected.

You can watch this on Tubi.

About the Author: Jennifer Upton is an American (non-werewolf) writer/editor in London. Her latest book is Japanese Cult Cinema: Best of the Second Golden Age. She runs the podcast Cinema Junction and writes for Horror & Sons and Drive-in Asylum. She regularly appears on the podcasts Japan on Film, Making Tarantino, Making Scorsese, The Rad Revivalhouse and contributes essays to Cinemaforce. For links to her work, please visit https://www.jennuptonwriter.com or follow her on Instagram @jennxlondon. 

There was an intimacy about this film that felt familiar, having volunteered for a few years in a London music charity shop run by a retired punk star. I have witnessed firsthand the conversations about gear and chord progressions between old guys wearing leopard print shirts and eyeliner. I have seen men in their 70s hit on women in their 20s. I have heard the passive-aggressive slights and accusations of events long passed – “I still owe the manager money for a limo ride I took in 1978.” 

I have even been asked for a long rope to tie around an aging guitarist’s waist to “keep him from wandering off before the gig.”  Therefore, everything in Spinal Tap 2 felt real to me, but not real enough. More like a subdued version of reality created by comfortable people living comfortable lives in Los Angeles who have completely lost touch with what it means to be in an aging band that enjoyed only marginal success in their heyday. 

Perhaps if Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer had visited the little shop in Camden, the trio would have had better material for this movie. Nigel’s cheese shop was cute, but none of the three men had turned into the absolute lunatics they probably should have. None of them did a stint in rehab? Really? None of them had a younger trophy wife whose face is pulled taut from too much plastic surgery?  A Jane’s Addiction-style shoving match? Not a single failed reality show between the three? This film was filled with missed opportunities like that. All perfect fodder was ignored in favor of a safer, cozier movie. 

It’s a pleasant 82 minutes, to be sure. But, in no way does this film measure up to the greatness of its predecessor. Anyone who has seen their favorite band in their twilight years will know that the very act of buying a ticket to Spinal Tap 2 perfectly captures what it means to be an aging fan of an aging band. Or to be an aging fan of an aging comedy troupe playing an aging band. It really doesn’t matter what they do, so long as they play the hits. Our love for these characters, along with the film’s charm and warmth, is based on the feelings we all have for the original film. Nothing they can do at this point, short of killing one off, would ruin their legacy. 

The plot revolves around a one-off reunion gig to take place in New Orleans. They find a new drummer and begin rehearsals. The reunion gig ends in disaster, as one would expect, brought about by yet another small technical detail overlooked. That’s pretty much it. The film’s success rests solely on the shoulders of the cast, who slip back into these characters easily, sprinkling in a few new great lines, such as “Is he coming toward us?” following the Blue Man’s drummer audition. 

The celebrity cameos by Lars Ulrich, Chad Smith and Sir Paul McCartney felt wasted, while Sir Elton John brought the film its biggest laugh. He genuinely looked like he was enjoying himself, while it felt like Lars had slotted in his Zoom call between his daily Starbucks run and sending out copyright violations to fans sharing his music online. 

I could never fully accept that Spinal Tap was a Rob Reiner film; instead, I choose to judge that and this film within the canon of Christopher Guest’s mockumentary body of work. Spinal Tap 2 will not be revered in the way Spinal Tap, Best in Show or Waiting For Guffman all are. Those films are classics—the building blocks of just about every television comedy that aired in the 2000s. But Tap 2 is still a lot better than For Your Consideration, a film I found profoundly bitter and unfunny.

Go see Spinal Tap 2 if you are a fan. Otherwise, wait for streaming and watch it while you’re waiting in the online queue for your favorite band’s latest reunion gig to kill the time.