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The Drive-In #1
The Drive-In
Imagine a jam-packed drive-in on a Saturday night. You're kicking back in your car with the popcorn and enjoying a good old-fashioned scary monster movie when, suddenly, the drive-in itself becomes the movie, with all its attendance thrills. And dangers.
When a group of friends decided to spend a day at the world's largest Drive-In theater horror fest, they expected to see tons of bloody murders, rampaging madmen, and mayhem—but only on the screen. As a mysterious force traps all the patrons inside the Drive-In, the worst in humanity comes out. Filled with Lansdale's razor whit and black humor, The Drive-In is a darkly humorous masterpiece!
When a group of friends decided to spend a day at the world's largest Drive-In theater horror fest, they expected to see tons of bloody murders, rampaging madmen, and mayhem—but only on the screen. As a mysterious force traps all the patrons inside the Drive-In, the worst in humanity comes out. Filled with Lansdale's razor whit and black humor, The Drive-In is a darkly humorous masterpiece!
158 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published August 1, 1988
61 people are currently reading
1771 people want to read
About the author
Joe R. Lansdale
818 books3,891 followersChampion Mojo Storyteller Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over forty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites. His work has been collected in more than two dozen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies. He has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others. His novella Bubba Ho-Tep was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" was adapted to film for Showtime's "Masters of Horror," and he adapted his short story "Christmas with the Dead" to film hisownself. The film adaptation of his novel Cold in July was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and the Sundance Channel has adapted his Hap & Leonard novels for television.
He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero. He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.
He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero. He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 132 reviews
July 15, 2016
Jack and his friends live for one thing: the Friday all night horror show at the Orbit Drive-In. When a comet with an eye visits, the drive-in is cut off from the rest of the world and things quickly degenerate to a no-man's land of cannibals...
Confession time: I read this way back in the Stone Age, pre-Goodreads and early in my Lansdale love affair. When I saw how cheap the trilogy was on the Kindle, I figured it was time for a reread.
The Drive-In is Bizarro fiction from back before such fiction had a name. Jack, Bob, Willard, and Randy are horror nuts who have the misfortune of being trapped at the Orbit when the shit goes down. Imagine being in eternal darkness with the only light coming from the drive-in screens and the only food coming from the concession stand. It's not hard to see how things degenerated, is it?
The Drive-In is a really fun book, full of gore, weirdness, and laughs. While it's an early Lansdale and not as slick as his later work, the beer and tailgate style is still there. Since it had been over a decade since I read it, it was pretty much a new book. Ah, the magic of getting older.
It's a pretty short tale, but like a good punk rock song, it's as long as it needs to be. When you have cannibals, motorcycle gangs, and crazy religious nuts, all trapped in the confines of a Drive-In parking lot, how long can you expect people to survive anyway? The Popcorn King was pretty damn creepy and I liked how Lansdale explained his origin, making it make logical sense, to a degree.
The Drive-In was a lot of gorey good fun packed into a pretty slim book. Four out of five stars.
Confession time: I read this way back in the Stone Age, pre-Goodreads and early in my Lansdale love affair. When I saw how cheap the trilogy was on the Kindle, I figured it was time for a reread.
The Drive-In is Bizarro fiction from back before such fiction had a name. Jack, Bob, Willard, and Randy are horror nuts who have the misfortune of being trapped at the Orbit when the shit goes down. Imagine being in eternal darkness with the only light coming from the drive-in screens and the only food coming from the concession stand. It's not hard to see how things degenerated, is it?
The Drive-In is a really fun book, full of gore, weirdness, and laughs. While it's an early Lansdale and not as slick as his later work, the beer and tailgate style is still there. Since it had been over a decade since I read it, it was pretty much a new book. Ah, the magic of getting older.
It's a pretty short tale, but like a good punk rock song, it's as long as it needs to be. When you have cannibals, motorcycle gangs, and crazy religious nuts, all trapped in the confines of a Drive-In parking lot, how long can you expect people to survive anyway? The Popcorn King was pretty damn creepy and I liked how Lansdale explained his origin, making it make logical sense, to a degree.
The Drive-In was a lot of gorey good fun packed into a pretty slim book. Four out of five stars.
October 28, 2024
A very unique story that gets really weird, really fast.
The pacing is great, the characters colorful and their behaviour strangely believable in this setting, and the horror elements were pretty interesting.
Its a fast read and I had an overall great time.
The pacing is great, the characters colorful and their behaviour strangely believable in this setting, and the horror elements were pretty interesting.
Its a fast read and I had an overall great time.
January 29, 2016
Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/
Let’s all go to the movies, let’s all go to the movies . . . .
“Think about it for a moment. Set your mind clear and see if you can imagine a drive-in so big it can hold four thousand automobiles. I mean, really think about it. Four thousand.”
The Orbit is the biggest drive-in movie theater in Texas. It’s also the destination for Jack and his buddies one Friday night. The fellas plan on chowing down on candy, cookies and “bloody” corn while watching such classics as these . . . .
during the all-night horrorfest that will play from dark ‘til dawn. Things don’t work out quite as planned, however, and they end up watching something more like this instead . . .
Which results in the drive-in being the only place left as far as the eye can see. Bonus? There’s no escape. Hope those cats enjoy popcorn . . .
Much to my chagrin, this was my first Lansdale experience. Cut me some slack here – he’s been on my TBR list since Jesus was a toddler. When I saw my buddy Dan reading this one I immediately bullied him into lending me a copy. (#worthit #bully4life) The Drive-In had a little bit of everything that makes a great B-Movie - horror, gore, humor and a whole mess of ewwwwwww. This was also my first experience with bizarro fiction and it most definitely won’t be my last. Won’t be my last Lansdale either ‘cause that mofo’s writing had me hooked straight from the jump.
Stay tuned because Dan’s re-read has a couple of other nutters gearing up to join this party . . . .
Let’s all go to the movies, let’s all go to the movies . . . .
“Think about it for a moment. Set your mind clear and see if you can imagine a drive-in so big it can hold four thousand automobiles. I mean, really think about it. Four thousand.”
The Orbit is the biggest drive-in movie theater in Texas. It’s also the destination for Jack and his buddies one Friday night. The fellas plan on chowing down on candy, cookies and “bloody” corn while watching such classics as these . . . .
during the all-night horrorfest that will play from dark ‘til dawn. Things don’t work out quite as planned, however, and they end up watching something more like this instead . . .
Which results in the drive-in being the only place left as far as the eye can see. Bonus? There’s no escape. Hope those cats enjoy popcorn . . .
Much to my chagrin, this was my first Lansdale experience. Cut me some slack here – he’s been on my TBR list since Jesus was a toddler. When I saw my buddy Dan reading this one I immediately bullied him into lending me a copy. (#worthit #bully4life) The Drive-In had a little bit of everything that makes a great B-Movie - horror, gore, humor and a whole mess of ewwwwwww. This was also my first experience with bizarro fiction and it most definitely won’t be my last. Won’t be my last Lansdale either ‘cause that mofo’s writing had me hooked straight from the jump.
Stay tuned because Dan’s re-read has a couple of other nutters gearing up to join this party . . . .
March 31, 2016
With a new Hap & Leonard book out and the TV series based on their adventures coming soon it seems like Lansdale Fever is sweeping Goodreads these days. I blame Dan for infecting me with this particular strain of the virus.
I’d read the first two parts of The Drive-In saga way back in the ‘90s when I first discovered the Champion Mojo Storyteller, but I’d forgotten most of the story and never even gotten around to checking out the third installment. Then Dan spread his contagion all over the place, and I found myself rediscovering the gruesomeness of the Popcorn King all over again. Thanks a lot, Dan!
During the late ‘80s in Texas four young men head out to the local drive-in where they plan to spend the night watching a horror movie marathon. In the middle of their films a comet with a smile roars by, and the entire drive-in is suddenly surrounded by an inky darkness that dissolves anyone who tries to leave. With no other options the trapped patrons watch the movies over and over in an endless night as the food starts to run out. That’s when things get even weirder and more horrible.
This is a very short book, and that’s a good thing because I don’t think spinning the concept out much longer than 150 pages would actually work. (Although I’m sure Stephen King would have taken a 700 or 800 page swing at it if he would have thought of this idea first.) What really sells it is that Lansdale quickly provides the details that ground things in reality among the most mundane circumstances of people going to the movies before unleashing the batshit craziness. Then he uses the most terrible of creatures, human beings, to set the stage for the real horror show which becomes a gory supernatural B-movie spectacle.
Lansdale mainly uses two characters to represent different points of view. Our narrator Jack holds the desperately hopeful belief that there is some inherent goodness and meaning in humanity’s existence, but the counterpoint is his buddy Bob who operates under the basic assumptions that people are just bastard covered bastards with bastard filling and that believing in anything other than yourself is a waste of time. This is pretty much the same dynamic that defines the soft-hearted Hap and the pragmatic Leonard so you can almost see Jack and Bob as an early trial run at those two characters.
The part that really got to me this time was that period before things really go sideways when everyone is just stuck watching the movies over and over again while living off concession stand hotdogs and popcorn. While drive-ins were pretty much dead in my area by the time I was a teenager I’ve attended some movie marathons, and I think Lansdale really nailed that weird dreamy limbo state that sets in if you spend hour after hour staring at a screen in a theater as you shove popcorn or candy into your mouth.
Like most things Lansdale it’s got some funny stuff mixed in with some sharp edges that unsuspecting readers might cut themselves on. Overall, it’s weird and gory in ways that are different than most horror stories you’d read, but it’s also got an ugliness to it that definitely cuts into the fun factor you might expect from something this bizarre.
I’d read the first two parts of The Drive-In saga way back in the ‘90s when I first discovered the Champion Mojo Storyteller, but I’d forgotten most of the story and never even gotten around to checking out the third installment. Then Dan spread his contagion all over the place, and I found myself rediscovering the gruesomeness of the Popcorn King all over again. Thanks a lot, Dan!
During the late ‘80s in Texas four young men head out to the local drive-in where they plan to spend the night watching a horror movie marathon. In the middle of their films a comet with a smile roars by, and the entire drive-in is suddenly surrounded by an inky darkness that dissolves anyone who tries to leave. With no other options the trapped patrons watch the movies over and over in an endless night as the food starts to run out. That’s when things get even weirder and more horrible.
This is a very short book, and that’s a good thing because I don’t think spinning the concept out much longer than 150 pages would actually work. (Although I’m sure Stephen King would have taken a 700 or 800 page swing at it if he would have thought of this idea first.) What really sells it is that Lansdale quickly provides the details that ground things in reality among the most mundane circumstances of people going to the movies before unleashing the batshit craziness. Then he uses the most terrible of creatures, human beings, to set the stage for the real horror show which becomes a gory supernatural B-movie spectacle.
Lansdale mainly uses two characters to represent different points of view. Our narrator Jack holds the desperately hopeful belief that there is some inherent goodness and meaning in humanity’s existence, but the counterpoint is his buddy Bob who operates under the basic assumptions that people are just bastard covered bastards with bastard filling and that believing in anything other than yourself is a waste of time. This is pretty much the same dynamic that defines the soft-hearted Hap and the pragmatic Leonard so you can almost see Jack and Bob as an early trial run at those two characters.
The part that really got to me this time was that period before things really go sideways when everyone is just stuck watching the movies over and over again while living off concession stand hotdogs and popcorn. While drive-ins were pretty much dead in my area by the time I was a teenager I’ve attended some movie marathons, and I think Lansdale really nailed that weird dreamy limbo state that sets in if you spend hour after hour staring at a screen in a theater as you shove popcorn or candy into your mouth.
Like most things Lansdale it’s got some funny stuff mixed in with some sharp edges that unsuspecting readers might cut themselves on. Overall, it’s weird and gory in ways that are different than most horror stories you’d read, but it’s also got an ugliness to it that definitely cuts into the fun factor you might expect from something this bizarre.
October 20, 2020
Coming off of an audio that dealt with the Holocaust, I needed my next read to be something light. Matt Godfrey performing this old favorite of mine was the perfect solution!
Written back in the late 80's, The Drive-In is just plain horror fun. Sure, there's a bit of commentary in there, if you want to give the story some depth, but there's plenty of horrific gore, insane circumstances and a big bunch of Lansdale's brand of humor to round it all out.
What happens to people in dire circumstances is brought out into the light and examined from all different angles. Imagine if you will, a huge drive-in with 6 different screens and nearly 4,000 cars. Then imagine that everything goes black, (except for the movies), and no one can leave. For months. How long will the food last? What will people do when no more popcorn is left? You'll have to read this to find out.
Joe R. Lansdale is a go to author for me, and I'm thankful that I have a lot more of his work to catch up with. Matt Godfrey is one of the very first narrators I got to know when I started on my audio adventures and he remains one of my favorites. Together, these two make an unbeatable team! If you're looking for something to fill out your October reading, I highly recommend the audio of The Drive-In!
*Source: I downloaded this from Audible with my hard earned cash. It was worth every single penny.*
Written back in the late 80's, The Drive-In is just plain horror fun. Sure, there's a bit of commentary in there, if you want to give the story some depth, but there's plenty of horrific gore, insane circumstances and a big bunch of Lansdale's brand of humor to round it all out.
What happens to people in dire circumstances is brought out into the light and examined from all different angles. Imagine if you will, a huge drive-in with 6 different screens and nearly 4,000 cars. Then imagine that everything goes black, (except for the movies), and no one can leave. For months. How long will the food last? What will people do when no more popcorn is left? You'll have to read this to find out.
Joe R. Lansdale is a go to author for me, and I'm thankful that I have a lot more of his work to catch up with. Matt Godfrey is one of the very first narrators I got to know when I started on my audio adventures and he remains one of my favorites. Together, these two make an unbeatable team! If you're looking for something to fill out your October reading, I highly recommend the audio of The Drive-In!
*Source: I downloaded this from Audible with my hard earned cash. It was worth every single penny.*
May 21, 2025
My love of horror was born at the drive-in movies my parents would take me to when I was little. Since then my love has turned away from films and focused on books instead, so this short novel was a perfect pick for my Year of Lansdale challenge.
The Drive-In takes place at a somewhat of a super drive-in with 6 huge screens and thousands of people. Something comes down and covers the place and all hell breaks loose.
This story is just plain fun, that's all there is to it! There's not much thinking needed, just a willingness to witness the pain, the blood shed and the insanity that is Joe Lansdale's imagination.
Highly recommended to fans of B horror films and books!
The Drive-In takes place at a somewhat of a super drive-in with 6 huge screens and thousands of people. Something comes down and covers the place and all hell breaks loose.
This story is just plain fun, that's all there is to it! There's not much thinking needed, just a willingness to witness the pain, the blood shed and the insanity that is Joe Lansdale's imagination.
Highly recommended to fans of B horror films and books!
December 13, 2025
Published in 1988, Joe R. Lansdale's sci-fi/horror/comedy "The Drive-In", if it were a movie, would probably be a midnight movie cult classic. Unfortunately, due to streaming services and the death throes of the movie theater industry, the cult midnight movie no longer exists.
I'm sure there are still theaters around that show midnight viewings of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" or "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", but I'm fairly sure the numbers of attendees are dwindling. Hell, the drive-in movie circuit is sadly dying as well. Fifty years ago, about 4,000 drive-ins operated across the country. Today, there are only about 400 left in existence. If you live in a community where you have access to a drive-in, consider yourself lucky. There is nothing like a drive-in movie experience. Movie critic Joe Bob Briggs once said that watching movies outdoors was "the way they were meant to be seen".
How and why "The Drive-In" was never made into a film is beyond me, but it's a moot point. The audience that would find it nostalgic is dying off. Kids today don't go to movies. Why would they, when they can watch everything on Netflix, Prime, or any of the other dozen streaming services.
My wife and I still go to the drive-in. We make an effort to go at least once every summer to our local drive-in (the Aut-O-Rama Twin Drive-In Theater in North Ridgeville, OH: just 1 mile west of the I-480 Lorain Road exit and at exit 152 of the Ohio Turnpike). Please support your local drive-in.
Okay, PSA over. Back to the review: "The Drive-In" is good gory fun. There's aliens, people melting, sex orgies, cannibal Christians, and a monster that vomits fresh popcorn. It's also set in Texas.
Lansdale apparently wrote two sequels to this. I am currently on a hunt on Amazon and any local library book sales to find them...
I'm sure there are still theaters around that show midnight viewings of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" or "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", but I'm fairly sure the numbers of attendees are dwindling. Hell, the drive-in movie circuit is sadly dying as well. Fifty years ago, about 4,000 drive-ins operated across the country. Today, there are only about 400 left in existence. If you live in a community where you have access to a drive-in, consider yourself lucky. There is nothing like a drive-in movie experience. Movie critic Joe Bob Briggs once said that watching movies outdoors was "the way they were meant to be seen".
How and why "The Drive-In" was never made into a film is beyond me, but it's a moot point. The audience that would find it nostalgic is dying off. Kids today don't go to movies. Why would they, when they can watch everything on Netflix, Prime, or any of the other dozen streaming services.
My wife and I still go to the drive-in. We make an effort to go at least once every summer to our local drive-in (the Aut-O-Rama Twin Drive-In Theater in North Ridgeville, OH: just 1 mile west of the I-480 Lorain Road exit and at exit 152 of the Ohio Turnpike). Please support your local drive-in.
Okay, PSA over. Back to the review: "The Drive-In" is good gory fun. There's aliens, people melting, sex orgies, cannibal Christians, and a monster that vomits fresh popcorn. It's also set in Texas.
Lansdale apparently wrote two sequels to this. I am currently on a hunt on Amazon and any local library book sales to find them...
March 2, 2015
Brian Keene is one of my favorite horror authors (he is one of many peoples favorite horror authors). So when Brian Keene says that THE DRIVE-IN by Joe Lansdale is one of the best horror stories ever written, you go and read it. Which is exactly what I did. And I must say, Brian Keene was right.
THE DRIVE-IN is pure 80's horror. Written in the golden era, this story is an homage to classic cult horror movies. I'm not even sure how this one escaped my notice when it was first published. I guess I was too much of a Kingphile to notice much else going on in literary fiction at the time. I think this represents a changing of the guard at the time. People were looking for writers beyond King and Koontz and McCammon. The new wave of nineties horror writers were about to make a statement. I think both THE DRIVE-IN and Ketchum's THE GIRL NEXT DOOR sort of represent that metamorphosis.
I missed all these guys in the nineties. Keene, Ketchum, Lansdale and Laymon. But I'm doing the homework, seeing who I missed and I'm back tracking to get in these modern day classics. THE DRIVE-IN is just that, a modern day classic horror novel. It has all the elements. It hits all the right notes. The writing is beautiful in its simplicity. The execution, flawless.
I'm still not sure I am sold on the ending. I know this is a series and it goes on but... I dunno. I have ambiguous feelings about it. But like many great stories, all too often they do have endings that leaving you feeling like something was just not quite right about that (Keene's THE RISING comes to mind). So I can either forgive it as a cheesy way to set up a second story in the series or I can tip my hat to it for its brilliance in evoking strong emotional reaction and duplicity. Let's just call it a win.
THE DRIVE-IN is pure 80's horror. Written in the golden era, this story is an homage to classic cult horror movies. I'm not even sure how this one escaped my notice when it was first published. I guess I was too much of a Kingphile to notice much else going on in literary fiction at the time. I think this represents a changing of the guard at the time. People were looking for writers beyond King and Koontz and McCammon. The new wave of nineties horror writers were about to make a statement. I think both THE DRIVE-IN and Ketchum's THE GIRL NEXT DOOR sort of represent that metamorphosis.
I missed all these guys in the nineties. Keene, Ketchum, Lansdale and Laymon. But I'm doing the homework, seeing who I missed and I'm back tracking to get in these modern day classics. THE DRIVE-IN is just that, a modern day classic horror novel. It has all the elements. It hits all the right notes. The writing is beautiful in its simplicity. The execution, flawless.
I'm still not sure I am sold on the ending. I know this is a series and it goes on but... I dunno. I have ambiguous feelings about it. But like many great stories, all too often they do have endings that leaving you feeling like something was just not quite right about that (Keene's THE RISING comes to mind). So I can either forgive it as a cheesy way to set up a second story in the series or I can tip my hat to it for its brilliance in evoking strong emotional reaction and duplicity. Let's just call it a win.
January 28, 2024
The Drive-In is the first in a trilogy of short novels about a group of people who are trapped in a drive-in movie theater by an unknown force or entity. Everything around the drive-in becomes a black abyss, and anyone who ventures out is swallowed whole and never returns. It sounds like a great premise, and the book does start out very strong, but then things fall apart and the story drags.
It's not that it's uneventful, as the drive-in moviegoers gradually deteriorate and resort to cannibalism and murder, and two men are morphed into a god-like entity called The Popcorn King, but a lot of the second half of this book was just really boring. For me, this is one of those instances, like I've heard is the case with Stephen King's From a Buick 8, where the story just doesn't have enough steam to be full novel and should have probably just been a 50-page short story.
This isn't terrible, but I won't be reading the sequels. If you like crazy stories about a group of people being trapped and descending into madness and aren't bothered by things like people cannibalizing babies and the prose somewhat frequently using the n-word, maybe this is for you? But for me? Nah.
It's not that it's uneventful, as the drive-in moviegoers gradually deteriorate and resort to cannibalism and murder, and two men are morphed into a god-like entity called The Popcorn King, but a lot of the second half of this book was just really boring. For me, this is one of those instances, like I've heard is the case with Stephen King's From a Buick 8, where the story just doesn't have enough steam to be full novel and should have probably just been a 50-page short story.
This isn't terrible, but I won't be reading the sequels. If you like crazy stories about a group of people being trapped and descending into madness and aren't bothered by things like people cannibalizing babies and the prose somewhat frequently using the n-word, maybe this is for you? But for me? Nah.
July 7, 2018
”If you want to become as real as the lights on the screens, you have to give yourself to them, do as they do, live as they live. They are the scripture and I am their voice.”
A mega drive-in, able to fit four thousand cars. Six screens. It’s the Friday All-Night Horror Show at the Orbit, and four friends have come with beer and snacks, ready to enjoy the splatter pictures.
That is, until a comet passes overhead, obliterating the universe and trapping all the innocents in the drive-in, doomed to survive on concession stand food and live at the mercy of bored alien life.
This book is downright weird, okay? Even for Joe Lansdale, who isn’t afraid to “go there.” If you have a stomach for orgies and murder and mutilated bodies and rape, this book is for you. But most of all, this is plain FUN, dark subject matter and all. It’s the sort of horror novel that quickly descends into chaos, and it’s unclear how things can get worse . . . oh, but it does. Lansdale wields a blood-stained knife on his unsuspecting characters.
And his reader is the entertained audience, munching on buttered popcorn and sipping Coke.
A mega drive-in, able to fit four thousand cars. Six screens. It’s the Friday All-Night Horror Show at the Orbit, and four friends have come with beer and snacks, ready to enjoy the splatter pictures.
That is, until a comet passes overhead, obliterating the universe and trapping all the innocents in the drive-in, doomed to survive on concession stand food and live at the mercy of bored alien life.
This book is downright weird, okay? Even for Joe Lansdale, who isn’t afraid to “go there.” If you have a stomach for orgies and murder and mutilated bodies and rape, this book is for you. But most of all, this is plain FUN, dark subject matter and all. It’s the sort of horror novel that quickly descends into chaos, and it’s unclear how things can get worse . . . oh, but it does. Lansdale wields a blood-stained knife on his unsuspecting characters.
And his reader is the entertained audience, munching on buttered popcorn and sipping Coke.
January 16, 2025
All hail the Popcorn King! B movie nostalgia turns into weird science-fiction at The Drive-In, where the horror no longer only appears on-screen. How you gonna live, when there's no more reason to live? Kill kill kill, survival of the maddest, eat or be eaten. Revolting and insane; it had me raising my eyebrows multiple times. Raw baby, man. I'll definitely visit this drive-in again sometime.
May 1, 2021
A generation or two ago, Texas was known for its sprawling drive-in cinemas and zany monster flicks playing out over the cool summer air. In his 1988 cult classic, Joe Lansdale taps into this nostalgia, turning a lightsome night out at the theater into a grungy galleria of claustrophobic terror. What begins with frights and screams beaming from the sparkling screens ends with panic-stricken mobs dancing to the tune of the B-movie gods. Jack and his three friends dash off to the movies, only to become part of one themselves—an insidious twist ensued by barrels of laughs, irreverence, and a vomitorium of blood-encrusted popcorn.
A two-shot pulse of comedy and horror, The Drive-In is a goretastic romp through B-movie stardom. Four teenage friends and the moviegoing locals are ejected into the front row of their very own apocalypse. Basic camaraderie is among the first to go as normalcy takes a back seat to survival. Engulfed on all sides by an ink-like substance that promises sure death, the crowd is barred from leaving the drive-in. They have for food and drink whatever remains of the concession supply, and only the looping movies and each other for company. The forces interacting from the outside manifest themselves in mysterious ways, slowly but surely driving the trapped masses to bedlam. The face of humanity slips away as if being sucked into the murk beyond, unmasking an anarchic depravity unseen this side of hell.
Lansdale paints a vivid world wrapped in a narrative economy that allows for just the right mix of action and character progression. In Stephen King's hands, this might have ballooned to 350+ pages, but Lansdale's tight writing forbids any eyes from glazing over. Keeping the chaos front and center puts the reader permanently on edge, while the author's extraterrestrial imagination makes for an unpredictable tale. Around every corner lies a gruesome conflagration or another fantastic one-liner, oftentimes both.
The characters are witty, but not as witty as Lansdale, who reserves the maximal comedic payout for himself. His deadpan descriptions always hit home and blend seamlessly into the unfolding horror. An early scene places the characters in a bar, and a dustup with a patron is foreshadowed thusly:
The vibrant interplay between humor and horror is mostly successful, even if many of the sequences are about as over the top as it gets. Cannibalism? Check. Crucifixions? Check. Sacrilege? Check. One scene features a group of Christian evangelists using their faith as a cover for their cannibalistic jonesing, a swivel rightly qualifying as the nadir of religious experiences. The squeamish and easily offended might look for their fiction fix elsewhere, though the violence is never handled too seriously.
There also seems to be a whole social satire subtext in which the main character spends ample time existentializing amid the bouts of receding humanity arrayed before him. The rollicking lunacy of it all only adds to the absurd juxtaposition of deep cogitation on things philosophical. Nevertheless, what the narrative seems to be getting at is that for all our pretensions to civility and higher consciousness, the only thing keeping us from reverting to the behaviors of the wild is the distance from our last meal. The collapse of society is only a hunger pang away.
But don't waste your time trying to find morals or life lessons embedded here. The Drive-In: A B-Movie with Blood and Popcorn, Made in Texas is raunchy-rowdy fun and a perfect alternative to a night at the movies. It's graphic and gritty in all the right ways and serves as a dark warning to humans everywhere: Grow too peaceable, and the gods get bored.
Note: This review is republished from my official website.
A two-shot pulse of comedy and horror, The Drive-In is a goretastic romp through B-movie stardom. Four teenage friends and the moviegoing locals are ejected into the front row of their very own apocalypse. Basic camaraderie is among the first to go as normalcy takes a back seat to survival. Engulfed on all sides by an ink-like substance that promises sure death, the crowd is barred from leaving the drive-in. They have for food and drink whatever remains of the concession supply, and only the looping movies and each other for company. The forces interacting from the outside manifest themselves in mysterious ways, slowly but surely driving the trapped masses to bedlam. The face of humanity slips away as if being sucked into the murk beyond, unmasking an anarchic depravity unseen this side of hell.
Lansdale paints a vivid world wrapped in a narrative economy that allows for just the right mix of action and character progression. In Stephen King's hands, this might have ballooned to 350+ pages, but Lansdale's tight writing forbids any eyes from glazing over. Keeping the chaos front and center puts the reader permanently on edge, while the author's extraterrestrial imagination makes for an unpredictable tale. Around every corner lies a gruesome conflagration or another fantastic one-liner, oftentimes both.
The characters are witty, but not as witty as Lansdale, who reserves the maximal comedic payout for himself. His deadpan descriptions always hit home and blend seamlessly into the unfolding horror. An early scene places the characters in a bar, and a dustup with a patron is foreshadowed thusly:
"His name was Bear and you didn't ponder why he was called that. He was six-five, ugly as disease, had red-brown hair and a beard that mercifully consumed most of his face. All that was clearly visible were some nasty blue eyes and a snout that was garage to some troublesome nose hairs thick enough to use for piano wire...What could be seen of his lips reminded me of those rubber worms fishermen use, and I wouldn't have been surprised to see shiny silver hooks poking out of them, or to discover that the whole of Bear had been made from decaying meat, wire and the contents of a tackle box and a Crisco can." (pp. 10-11)
The vibrant interplay between humor and horror is mostly successful, even if many of the sequences are about as over the top as it gets. Cannibalism? Check. Crucifixions? Check. Sacrilege? Check. One scene features a group of Christian evangelists using their faith as a cover for their cannibalistic jonesing, a swivel rightly qualifying as the nadir of religious experiences. The squeamish and easily offended might look for their fiction fix elsewhere, though the violence is never handled too seriously.
There also seems to be a whole social satire subtext in which the main character spends ample time existentializing amid the bouts of receding humanity arrayed before him. The rollicking lunacy of it all only adds to the absurd juxtaposition of deep cogitation on things philosophical. Nevertheless, what the narrative seems to be getting at is that for all our pretensions to civility and higher consciousness, the only thing keeping us from reverting to the behaviors of the wild is the distance from our last meal. The collapse of society is only a hunger pang away.
But don't waste your time trying to find morals or life lessons embedded here. The Drive-In: A B-Movie with Blood and Popcorn, Made in Texas is raunchy-rowdy fun and a perfect alternative to a night at the movies. It's graphic and gritty in all the right ways and serves as a dark warning to humans everywhere: Grow too peaceable, and the gods get bored.
Note: This review is republished from my official website.
January 12, 2020
Forever one of my favorites.
(Long Live the Popcorn King!)
(Long Live the Popcorn King!)
September 24, 2017
Per lettori ortodossi: lettura molto strana, difficilmente classificabile. Definirlo semplicemente splatter mi sembra riduttivo, estrapolarne chissà quale significato nascosto mi sembra pretenzioso. Strappa parecchie macabre risate e qualche riflessione (sempre amara). Però non è un libro che si dimentica. Il mio voto: 3,5 stelle.
Per lettori eterodossi: non ci sono spoiler, ma preferisco proteggere i lettori sensibili.
Per lettori eterodossi: non ci sono spoiler, ma preferisco proteggere i lettori sensibili.
August 1, 2018
A sick twisted darkly humorous look at human nature in the face of disaster. This is a nasty piece of work that only works because of Lansdale’s brilliantly descriptive, punchy, no holds barred, laugh out loud, in your face style of writing. I loved it! Long live The Popcorn King!
April 17, 2019
Extremely weird, dear popcornking... I still can`t get over this :-D
June 5, 2016
This was a ride. I'm a big fan of Lansdale, but this was "out there" even for him.
So you have a Drive In Movie Theater in Texas, a huge one, potentially the biggest one in the world. And then someone it gets separated from reality, or taken into space, or something. The drive in becomes its own post apocalyptic landscape. Then two guys get fused together and become a creature known as the "Popcorn King" who vomits cola and eyeball popcorn for the masses to eat. There's also cannibalism, crucifixion, and just general craziness.
Overall it's one of the most original horror novels I've read, and it even mixed in some laugh out loud comedy as well.
I highly recommend it because it's a quick read and unlike anything I've read before. If you're a horror and/or a Lansdale fan, this one is worth checking out.
So you have a Drive In Movie Theater in Texas, a huge one, potentially the biggest one in the world. And then someone it gets separated from reality, or taken into space, or something. The drive in becomes its own post apocalyptic landscape. Then two guys get fused together and become a creature known as the "Popcorn King" who vomits cola and eyeball popcorn for the masses to eat. There's also cannibalism, crucifixion, and just general craziness.
Overall it's one of the most original horror novels I've read, and it even mixed in some laugh out loud comedy as well.
I highly recommend it because it's a quick read and unlike anything I've read before. If you're a horror and/or a Lansdale fan, this one is worth checking out.
November 2, 2022
Temo sia il primo libro che leggo di lansdale a non farmi impazzire. Peccato perché è un libro che l’intento di ricalcare gli stile dei film horror di serie B Che a me, tra l’altro, piacciono molto, infatti inizialmente mi stava prendendo parecchio poi però pian piano a iniziato a piacermi sempre meno finché non sono arrivato a vedere l’ora che finisse. Diciamo che è il tipico libro nel quale mi piace molto l’idea ma non come è stata sviluppata, comunque in ogni caso non è un libro da buttare ma semplicemente non incredibile.
October 20, 2017
"No, le lacrime non sono per Randy e Willard, sono per tutti i bei sogni che ho fatto, per tutti gli dèi buoni che non esistono, per tutto il bene che c'è nell'uomo e che è solo un condizionamento sociale che impedisce al più forte di spaccare la testa al più debole.
Si, era per quello che piangevo: per la specie umana. Per il fatto che l'uomo non è per niente buono. Poi capii che era solo un bluff e che in realtà piangevo per me stesso, per la mia solitudine, la mia delusione, la presa di coscienza della mia mortalità, la consapevolezza che l'universo è un luogo buio, vuoto, e la vita è soltanto un giro di giostra, e quando squilla il campanello e tu devi scendere dalla giostra, metti i piedi sul nulla."
Ho deciso di riportare qui questo passo del libro perchè mi ha colpito moltissimo e perchè racchiude, secondo me, gran parte dell'essenza del romanzo stesso.
Si è trattato di una lettura molto piacevole, grazie ad una trama accattivante e ad uno stile di scrittura non solo estremamente scorrevole, ma anche ironico, divertente, leggero e allo stesso tempo incredibilmente crudele, violento e senza filtri. Questi elementi insieme contribuiscono a creare una storia capace di catturare l'attenzione del lettore, prima lievemente, poi catapultandolo bruscamente in questo mondo assurdo e pazzesco che Lansdale ha creato.
Dopo il passaggio di una bizzarra cometa, il drive-in in cui Jack e i suoi amici amano passare il loro tempo libero viene inghiottito da una strana e spaventosa oscurità e, isolato dal resto del mondo, si trasforma in una vera e propria prigione per tutti coloro che si trovano al suo interno e che vi rimarranno per un tempo imprecisato. Da qui la storia prenderà una piega interessantissima e per me così inaspettata da lasciarmi totalmente stupefatta; infatti il drive-in da luogo di piacevole intrattenimento, assumerà giorno dopo giorno sempre più le sembianze di un'arena in cui saranno proprio gli uomini, accecati dalla fame, dalla sete, dall' esasperante monotonia di un tempo sempre uguale a combattere e a sbranarsi tra loro come belve feroci. Il drive-in farà emergere il peggio di quella parte di umanità ormai irriconoscibile e totalmente allo sbando, porterà gli uomini ad uccidersi per un po' di popcorn sparso a terra, a perdere il senno, a gettarsi in quell'oscurità che tutto assorbe e annienta pur di sfuggire alla follia dilagante nel drive-in alla quale nessuno però sembra poter resistere. Jack e il suo amico Bob riusciranno a rimanere lucidi grazie alla carne essiccata, al vero cibo che quindi diventa appiglio indispensabile al quale aggrapparsi con le unghie e con i denti per non rimanere invischiati nella furia e nella disperazione collettiva. Il romanzo è pieno di momenti assurdi, surreali, che sembrano non avere alcun senso, se non quello di colpire e sconvolgere totalmente il lettore, così come le moltissime scene crude, volgari, truculente, disgustose, che concorrono a delineare l'inquietante profilo di una nuova "notte dei morti viventi". Credo che il senso generale della storia, o almeno ciò che io vi ho letto, sia far riflettere sulla forza di quella parte dell'animo umano che cerchiamo ad ogni costo di tenere nascosta, ma che è là pronta ad emergere nelle situazioni più cupe e disperate, quella parte oscura, animalesca, selvaggia, crudele, che ci rende tutti simili a mostri che si azzannano, si azzuffano, si divorano in una macabra rievocazione di quella legge naturale che vede prevalere e sopravvivere soltanto il più forte. Nel drive-in vengono proiettati soprattutto film di serie B, scadenti , con un budget bassissimo ed effetti speciali dozzinali, eppure è proprio questo genere di proiezione ad attirare nel luogo sempre più persone, compresi Jack e i suoi amici. Saranno proprio queste stesse persone gli inconsapevoli protagonisti della follia collettiva che sconvolgerà il drive-in trasformatosi ormai nel perfetto set di un mediocre filmetto di serie B e ho apprezzato moltissimo questo rovesciamento dei ruoli che portano quello che prima era il pubblico a diventare ora protagonista assoluto di una vicenda tanto truculenta quanto surreale. Ho trovato nel romanzo diverse metafore molto interessanti, come quella del Re del Popcorn che spadroneggia sull'intero drive-in e che ricalca in maniera ironica e macabra la figura di un qualsiasi fanatico tiranno che dopo aver ubriacato il popolo con parole soavi e dolci promesse, si prepara in realtà a sacrificare tutto e tutti per perseguire unicamente il proprio benessere e la propria sopravvivenza.
Dunque mi è piaciuta molto l'idea di base, la scrittura estremamente accattivante, eppure ho la netta sensazione che questa sia una di quelle classiche storie che dopo aver svolto la loro funzione di intrattenimento, non mi lascino poi molto di più. Non è un romanzo secondo me memorabile e per quanto mi sia anche divertita a leggerlo, alla fine non sapevo bene quali sentimenti mi aveva lasciato in eredità questa storia... Non sono un'amante dell'assurdo e del surreale, eppure qui episodi di questo tipo non mi hanno dato particolarmente fastidio perchè li ho trovati pertinenti alla storia nel suo complesso, quindi credo che i miei problemi con questo romanzo siano stati il tipo di storia che non rientra nelle mie letture preferite e soprattutto il fatto che, oltre allo stupore, al disgusto e agli altri sentimenti provati sul momento, alla fine mi abbia lasciato poco e niente, se non la sensazione che tra qualche giorno questo romanzo finirà in un angolo remoto e polveroso della mia mente. Non so se sono abbastanza motivata da terminare la trilogia, forse farò passare un po' di tempo, ma mi sento di consigliarne la lettura a coloro che amano le vicende surreali e pazzesche e a chi ha voglia di apprezzare una scrittura originale, frizzante e coinvolgente.
Si, era per quello che piangevo: per la specie umana. Per il fatto che l'uomo non è per niente buono. Poi capii che era solo un bluff e che in realtà piangevo per me stesso, per la mia solitudine, la mia delusione, la presa di coscienza della mia mortalità, la consapevolezza che l'universo è un luogo buio, vuoto, e la vita è soltanto un giro di giostra, e quando squilla il campanello e tu devi scendere dalla giostra, metti i piedi sul nulla."
Ho deciso di riportare qui questo passo del libro perchè mi ha colpito moltissimo e perchè racchiude, secondo me, gran parte dell'essenza del romanzo stesso.
Si è trattato di una lettura molto piacevole, grazie ad una trama accattivante e ad uno stile di scrittura non solo estremamente scorrevole, ma anche ironico, divertente, leggero e allo stesso tempo incredibilmente crudele, violento e senza filtri. Questi elementi insieme contribuiscono a creare una storia capace di catturare l'attenzione del lettore, prima lievemente, poi catapultandolo bruscamente in questo mondo assurdo e pazzesco che Lansdale ha creato.
Dopo il passaggio di una bizzarra cometa, il drive-in in cui Jack e i suoi amici amano passare il loro tempo libero viene inghiottito da una strana e spaventosa oscurità e, isolato dal resto del mondo, si trasforma in una vera e propria prigione per tutti coloro che si trovano al suo interno e che vi rimarranno per un tempo imprecisato. Da qui la storia prenderà una piega interessantissima e per me così inaspettata da lasciarmi totalmente stupefatta; infatti il drive-in da luogo di piacevole intrattenimento, assumerà giorno dopo giorno sempre più le sembianze di un'arena in cui saranno proprio gli uomini, accecati dalla fame, dalla sete, dall' esasperante monotonia di un tempo sempre uguale a combattere e a sbranarsi tra loro come belve feroci. Il drive-in farà emergere il peggio di quella parte di umanità ormai irriconoscibile e totalmente allo sbando, porterà gli uomini ad uccidersi per un po' di popcorn sparso a terra, a perdere il senno, a gettarsi in quell'oscurità che tutto assorbe e annienta pur di sfuggire alla follia dilagante nel drive-in alla quale nessuno però sembra poter resistere. Jack e il suo amico Bob riusciranno a rimanere lucidi grazie alla carne essiccata, al vero cibo che quindi diventa appiglio indispensabile al quale aggrapparsi con le unghie e con i denti per non rimanere invischiati nella furia e nella disperazione collettiva. Il romanzo è pieno di momenti assurdi, surreali, che sembrano non avere alcun senso, se non quello di colpire e sconvolgere totalmente il lettore, così come le moltissime scene crude, volgari, truculente, disgustose, che concorrono a delineare l'inquietante profilo di una nuova "notte dei morti viventi". Credo che il senso generale della storia, o almeno ciò che io vi ho letto, sia far riflettere sulla forza di quella parte dell'animo umano che cerchiamo ad ogni costo di tenere nascosta, ma che è là pronta ad emergere nelle situazioni più cupe e disperate, quella parte oscura, animalesca, selvaggia, crudele, che ci rende tutti simili a mostri che si azzannano, si azzuffano, si divorano in una macabra rievocazione di quella legge naturale che vede prevalere e sopravvivere soltanto il più forte. Nel drive-in vengono proiettati soprattutto film di serie B, scadenti , con un budget bassissimo ed effetti speciali dozzinali, eppure è proprio questo genere di proiezione ad attirare nel luogo sempre più persone, compresi Jack e i suoi amici. Saranno proprio queste stesse persone gli inconsapevoli protagonisti della follia collettiva che sconvolgerà il drive-in trasformatosi ormai nel perfetto set di un mediocre filmetto di serie B e ho apprezzato moltissimo questo rovesciamento dei ruoli che portano quello che prima era il pubblico a diventare ora protagonista assoluto di una vicenda tanto truculenta quanto surreale. Ho trovato nel romanzo diverse metafore molto interessanti, come quella del Re del Popcorn che spadroneggia sull'intero drive-in e che ricalca in maniera ironica e macabra la figura di un qualsiasi fanatico tiranno che dopo aver ubriacato il popolo con parole soavi e dolci promesse, si prepara in realtà a sacrificare tutto e tutti per perseguire unicamente il proprio benessere e la propria sopravvivenza.
Dunque mi è piaciuta molto l'idea di base, la scrittura estremamente accattivante, eppure ho la netta sensazione che questa sia una di quelle classiche storie che dopo aver svolto la loro funzione di intrattenimento, non mi lascino poi molto di più. Non è un romanzo secondo me memorabile e per quanto mi sia anche divertita a leggerlo, alla fine non sapevo bene quali sentimenti mi aveva lasciato in eredità questa storia... Non sono un'amante dell'assurdo e del surreale, eppure qui episodi di questo tipo non mi hanno dato particolarmente fastidio perchè li ho trovati pertinenti alla storia nel suo complesso, quindi credo che i miei problemi con questo romanzo siano stati il tipo di storia che non rientra nelle mie letture preferite e soprattutto il fatto che, oltre allo stupore, al disgusto e agli altri sentimenti provati sul momento, alla fine mi abbia lasciato poco e niente, se non la sensazione che tra qualche giorno questo romanzo finirà in un angolo remoto e polveroso della mia mente. Non so se sono abbastanza motivata da terminare la trilogia, forse farò passare un po' di tempo, ma mi sento di consigliarne la lettura a coloro che amano le vicende surreali e pazzesche e a chi ha voglia di apprezzare una scrittura originale, frizzante e coinvolgente.
August 27, 2021
Originally posted on the book blog Creature From the Book Lagoon.
**Possible trigger warning Brief animal and child deaths.
I loved this book, but I’m not gonna lie…. this is one odd duck of a book! It goes well past strange and happily snuggles in to buzzard fiction land. Nobody can predict where this plot is going to go. Every time you think you know what is going on, a new fresh level of crazy happens!
The Drive-In has this glorious B-movie feel to it. The author really hits that vibe dead on and never looks back. The whole novel feels like a love letter to the zany early Sam Rami and Roger Corman movies. Lansdale clearly loves B-movies.
B-movies aren’t the only thing the author appears to like, as we get a little bit of a Lovecraftian vibe too. True, we don’t know for sure if it really is alien elder (B-movie ) gods, or if Jack is hallucinating and or just desperate for there to be something running the show. I’m going with the first option though- “I’m not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens.”
Joe does no pull any punches. This story gets DARK and pretty messed up. Everyone is fair game to be killed, even pets and babies. I wouldn’t say the book is overly graphic, but there are plenty of EWWWWs to go around. There is one nasty popcorn scene that was just YUCK. D: That one will stay with me for a while!
The Drive-In is super weird. It is also super fun and very clever. Lansdale is a true artist with words. This is a very quick little book that goes very fast. Highly recommended for anyone who loves B-movie weirdness or someone just looking for a bizzarro WTF book to dive into.
**Possible trigger warning Brief animal and child deaths.
I loved this book, but I’m not gonna lie…. this is one odd duck of a book! It goes well past strange and happily snuggles in to buzzard fiction land. Nobody can predict where this plot is going to go. Every time you think you know what is going on, a new fresh level of crazy happens!
The Drive-In has this glorious B-movie feel to it. The author really hits that vibe dead on and never looks back. The whole novel feels like a love letter to the zany early Sam Rami and Roger Corman movies. Lansdale clearly loves B-movies.
B-movies aren’t the only thing the author appears to like, as we get a little bit of a Lovecraftian vibe too. True, we don’t know for sure if it really is alien elder (B-movie ) gods, or if Jack is hallucinating and or just desperate for there to be something running the show. I’m going with the first option though- “I’m not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens.”
Joe does no pull any punches. This story gets DARK and pretty messed up. Everyone is fair game to be killed, even pets and babies. I wouldn’t say the book is overly graphic, but there are plenty of EWWWWs to go around. There is one nasty popcorn scene that was just YUCK. D: That one will stay with me for a while!
The Drive-In is super weird. It is also super fun and very clever. Lansdale is a true artist with words. This is a very quick little book that goes very fast. Highly recommended for anyone who loves B-movie weirdness or someone just looking for a bizzarro WTF book to dive into.
July 23, 2010
Just discovered I still have this inscribed novel in my collection. Totally frigging bizarre. Bizarro before Bizarro fiction existed. A different side of Lansdale. I'm giving it four stars based on my original read in 1988 but I think it is ready for a re-read.
So I read it again and am upping my rating to four and a half, maybe ever four and three quarters. Just don't get that five star feeling but it is awfully close. This was written when Lansdale was the shining star of Splatter-Punk, a sub-genre of horror that has recently shifted into Bizzaro fiction. Those who know Lansdale for his mystery writing might be a bit shocked by the downright weirdness of his earlier writings, of which The Drive-In is a prime example. Lansdale's Texas authenticity is still there but is wrapped in a form of sci-fi gruesomeness that is Lord of The Flies as if it was written by Jean-Paul Sartre and Joe Bob Briggs. Lansdale is still feeling his chops with this one. It gets a little out of hand and over the top at times but that is part of the fun. There are two other short novels in this series and I'm going to hunt them down.
So I read it again and am upping my rating to four and a half, maybe ever four and three quarters. Just don't get that five star feeling but it is awfully close. This was written when Lansdale was the shining star of Splatter-Punk, a sub-genre of horror that has recently shifted into Bizzaro fiction. Those who know Lansdale for his mystery writing might be a bit shocked by the downright weirdness of his earlier writings, of which The Drive-In is a prime example. Lansdale's Texas authenticity is still there but is wrapped in a form of sci-fi gruesomeness that is Lord of The Flies as if it was written by Jean-Paul Sartre and Joe Bob Briggs. Lansdale is still feeling his chops with this one. It gets a little out of hand and over the top at times but that is part of the fun. There are two other short novels in this series and I'm going to hunt them down.
July 10, 2013
Cheap fun, like a B-horror movie. Lots of gore and cussing with an insensible plot with some funny observations thrown in by the narrator in a detached way. In one word - Bizarro.
Good for killing-off an hour or so if you are in the mood to read something with an over-the-top plot like this.
Good for killing-off an hour or so if you are in the mood to read something with an over-the-top plot like this.
July 12, 2016
Very strange.
April 7, 2022
Forse troppo Ballard in questo Drive- in, piacevole ma forse mi aspettavo di più
March 25, 2024
Bizarre, but I liked it.... like a fever dream
September 11, 2023
Even though this was my first Lansdale joint (and correct me if I’m wrong, Lansdale fans!), I feel like I’ve just went through a stacked buffet plate’s worth of his stuff: you got a couple slices of that mean, nasty Texas-Southern grime set to one side, soaked and smothered in a lumpy-like gravy pool of all things weird and bizarre; on the other side you got a couple pieces of real, unnerving human horrors (plump, juicy, thick to the bone and perhaps a little more than savory), marinated and cured with an equally strong seasoning of wicked humor…
Now that I think of it, maybe a better analogy would be something like the Tour of Italy dish from Olive Garden… but to hell with it we’ll go with that and move on – it’s already weird enough I’m talking about food for a book whose dietary regimens consist of popcorn, sardines, and sweet baby legs.
The Drive-In has been praised from mountaintops to valley bottoms as being one of the finest creations in all of horror fiction, and folks, I am here to spread and confirm that it is so: it’s a quick and fast ride through a cinematic hell filled with gnawed bodies, wrecked automobiles, and unexplainable cosmic shenanigans, ranging from bouts of horror to moments of hilarity.
Lansdale’s craft here is economic and strong, featuring some amazing skills in realizing his characters and sketching out the story’s fun, massive setting in such an impressively short amount of time; on top of that, he’s also able to thread a steady current of well-grounded existentialism into the story, all the while introducing stuff like the drive-in’s flesh-dissolving blob barrier and the four-armed, gun-armed, rap-lord horror movie deity known as the Popcorn King. And although it is a hair-thin’s length of a book, it is also deceptively heftier than it seems on the surface, as it not only acts as a loving tribute to B-movies and the drive-in experience of yesteryears, but it also works as a sort of demented satire about how much praise and glorification we tend to give movies in general.
The fact that all these elements were captured in just a hundred-pages duration is honestly incredible - you figure something like this, judging by the way it moves, could’ve done with 50-100 pages more of air to breathe, but “No,” says this book, “The smaller the quicker, the quicker the better.” It’s also incredible from a writing standpoint, because even though Lansdale’s introduction to this work (as seen from the current available edition of The Complete Drive-In) mentions how hard and difficult it was for him to write the thing, you never feel whatever bumps he must’ve felt while writing it. He makes it all look easy.
I’m sure some may not agree with this novel being a worthy introduction to Lansdale’s work, but as far as I can tell, it’s working out well. I will stick along following the rest of the Orbit crew’s misadventures, but I will also be seeking out more of Lansdale’s work in the future.
What a damn good book.
P.S., this novel and the 1986 film Dead-End Drive-In make for an excellent pair together. Although DEDI is a more somewhat grounded sci-fi dystopian than The Drive-In, both of them do share the idea of drive-ins being used as entrapments. They are also pretty funny.
Now that I think of it, maybe a better analogy would be something like the Tour of Italy dish from Olive Garden… but to hell with it we’ll go with that and move on – it’s already weird enough I’m talking about food for a book whose dietary regimens consist of popcorn, sardines, and sweet baby legs.
The Drive-In has been praised from mountaintops to valley bottoms as being one of the finest creations in all of horror fiction, and folks, I am here to spread and confirm that it is so: it’s a quick and fast ride through a cinematic hell filled with gnawed bodies, wrecked automobiles, and unexplainable cosmic shenanigans, ranging from bouts of horror to moments of hilarity.
Lansdale’s craft here is economic and strong, featuring some amazing skills in realizing his characters and sketching out the story’s fun, massive setting in such an impressively short amount of time; on top of that, he’s also able to thread a steady current of well-grounded existentialism into the story, all the while introducing stuff like the drive-in’s flesh-dissolving blob barrier and the four-armed, gun-armed, rap-lord horror movie deity known as the Popcorn King. And although it is a hair-thin’s length of a book, it is also deceptively heftier than it seems on the surface, as it not only acts as a loving tribute to B-movies and the drive-in experience of yesteryears, but it also works as a sort of demented satire about how much praise and glorification we tend to give movies in general.
The fact that all these elements were captured in just a hundred-pages duration is honestly incredible - you figure something like this, judging by the way it moves, could’ve done with 50-100 pages more of air to breathe, but “No,” says this book, “The smaller the quicker, the quicker the better.” It’s also incredible from a writing standpoint, because even though Lansdale’s introduction to this work (as seen from the current available edition of The Complete Drive-In) mentions how hard and difficult it was for him to write the thing, you never feel whatever bumps he must’ve felt while writing it. He makes it all look easy.
I’m sure some may not agree with this novel being a worthy introduction to Lansdale’s work, but as far as I can tell, it’s working out well. I will stick along following the rest of the Orbit crew’s misadventures, but I will also be seeking out more of Lansdale’s work in the future.
What a damn good book.
P.S., this novel and the 1986 film Dead-End Drive-In make for an excellent pair together. Although DEDI is a more somewhat grounded sci-fi dystopian than The Drive-In, both of them do share the idea of drive-ins being used as entrapments. They are also pretty funny.
March 31, 2021
Douglas Adams meets Stephen King, in the absolute best way! Weird doesn’t even begin to cut it here, but damn can Lansdale write! With a slew of memorable characters, a totally off-the-wall absurdist plot, and some surprisingly brilliant satire, I can honestly say “The Drive-In” is likely the oddest, most entertainingly bananas 150 page tale that I have ever encountered.
I’ll admit that I didn’t expect this level of quality based off what I’d gathered about the outlandishness of the premise, but it piqued my interest nonetheless, and boy was I mistaken! Right off the bat Lansdale is able to grab your attention by implementing some catchy nostalgia and making you feel right at home in this little podunk 80s town. The characters are all unique and interesting, the allusions to the doom awaiting them are ominous and intriguing, and the story is filled to the brim with unpredictable, over-the-top sci-fi greatness.
It doesn’t take long before things devolve into a very Douglas Adams-esque narrative, but in this case the style also happens to be mixed with a kind of sleazy grindhouse pulpiness (which is done seemingly in homage of traditional drive-in theater fare), and while sounding like it would equate to absolute trash, this actually turns out to be a surprisingly effective and fun formula. Indeed, it’s remarkably bizarre, consistently hilarious, and best of all it takes some totally radical turns so you truly never know what you’re in for next.
I love horror stories (and also drive-ins) so I’m super glad I found this little gem! Once the story gets going I seriously didn’t want to put it down, right up until the end (which is quite unlike anything you could imagine). Hell, the whole thing is pretty much unquantifiably nuts. Definitely don’t let that turn you off though. It’s all done in a very self-aware way, with intermittent nods and winks which serve to keep it all consistently light / fun.
I can’t wait to check out Lansdale’s other work now, especial his Hap and Lenard series (which I’ve heard some pretty great things about). If this one is any indication, then I’m sure that at the very least it’ll have some stellar characterization, exceedingly clever and entertaining dialogue, and a whip-smart plot that keeps you guessing all the way through. Of course, there’s no way it could top the all-out zany wackiness of this outing, not in terms of story at least (I reckon that would be basically impossible). Still, I figure something a little more restrained / grounded might be preferable, and easier to take seriously, if it were to be drawn out in a full length series. I’ll most likely check out the rest of this trilogy as well someday, because with the way it ends I’ve got a feeling the craziness has barely begun.
I’ll admit that I didn’t expect this level of quality based off what I’d gathered about the outlandishness of the premise, but it piqued my interest nonetheless, and boy was I mistaken! Right off the bat Lansdale is able to grab your attention by implementing some catchy nostalgia and making you feel right at home in this little podunk 80s town. The characters are all unique and interesting, the allusions to the doom awaiting them are ominous and intriguing, and the story is filled to the brim with unpredictable, over-the-top sci-fi greatness.
It doesn’t take long before things devolve into a very Douglas Adams-esque narrative, but in this case the style also happens to be mixed with a kind of sleazy grindhouse pulpiness (which is done seemingly in homage of traditional drive-in theater fare), and while sounding like it would equate to absolute trash, this actually turns out to be a surprisingly effective and fun formula. Indeed, it’s remarkably bizarre, consistently hilarious, and best of all it takes some totally radical turns so you truly never know what you’re in for next.
I love horror stories (and also drive-ins) so I’m super glad I found this little gem! Once the story gets going I seriously didn’t want to put it down, right up until the end (which is quite unlike anything you could imagine). Hell, the whole thing is pretty much unquantifiably nuts. Definitely don’t let that turn you off though. It’s all done in a very self-aware way, with intermittent nods and winks which serve to keep it all consistently light / fun.
I can’t wait to check out Lansdale’s other work now, especial his Hap and Lenard series (which I’ve heard some pretty great things about). If this one is any indication, then I’m sure that at the very least it’ll have some stellar characterization, exceedingly clever and entertaining dialogue, and a whip-smart plot that keeps you guessing all the way through. Of course, there’s no way it could top the all-out zany wackiness of this outing, not in terms of story at least (I reckon that would be basically impossible). Still, I figure something a little more restrained / grounded might be preferable, and easier to take seriously, if it were to be drawn out in a full length series. I’ll most likely check out the rest of this trilogy as well someday, because with the way it ends I’ve got a feeling the craziness has barely begun.
January 4, 2014
Review copy
Those were the days. Heading to the drive in on a Friday night. If you were lucky, it was with the girl with whom you were hoping to get past second base. But then, it could be just as much fun with your friends. Maybe with one or two of you in the trunk to save the admission fee.
The Orbit Drive-In off I-45 is the largest Drive-In in Texas with space for four-thousand cars. With two or more occupants per car, that makes The Orbit bigger than many small Texas towns.
The Orbit shows "B-string and basement-budget pictures. A lot of them made with little more than a Kodak, some spit and a prayer. And if you've watched enough of this stuff, you develop a taste for it, sort of like learning to like sauerkraut."
Lansdale is a skilled writer who creates real people and then places them in real bad situations. Even when those situations are themselves like a B-string movie. And therein lies the charm of The Drive-In.
The Drive-In uses a familiar plot device where you take a diverse group of people and place them in a locked environment where there's no way out. Think Stephen King's Under the Dome. Although Landale's work pre-dates King's novel by some 20 years they both deal with the lengths people will go just to survive.
Populated with some truly bizarre characters like The Popcorn King and a group of religious cannibals, The Drive-In is all the fun of those tacky B-movies from the golden age of the drive-in. Roger Corman would be proud.
First published in 1988, The Drive-In is now available as an ebook, in a variety of formats, from the folks at Crossroad Press. Also available are two sequels in the series.
If you've never read The Drive-In, I can recommend this one for a fast, fun read.
Those were the days. Heading to the drive in on a Friday night. If you were lucky, it was with the girl with whom you were hoping to get past second base. But then, it could be just as much fun with your friends. Maybe with one or two of you in the trunk to save the admission fee.
The Orbit Drive-In off I-45 is the largest Drive-In in Texas with space for four-thousand cars. With two or more occupants per car, that makes The Orbit bigger than many small Texas towns.
The Orbit shows "B-string and basement-budget pictures. A lot of them made with little more than a Kodak, some spit and a prayer. And if you've watched enough of this stuff, you develop a taste for it, sort of like learning to like sauerkraut."
Lansdale is a skilled writer who creates real people and then places them in real bad situations. Even when those situations are themselves like a B-string movie. And therein lies the charm of The Drive-In.
The Drive-In uses a familiar plot device where you take a diverse group of people and place them in a locked environment where there's no way out. Think Stephen King's Under the Dome. Although Landale's work pre-dates King's novel by some 20 years they both deal with the lengths people will go just to survive.
Populated with some truly bizarre characters like The Popcorn King and a group of religious cannibals, The Drive-In is all the fun of those tacky B-movies from the golden age of the drive-in. Roger Corman would be proud.
First published in 1988, The Drive-In is now available as an ebook, in a variety of formats, from the folks at Crossroad Press. Also available are two sequels in the series.
If you've never read The Drive-In, I can recommend this one for a fast, fun read.
June 15, 2023
So I got an early copy of The Drive-In: Multiplex with this month's Nightworms subscription. After reading the introduction, I realized I should really try to read the original 3 stories before jumping into the anthology.
Wow, what a crazy ride this one is! The story is wacky. And funny. And disgusting. The writing is at times sarcastic, ridiculous, and totally engaging. The characters are, well, not exactly likeable, for the most part. But they are relatable and interesting.
The Drive-In is a fun, insane read. A must for horror fans.
Wow, what a crazy ride this one is! The story is wacky. And funny. And disgusting. The writing is at times sarcastic, ridiculous, and totally engaging. The characters are, well, not exactly likeable, for the most part. But they are relatable and interesting.
The Drive-In is a fun, insane read. A must for horror fans.
April 29, 2010
If you remember drive-ins, and like horror movies, then you must read this book. Very funny, but with a fair share of horror -- and sci-fi, and probably a bunch of other stuff as well. There's a second part to this I just couldn't get into. But this is, to date, the best book I've read by Lansdale.
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