Dead End Drive-In

Did You Know?

• Canadian punk band Dead End Drive-In takes its name from this film.
• The film was included in the documentary Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!
• The song during the rolling credits is "Playing With Fire" by Lisa Edwards.

Plot

In the near future, the economy has collapsed and crime waves sweep the inner cities. Manufacturing has shrunk so that cars are a commodity fought over by salvage companies and roving gangs. Australia, the US, and North Korea are the only functioning nation-states. To control crime, a chain of drive-in theatres is seized and turned into concentration camps for undesirables and unemployed youth. The drive-ins are surrounded by high fences, and the roads leading to them are electrified. Police collaborate with owners to sabotage visitors' cars; some come voluntarily for shelter and food. Prisoners are given easy access to drugs, alcohol, junk food, exploitation films, and new wave music, fostering complacency before euthanasia. Jimmy "Crabs" Rossini, a fitness enthusiast, takes his girlfriend Carmen to the Star Drive-In in his brother's Chevy. After their car's rear wheels are stolen by police, the owner, Thompson, enters them into the system. Crabs attempts escape but fails.

Production

The film was based on a short story by Peter Carey, though director Brian Trenchard-Smith said he had not read it when he joined the project. A previous director had pulled out. Trenchard-Smith took a week to weld elements from the first three drafts together, boosting the social comment. Shooting took 35 days at a drive-in theatre in Matraville starting on 9 September 1985, with funding from the New South Wales Film Corporation. The director described the drive-in as an allegory for the junk values of the eighties. The final stunt by Guy Norris cost around $75,000 and set a world record for a truck jump of 162 feet.

Reception

Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times called it an exciting and offbeat clone of Mad Max 2. Ian Berriman of SFX rated it 3.5/5 stars, finding the premise unconvincing but praising the production design. Chris Holt of Starburst gave it 6/10, citing atmosphere and style as saving graces despite poor performances. Bill Gibron of DVD Verdict deemed the themes cliché and lame. Luke Buckmaster of Senses of Cinema called it Trenchard-Smith's magnum opus. Quentin Tarantino has cited it as his favorite Trenchard-Smith film. Production designer Lawrence Eastwood was nominated for Best Production Design at the 1986 AFI Awards.