Friday Night At The Home Drive-In: The Killer Shrews (1959)

Poster for The Killer Shrews (1959)The Killer Shrews (1959) by #RayKellogg
w/
#JamesBest #IngridGoude

A maniacal scientist transforms tiny shrews into giant, man-killing beasts.

“Ravaging beasts feed on human flesh!”

“They had to eat 3 times their body weight each day… OR STARVE!”

#Horror #SciFi
#NotQuiteClassicCinema
#FridayNightAtTheHomeDriveIn

When I was a kid, I watched The Dukes of Hazzard (1979-1985) every Friday night. I suppose it wasn’t far off from being an early version of a  Friday Night at the Home Drive-in. There’s something about that show that feels like each episode in a mini-drive-in movie. The kind about cool cars and moonshine and corrupt Southern sheriffs. I suppose Macon County Line (1974) and Jackson County Jail (1976) might be examples of a sort. In any case, I loved watching the Dukes outwit Boss Hogg and Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane week after week. I thought the two actors who portrayed those lovable villains – Sorrell Booke and James Best – were a brilliant comedy team, like Abbott and Constello or Bert and Ernie (I was a kid, remember). I enjoyed watching their comedic mishaps as much as Bo and Luke’s victories – maybe more. Continue reading

Friday night at the home drive-in: Day the World Ended (1955)

Day the World Ended (1955) by #RogerCorman

w/#RichardDenning #LoriNelson #AdeleJergens

In a world devastated by a wide-scale nuclear war, all that remains are teetering ruins and a handful of scrappy survivors.

”ATTACKED… by a creature from hell!”
“The terrifying story that COULD COME TRUE!”
“A new high in naked shrieking terror!”

#Horror #SciFi  
#NotQuiteClassicCinema
#FridayNightAtTheHomeDriveIn

We’ve become used to post-apocalyptic movies and TV shows that deal with zombies. We used to see a lot of post-apocalyptic movies about people in the desert fighting over gas, or water, or the last fertile woman on the planet. Day the World Ended (1955) is a much earlier post-apocalyptic story of survivors simply trying to stay alive. They wind up stuck together in a house in valley that was somehow protected from the radiation fallout that is killing people and animals everywhere else (or something like that).

A threat of mutant monsters from outside the valley looms over the survivors, but as with many of the best movies of this kind, the real danger comes from within the group, as tension between the survivors begins to rise… Continue reading